67 Computers Missing From Nuclear Weapons Lab

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(02-11) 15:09 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico is missing 67 computers, including 13 that were lost or stolen in the past year. Officials say no classified information has been lost.

The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight on Wednesday released a memo dated Feb. 3 from the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration outlining the loss of the computers.

Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos, on Wednesday confirmed the computers were missing and said the lab was initiating a monthlong inventory to account for every computer. He said the computers were a cybersecurity issue because they may contain personal information like names and addresses, but they did not contain any classified information.

Thirteen of the missing computers were lost or stolen in the past 12 months, including three computers that were taken from a scientist's home in Santa Fe, N.M., on Jan. 16, and a Blackberry belonging to another employee was lost "in a sensitive foreign country," according to the memo and an e-mail from a senior lab manager.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/02/11/national/w141154S42.DTL

[NM Independent]

1. OH CRAP!

That is really, really bad news.

[chollybocker]

2. "Officials say no classified information has been lost."

Except for MineSweeper high scores.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. Don't forget the porn.

[pasto76]

3. Wasnt there a thing about the DOD taking over the nuclear labs and stuff

maybe a good thing, what with the nonsense been happening there last few years.

[Downwinder]

4. Thats an improvement?

How nukes has DOD misplaced(lost)?

[sofa king]

15. The DOD has lost at least five nukes.

That's by my count: 2 fissile cores in 1956, conveniently followed by two nuclear weapons without their fissile cores in 1957; another jettisoned into the Savanna River estuary in 1958, and possibly still another in roughly the same place a week later; a nuclear depth charge lost in 1959; another uranium core lost on an undisclosed farm in 1961 (Daniel Ellsberg and others claimed that five of the six safety devices on that weapon failed, leaving accidental detonation only one switch away, but I can't tell how they can know that without finding the core itself); another bomb lost at sea in 1965, which when disclosed triggered a diplomatic incident because it revealed that the ship in question was carrying nukes on its way to Japan, in violation of prior agreements. Then there was the loss of the USS Scorpion with an undisclosed but probably considerable number of nuclear weapons, which may have been later recovered... by someone.

But I wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of those "lost" weapons were in fact "found" by the Israelis shortly thereafter, especially the incidents in 1956 and 1957.

http://www.cdi.org/Issues/NukeAccidents/Accidents.htm

Edit: For what it's worth, Wikipedia claims that the Scorpion had only two nuclear-tipped torpedoes aboard. So I suppose I'd call those numbers six and seven, counting the 1956 and 1957 incidents as only two bombs total.

[geckosfeet]

6. No classified information has been lost,,,,

and the check is in the mail -

I am flush with cash after selling that bridge,,,,

How would like to invest in my ponz- err- my very exclusive hedge fund?

Hundreds of all time favorites for your entertainment.

[kypp]

10. Don't overreact like POGO wants you to...

Any computer equipment that is used off-site at Los Alamos contains nothing classified. Classified work requires all kinds of security hoops that workers have to jump through, and no off-site equipment can connect into the lab's classified systems. At least four, if not all, of the missing equipment items were stolen from lab workers, from their houses in Santa Fe, or while on travel-crime is up everywhere. They weren't sold, or lost. And they didn't contain anything classified.

[geckosfeet]

11. Duuuuuhhhh. Ok.

[LiberalFighter]

7. How many did Bush take with him?

[Peace Patriot]

8. How do they know what's in them if they're lost?

This is such crap. There are three main things we ask our security apparatus to do, with ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY, no mistakes, no sloppiness, no "missing" 13 computers: guarding nuclear weapons, guarding biological and chemical weapons testing materials, and guarding the borders of the United States. I was just reading about missing, mixed up, lost strains of this and that at a bio weapons testing facility.

1. Insecurity at bioweapons facility.

2. Insecurity at nuclear weapons facility (in addition to that loose nuke that flew across the country last year).

3. 9/11.

Failure.
Failure.
Failure.

And, as Barack Obama has only been president for a couple of weeks, all of these failures are the result of Bushwhack toadyism, incompetence, bad appointments, bad oversight, failure to attend to the common good, or to even know what it is, greed, profiteering, neglect, malfeasance, corruption, disrespect, lack of caring one goddamn bit about our safety, contempt for human life, criminal activity--or worse. Missing bioweapons. Missing nuke computers. What the fuck is this? WHO'S BEEN IN CHARGE? Where is this stuff? What danger does it pose to us really? And are we looking at treason?

The "war president," torturing people "to keep us safe"--can't even keep track of the most dangerous stuff on earth! Can't even be bothered about memos telling him, "Osama bin Laden determined to strike in the United States"! Goes on vacation. Kills a million people--oops, wrong country. But, hey, while we're here, just sign these oil contracts--or we'll kill a million more.

THAT's who has been in charge of these highly dangerous weapons--Bush, and the rats who outed Valerie Plame, whose job it was to keep such weapons from getting into the wrong hands!

Sorry for ranting, but this is just so infuriating.

[bobthedrummer]

9. Fwiw, here's Right Web's profile on Linton Brooks-take a few minutes to read it--it's relevant.

Linton Brooks (Right Web page)
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1056.html

[bluesmail]

12. Where's AQ Khan? (rhetorical question) This is a Huge problem. (Thanks Dick. Thanks George). eom

[jtrockville]

13. First place to look: Cheney's undisclosed location.

[Ian David]

14. STILL Bushed. n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

16. that happened alot during the Bush years

.......like they were lihop(ing)....why they didn;t put in protocols that expressly forbade laptops & only desktops & empowered guards at all perimeter doors to physically remove any computer from anyone, so zero computers would leave such facilities....Why they never did this is crazy foolishness.