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Scientists Allege They Are Scapegoats in Los Alamos National Laboratory Computer Disk Incident
Two scientists said they are being wrongly blamed for the incident last year in which two computer disks containing classified information were reported missing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 31). Todd Kauppila was fired Sept. 23 after 21 years at the laboratory, while 22-year-veteran John Horne was penalized with 10 days of unpaid administrative leave in December, according to AP. The reported disappearance of the disks caused an extended shutdown of work at the nuclear weapons laboratory. The U.S. Energy Department reported in January that bar codes had been produced for the disks, but that the disks themselves never existed. Kauppila and Horne said the incident resulted from an accounting error following a classified international conference in 2003. Horne received eight bar codes. He said he used six of them for conference presentations and later shredded the remaining two bar codes. Kauppila, the conference chairman, said he never had direct contact with the bar codes, AP reported. “The principal charges against me were clearly trumped up and included ridiculous allegations of misconduct, such as taking too much training,” Kauppila wrote in a letter he posted with Horne on a Web site for Los Alamos employees. Personnel actions at the facility, including terminations and unpaid leave, “followed all due processes and were based solely on the facts uncovered during the lab’s inquiry,” said Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark. Kauppila and Horne said they followed security procedures, but the security system is ineffective. “The system is a catastrophe. It’s the people at the lab that make it work,” Horne said (Heather Clark, Associated Press/USA Today, March 4).
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