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Los Alamos Kept Poor Record of Classified Computers, Energy Department Finds
A U.S. Energy Department Inspector General’s Office report says that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has failed to keep track of computers used for working with classified information, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 11). Eight classified desktop computers were not listed in the Los Alamos property management system and three were not added to the system, the report states. Laboratory security officials were also not informed of a missing computer processing unit used in classified work, the report says. While the unit was set to be destroyed, there is no record of that having occurred, the AP reported. The Energy Department report was based on an investigation conducted prior to the reported disappearance last month of two classified computer disks at Los Alamos, according to AP. The laboratory has developed a plan to resolve the “accounting discrepancies” listed in the report, laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Aug. 11). Meanwhile, antinuclear activists have said that Los Alamos officials should use the facility’s work stoppage to address concerns about plutonium management systems, according to the Albuquerque Journal. For years, Energy Department officials have expressed concerns about two different databases used by the department and Los Alamos to keep track of plutonium, according to the Journal (see GSN, June 19, 2003). The two systems differ by as much as 1,700 pounds of the material, according to government records on Los Alamos. “We are satisfied with our accounting system,” Roark said. “We’re following the rules when it comes to accounting for materials that go into the waste stream,” he added (Adam Rankin, Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 11).
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