Energy Dept. Shelves Removable Disks

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10205-2004Jul23?language=printer>

The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com

Energy Dept. Shelves Removable Disks
Response to Security Breach at Lab


 Associated Press
 Saturday, July 24, 2004; Page A02

 The Energy Department, in response to a security scandal at the Los Alamos
weapons lab, ordered a halt yesterday to classified work at as many as two
dozen facilities that use removable computer disks like those missing at
the New Mexico lab.

 Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the "stand-down" at operations using
the disks, containing classified material involving nuclear weapons
research, is needed to get better control over the devices.

 The disks, known as "controlled removable electronic media," or CREM, have
been at the heart of an uproar over lax security at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, where work has been stopped as scientists search for two of the
disks reported missing on July 7.

 Nineteen workers have been suspended pending the outcome of an
investigation into the missing data devices and an incident in which an
intern was injured recently in a laser accident.

 The missing Los Alamos disks raised concern at the Energy Department about
the handling of the devices at other facilities involved in nuclear weapons
research, department officials said.

 Abraham said he wants to "minimize the risk of human error or malfeasance"
that could compromise the classified nuclear-related information held in
the devices, which are used at Energy Department facilities nationwide in
nuclear-related work.

 "While we have no evidence that the problems currently being investigated
are present elsewhere, we have a responsibility to take all necessary
action to prevent such problems from occurring at all," Abraham said in a
statement.

 The stand-down involves classified work across the government's nuclear
weapons complex wherever the CREM storage devices are used, the official
said. It will continue until an inventory of the devices is completed and
new control measures on their use is put in place, said Energy Department
spokesman Joe Davis. Employees using the disks must also undergo security
training.

 Among the facilities that are preparing for an interruption of classified
work are the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago; the nuclear
weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque, where a missing classified disk was reported found last week.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com