Nov. 3, 2006
Nuclear Lab Breach Could Be 'Devastating'
CBS News Exclusive: Data Found In Drug Raid Contains Weapons-Design Secrets
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Play CBS Video Video Security Leak At Los Alamos Sharyl Attkisson reports on another security leak at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Officials say an employee may have removed secret material.
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Video Lab Security Breach Details Sharyl Attkisson has details on how classified nuclear weapons documents were stolen from Los Alamos, the main U.S. laboratory for nuclear research.
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Video Los Alamos Security Breach? Police conducting a drug raid may have found classified materials taken from the nation's nuclear weapons facility. Sharyl Attkisson reports.
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Interactive Nuclear Armed World The world's nuclear weapons powers, missile defense and a history of the nuclear weapons age.
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Interactive Crime Beat Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
Officials say there is no evidence the information taken from Los Alamos was sold or transferred to anybody else, but there is no way to be sure right now.
As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was the first to report, secret documents apparently taken from the lab were found during a drug raid at a Los Alamos-area home last month. The FBI was called in to investigate.
Multiple sources now tell CBS News that the material includes sensitive weapons-design data.
A federal official who has been briefed on the issue said at least three USB thumb-drives were involved. Those small storage drives contained 408 separate classified documents ranging in importance from Secret National Security Information (pertaining to intelligence) to Secret Restricted Data (pertaining to nuclear weapons).
All of the information came from the classified document video media vault inside the Lab. Federal officials also found 228 pages — printed front and back — of classified documents in the drug trailer during their investigation.
Los Alamos claims to have done a careful and comprehensive analysis of the materials that it believes have been compromised as part of this matter, and has determined that "the majority of the material was classified at the lowest levels and was twenty to thirty years old."
"None of the documents in question were classified Top Secret," read a statement released by the lab. "None of the materials included any of the most sensitive nuclear weapons information."
But one federal official recently briefed on the issue says "It's devastating." If a nuclear weapon were stolen, the information "would tell the terrorists everything they need to do to get a weapon to fire."
Sources say she also had something called Sigma-15 clearance allowing her to access to documents explaining how to deactivate locks on a nuclear weapon.
The woman believed to have taken the information — Jessica Quintana, 22, who owned the trailer — worked in three classified vault rooms across Los Alamos:
She also had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Quintana has not been arrested or charged. Her attorney says she took the material home to work and then forgot about it.
For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety controls.
Only the FBI will be able to tell for sure what's on the thumb drives, but British security officials are worried that design plans for Trident nuclear weapons are among the stolen documents. They are making inquiries of U.S. officials. Britain used to test its nuclear weapons in the United States, and data on those tests may have been held at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos has a history of high-profile security problems in the past decade, with the most notable the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. After years of accusations, Lee pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets at the lab.
In 2004, the lab was essentially shut down after an inventory showed that two computer disks containing nuclear secrets were missing. A year later the lab concluded that it was just a mistake and the disks never existed.
But the incident highlighted sloppy inventory control and security failures at the nuclear weapons lab. The Energy Department then began moving toward a five-year program to create a so-called diskless environment at Los Alamos to prevent any classified material being carried outside the lab.
"We are currently taking decisive actions to further enhance our existing security measures that protect classified information employing both administrative and engineering controls," the lab said in a statement.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 98 CommentsI find that any area that has material that should be kept top secret because it could be a security risk to our nation or any of those that we work with...they should be essentially - strip searching each and every one of their employees each and every day to make sure that nothing gets out...
At the very least, and especially for a Lab that seems to have a few too many incidents to make anyone comfortable...they should be certainly re-evaluating their security measures...it obviously hasn't worked with any changes they may have made the past few times, hmmm?
In this day and age we now live in...the dangers and price - for and of warfare - are an awful high tax to wager for 'little glitches' like this to be even conceivable of taking place.
It frightens me beyond all to think that this keeps happening... Someone needs to weed out the ****** in the mail NOW!
We are not in a position to have anything leaking out anywhere...especially with all our servicemen and women overseas, especially with all of those out there who would so rather see us brought to our knees or destroyed...
I find it horrific. Simply horrific.
So regardless, we have no spine in this country because so many other countries have the EMP/EMB bombs possible.
I find it interesting that it would be broadcast on cable.
This is an insult to our polititicans trying to stand up and do anything for this country. But here we rest... they don't have the stomache to stand up to radical islam.
I say cut the head off of our polititicians.
Jesus Christ doesn't live hear any longer.
So when you shuck the corn off you back, you are looking at your own manifestation.
Shuck, shuck, he's not depriving you, but even HE through *** OUT OF THE TEMPLE.
so the point is, "Expelle whoo?"
Jn122736
. I think RELIGION AND LOGIC ARE MORTAL ENEMIES.
A typical debate goes something like this. .
Christian: God created the earth and all it%u2019s inhabitants.
Atheist: What do you base that opinion on?
Christian: Simple logic, we had to come from somewhere.
Atheist: I agree, logic demands we had to come from somewhere.
Atheist: by the way, where did god come from?
Christian: Oh god has always been here. There, logic stabbed through the heart.
Perhaps sometime in the future we will evolve intellectually to factually know and understand how we got here. Taking both sides to the extreme to come to a decision we can live with logically I would say we really did have to come from some where and lacking a precise answer I would lean toward a divine creator. I don%u2019t know that and until I do I will try to get by with what I have. Assuming that there is a god it%u2019s my opinion that he doesn%u2019t push you in front of an on coming train and he doesn%u2019t pull you out.
He gave everyone the knowledge of right and wrong and it is up to us how we act
. I think RELIGION AND LOGIC ARE MORTAL ENEMIES.
A typical debate goes something like this. .
Christian: God created the earth and all it%u2019s inhabitants.
Atheist: What do you base that opinion on?
Christian: Simple logic, we had to come from somewhere.
Atheist: I agree, logic demands we had to come from somewhere.
Atheist: by the way, where did god come from?
Christian: Oh god has always been here. There, logic stabbed through the heart.
Perhaps sometime in the future we will evolve intellectually to factually know and understand how we got here. Taking both sides to the extreme to come to a decision we can live with logically I would say we really did have to come from some where and lacking a precise answer I would lean toward a divine creator. I don%u2019t know that and until I do I will try to get by with what I have. Assuming that there is a god it%u2019s my opinion that he doesn%u2019t push you in front of an on coming train and he doesn%u2019t pull you out.
He gave everyone the knowledge of right and wrong and it is up to us how we act
They do everything to promote pop culture, and prevent the people in this country from getting the truth and how bad our global situation is.
Are you blind?
It is the saddest thing. Where is McCarthy when you need him?
I was raised from early with respect with the gun. Knowing it isn't a toy. I don't get all of the other issues. My mom had her finger on ME.
muzakaz@yahoo.com
The new war isn't about destroying land, it's about EMB bombs. Blowing out every circuit in the country.
The new war, since we have so few people compared to the other global enterprises, is that once they do that, they can walk over and put everyone in concentration camps. We don't have enough guns in this country to protect ourselves.
The foresight given to us is that we have already surpassed the beginings of the next world war.
Iran is challenging all of the sissy's here in our country.
Isreal is knocking on all of the agressers doors.
Russia and China, have self interests in the region, oil and trade. China holds a deficit with trade with us.... and our politicians won't tarriff China's products.
We have to act somewhere, aggressive. I don't CARE what anyone says, this is why they do this to us. They are LIKE MADD STEP KIDS.
Our policies reflect this.
Sadam's trial will reflect this. I'm nervous about it.
But we can't have a back-asswards approach to the world any longer.
It put's us in harms way.
Saddam was a bad guy, but he wasn%u2019t involved with 9/11. The UN sanctions had crippled him and Iraq. Enough evidence to raise questions about the validity of WMD claims was available to the administration, but they saw what they wanted to see. We are fighting the terrorists in Iraq because we helped them gain a foothold there. Saddam%u2019s regime didn%u2019t tolerate Al Qaeda. The only danger he posed to us was saber rattling and talking us to death. He was just able to control activities within his country. He had an extensive network of people monitoring Iraqis%u2019 activities, their communications, and taking people into custody and determining their fate secretly, with no recourse. That sounds familiar.
Bush might decide that 2008 isn%u2019t the right time to elect a new president because only he is qualified to protect us. Anyone objecting could be removed from society, aggressively interrogated and detained indefinitely if he decides that they are %u201Cterrorists%u201D or provide material aid to them. That determination would be his without review in the courts. If Nixon had been able to get away with all that, he might well have died while still in the White House.
In the world we live, and corruption, and free trade, our base ideas in the constitution, we can't protect ourselves. The politicians have proved this by their demeanor. Now that we have a global market, we need a fourth branch.
We need a way to distill what our founding fathers haven't predicted in the constitution. Corruption, ethics.
In the world we live, and corruption, and free trade, our base ideas in the constitution, we can't protect ourselves. The politicians have proved this by their demeanor. Now that we have a global market, we need a fourth branch.
We need a way to distill what our founding fathers haven't predicted in the constitution. Corruption, ethics.
I wanna know why my tax dollars are spent so dang friviously!!!? ???
To the Bush supporters: Neither Bill Clinton, nor his administration, is responsible. Al Qaeda, Saddam, North Korea and Iran are.
The problem now, is don't have the luxury of time, like in the past, to ready a defense from people who want to kill us. What matter's to me is that I, and my children, live.
Who protect's me, and my family, best? I make that decision by looking at the past: What was done to protect and prevent attacks and look at the results. I look around the world, to what other's have done to protect their citizens.
I see terrorist attacks in all the major European nations since 9-11. The Middle-Eastern nations and Asian nations are attacked. The U.S., of all the major nations, has been free.
I hear arguments, pro and con, about the "Patriot Act", phone-taps, money tracing, Guantanamo, the use, or non-use of torture for information.
I concluded that the effect of all of this is family's protection and safety. Even Iraq, while a mess, keeps terrorists occupied thousands of miles from the U.S.
Therefore, George Bush is protecting us. The Democrats say, they will stop doing what Bush does.
That's insane. I, for my family's safety, am voting Republican.
You folks are on the outside on this one - the "security problems" at Los Alamos was part of a political takeover of a scientific institution, it was followed by a political purge of the researchers and a lot of corruption is going on there. As admitted now, the enitre "security problems" were in fact made up (the disks didn't exist) which is compounded on the fact that they were trivial in the first place (some non-classified "secrets" like the location of the restrooms etc.).
Media events are created to manipulate the public, this one I have some inside knowledge so I can tell you it was a really devilish thing going on with the media event being the excuse for brutal know-nothings to suppress our scientific institutions. That's not good for America.
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