U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security at Risk, Section B



The Design Basis Threat

There is a classified "Design Basis Threat" (DBT) that describes the level of threat the contractor is required to defend against - the number of outside attackers and inside conspirators, and the kinds of weapons and explosives that would be available to terrorists. (Appendix G) The process that determines this threat was described by Edward McCallum, the former Director of the Office of Safeguards and Security in a letter to the Director of the Office of Security Affairs: "The FBI, CIA, DOE, and the military services as well as the Nuclear Command and Control Staff have developed the existing Design Basis Threat over a number of years. It has been extensively reviewed and supported by studies issued by the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]. Sandia, as well as the other labs, have been asked to comment and participate in the development process." (Appendix H)

Each site is then required to develop a Site Safeguards and Security Plan (SSSP) annually, which describes in detail how they would counter the most likely and most disastrous attack scenarios based on the DBT. The plan is developed by the contractors, and then analyzed and approved by the DOE field office and various Headquarter's program offices to confirm that the site is at low risk.

Despite the fact that the DBT goes through this studied, interagency process, the bureaucracy often complains that it is too high a standard to meet - "defending against that terrorist that is about thirteen feet in height" (Appendix E) or super-terrorists. But in fact, the DBT does not require DOE to defend against exotic weapons, but weapons that are readily available on the open market from private arms dealers. According to DOE's Independent Oversight Office, the opposite is true and in fact the capabilities of terrorists are underestimated in the planned scenarios:

"Capabilities of Available Adversary Weapons Are Not Being Accurately Represented. In the last year this office has catalogued a long list of readily available adversary weapons and tools that are not being used appropriately by the adversaries depicted in current SSSP/VAs. Among these are tactical smoke, irritant gases, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle explosive devices ("stay-behinds"), grenades, armor-piercing small arms ammunition, and communications disruption devices, to name but the most obvious. It has become "customary" in DOE to limit the use of such weapons and tools, creating the potential for artificially high calculations of protective force effectiveness." [This is inconsistent with tactics currently being taught in the Afghanistan training camps and used by terrorist groups in Columbia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, the Balkans, and the Middle East.] (Appendix I)

The Design Basis Threat specifies that sites are only expected to protect against:

"A small group (including an insider)" [the actual number is classified]

"Characteristics:

• Capable of lethal and violent action; willing to kill and be killed.
• Capable of conducting coordinated paramilitary operations.
• Possess a wide range of military equipment, weapons and ordnance.
• Access to funds, communications, transportation and safehouses." (Appendix G)

This Design Basis Threat intends to protect nuclear weapons facilities from:

• Theft of nuclear material;
• Radiation sabotage - blowing up nuclear material and dispersing radiation into the surrounding areas (this could be achieved by an insider, an outside terrorist getting inside or more likely, with a truck bomb); and
• Exploding PU or HEU in such a way that it causes a nuclear chain reaction, through the creation of an Improvised Nuclear Device that could result in Hiroshima-like devastation. How such a crude weapon could be created is highly classified, however, experts point out that any self-respecting college physics student already has that knowledge. Explicit instructions on how to build a nuclear weapon are on the internet.

It is difficult to deal with the failures of DOE security because of the level of classification of information regarding the nuclear weapons complex. Of course, some classification is legitimate, but a good deal of information is classified because it is embarrassing.

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Three Case Studies

Three case studies provide an insight into how the system has failed: the plant at Rocky Flats, outside of Denver, Colorado; Technical Area-18 (TA-18) at Los Alamos, New Mexico; and the Transportation Security Division, which travels the United States interstate highways. The repetition of problems in these case studies should make it clear that these problems are systemic, constant and recurring.

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Rocky Flats

Rocky Flats, outside Denver, Colorado, was a major weapons production facility during the Cold War where the plutonium parts for nuclear weapons were milled and fabricated. Tens of tons of plutonium as well as uranium are stored at Rocky Flats. DOE is currently in the process of shutting down the plant and de-inventorying - sending the PU to Savannah River and the HEU to Oak Ridge. Currently, there are still large quantities of Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) at Rocky Flats that are attractive to terrorists. Wackenhut Security, a private security firm, supplies the protective force. Kaiser-Hill LLC is the prime contractor managing Rocky Flats.

In 1992, members of the Wackenhut security force were upset because they argued federal oversight was too overzealous. This tension between federal overseers and the contractor is highly unusual in the DOE complex. In a July 16, 1992 letter to Terry Vaeth, DOE Manager at Rocky Flats, Timothy P. Cole, President of Wackenhut Services Incorporated stated, after taking over security at the site in July 1990:

"During our first few months we were racing to prepare for an upcoming DOE OSE Inspection and Evaluation. Further, the plant mission was undergoing intense scrutiny based on safety and environmental concerns. Those priority issues coupled with fundamental security needs put us in a position of vulnerability from a performance measurement standpoint. There weren't enough hours in the day. The Protective Force supervisory ranks and the number of cleared, trained Security Inspectors were inadequate for accomplishment of the security mission . . .

"The purpose is not to make excuses, explain away, or otherwise disclaim our performance deficiencies. We have privately and publicly accepted responsibility for all of our actions and stepped up to problems and emphasized corrective actions rather than arguing the issues. . . .

"I must tell you very frankly that we have been exposed to 'management terrorism' and 'organizational sedition' for well over a year. . . .

"The DOE management oversight process at RFO [Rocky Flats Office] is, in my opinion, heavily slanted toward the negative to include specific 'targeting' of people in management as well as individual members of the Protective Force." (Appendix J)

As even Cole acknowledged, Wackenhut was having trouble performing some basic security duties. For example according to sources, in a surprise security test at that time, federal security overseers passed through a secured entrance with a pistol in a coffee can - an obvious breach of security.

Wackenhut President Timothy Cole's letter warned Rocky Flats federal security officials, "The distrust, doubt and fear our Security Inspectors have for certain DOE officials is unhealthy and may lead to serious consequences." (Emphasis added) The federal Director of Security was removed, and Wackenhut retained their contract. (Appendix J)

In 1995, two Wackenhut security force whistleblowers, Mark Graf and Jeff Peters, wrote to their Congressman, David Skaggs (D-CO), citing their concerns about the poor security at Rocky Flats being performed by Wackenhut. Their whistleblowing lead to a harrowing sequence of retaliations against both Graf and Peters, including their being sent for psychiatric evaluations. After both were put on administrative leave, Peters resigned. Graf was reinstated after winning his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.¹⁰

The federal Office of Personnel Management interviewed Wackenhut Services Inc. (WSI) General Manager William R. Gillison during the Jeff Peters whistleblower case. Gillison acknowledged that he, "reported to WSI Corporate that the SNM was at high risk and it was not WSI's responsibility to assume responsibility for such material." (Appendix K)

In 1996, according to sources, DOE Headquarters rejected the Site Safeguards and Security Plan (SSSP) citing serious deficiencies.

In January 1997, the DOE "Report to the President on the Status of Safeguards and Security for 1996" gave Rocky Flats a marginal rating - meaning that nuclear material was not being protected adequately. (Appendix L)

In March 1997, DOE determined that Rocky Flats was in fact not marginal, but "that there were vulnerabilities at the site that were not identified or addressed in the 1997 SSSP and that SNM was at risk under the then existing conditions." (Appendix M)

In April 1997, a subsequent Director of Security for DOE at the Rocky Flats site, Col. David Ridenour, resigned because he believed the health and welfare of the public was not being protected, and that top management would not allow him to perform his duties. He wrote in a letter to the Head of the Operations Office, "In my professional life as a military officer, as a Registered Professional Engineer. . . I never before experienced a major conflict between loyalty to my supervision and duty to my country and to the public. I feel that conflict today." (Appendix N)

The next week in April 1997, Col. Ridenour wrote in a letter to then-Secretary of Energy Federico Pena ". . . I was instructed by my direct supervisor . . . that my mission was to 'not negatively impact the contractor' and that I was to 'facilitate the contractor (a joint venture between Kaiser and CH2M Hill) winning the award fee'." (Appendix N)

In September 1997, again the SSSP was rejected. DOE Headquarters gave Rocky Flats 120 days to implement corrective actions. After 120 days, no action had been taken, and no one was held accountable - neither government employees nor contractors (Appendix M)

In 1997, unauthorized taped phone calls with DOE Headquarters Director of Security Col. Edward McCallum by Wackenhut whistleblower Jeff Peters revealed McCallum’s concern that terrorists could gain access to large quantities of plutonium and cause a sizable nuclear detonation. McCallum stated, "I've said in front of the Deputy Secretary and people at that level, I think the citizens, the employees at the plant, and the citizens of Colorado are at extremely high risk for no reason." These concerns were first raised in 1995 - two years earlier - yet they had remained unresolved. (Appendix O)

In January 1998, the Independent Oversight team from DOE Headquarters conducted a force-on-force at Rocky Flats, concluding that security was "adequate by a narrow margin." For the third time, another SSSP was submitted and rejected by Headquarters - the site was not at low risk. (Appendix Q)

In May 1998, Deputy Assistant Secretary Glenn S. Podonsky of the Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance (heretofore the Office of Independent Oversight) wrote that after a comprehensive inspection, ". . . the protection program elements measured during this inspection do not indicate that a fully effective program is yet in place. As evidenced by deficiencies identified in some areas of physical security systems, material control and accountability, computer security, and classified matter protection and control, there remain a number of legacy safeguards and security issues to be resolved." (Appendix P)

Several whistleblowers attended a summer 1998 briefing of all DOE Security Directors at Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC, by a Navy Captain regarding force-on-force drills conducted by the Navy SEALs at Rocky Flats. During the tests, the SEALs successfully entered the site through the perimeter fence, getting into a nearby building, and "stealing" a significant quantity of plutonium, exiting the building, getting out through the fence and escaping without being caught. After this embarrassment, for the next two force-on-force tests, Rocky Flats management "over controlled" and demanded that the SEALs could not go through the same hole from which they came in - they had to take the plutonium and climb a guard tower and rope it over the fence. (Of course, real terrorists could have just thrown it over the fence.) In these two contrived tests, the protective force successfully defended the facility. According to the whistleblowers, the SEAL Captain announced he would never waste the time of the SEALs coming back to a DOE site, because the tests were unrealistic.

In July 1999, then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson sent a security team to Rocky Flats. Two glaring vulnerabilities were found, strikingly similar to those found in 1995 and again in 1997. Rocky Flats management vehemently denied the team's accusation that plutonium was kept out of the vault without additional protective forces in place, as is required. Several hours later in the meeting, they finally admitted they had plutonium out of the vault in a high-risk situation eight hours a day, five days a week. (Appendix R) The significance of this dangerous practice was highlighted when, according to security team members, only a few weeks earlier an employee had walked out of a key security door setting off the alarm - yet the protective force could never find the employee. Because the PU was inadequately protected, the employee could have taken some of it, walked out and thrown it over the fence - never to be discovered.

Also according to sources, the security team found the vehicle barrier on the wrong fence. A vehicle barrier is a heavy steel cable - strong enough to stop a speeding truck loaded with thousands of pounds of explosives - that should be attached to the inside fence of a two-fence perimeter. The Rocky Flats cable was on the outside fence, which does not have alarms. Therefore a terrorist could, undetected, cut the cable and drive through the outside fence, easily crash through the inside chain link fence in a truck loaded with explosives, park alongside a nearby vault, and detonate a bomb. This vulnerability had been identified in 1996, and had never been fixed. In late 1999, under pressure from Richardson's team, this problem was addressed within hours at minimal cost by placing large boulders around the fence.

In October 1999, the DOE security czar sent DOE and DOD experts to Rocky Flats to resolve the outstanding problems found by Richardson's team. At first, Rocky Flats DOE management refused to allow the team on the site. Once they were permitted inside, the experts still found the same problems Rocky Flats had agreed to fix two years earlier.

When the experts returned in March 2000 to validate the protective force changes, they found a different but alarming trend. Repeatedly during force-on-force drills, the protective forces were "shooting" everyone in sight - mock terrorists, scientists, "controllers wearing orange safety vests, and each other" - in a simulated test. The rules of deadly force were completely abandoned to pass the tests and prove "low risk," the same problem noted in 1998 and again in 1999. (Appendix C; Appendix M)

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Los Alamos Technical Area-18

Technical Area-18 (TA-18), run by the University of California, is one of a number of technical areas at Los Alamos. It houses several nuclear burst reactors and tons of weapons-grade HEU and PU. The facility was built on the floor of a canyon in the 1940's so that the walls of the canyon would absorb the radiation from the reactors. However, today the lack of control of the high ground around the canyon makes the site extremely difficult to defend.

Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) are stored in vaults at several locations on the site. The security infrastructure has been in a state of disrepair. As recently as a few years ago it was found that someone could get inside the fence without being detected because of the poor quality of the closed-circuit TV cameras. Until recently one of the vaults storing SNM even had a window.

The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations was concerned about the security of this site as early as the early 1980's. According to former Chairman John Dingell, "The Subcommittee's work on this matter began in 1981 in response to efforts to undermine independent review of security threats. . .[T]he safeguards at the most critical facilities - which included Los Alamos - were in shambles while, at the same time, DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security was giving the facilities a clean bill of health." (Appendix S)

In 1997, a special unit of the U.S. Army Special Forces was the adversary during a force-on-force exercise. The normal theft scenario is to "steal" enough SNM for a crude nuclear weapon that would fit in rucksacks. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, this exercise required that they "steal" more HEU than a person can carry. Not to be outmaneuvered, the Army Special Forces commandos went to Home Depot and bought a garden cart. They attacked TA-18, loaded the garden cart with nuclear materials, and left the facility. "[T]he invaders reached the simulated objective of the game: enough nuclear material to make an atom bomb." (Appendix T) And they did so with relative ease. As the Wall Street Journal reported,

"The Garden Cart attackers. . .used snipers hidden in the hills to "kill" the first guards [protective forces] who arrived. Because they happened to be the commanders of the guard force, the rest of the force was thrown into disarray. Many of them also were "killed" as they arrived in small groups down a narrow road leading to TA-18. '[The Special Forces] took them out piecemeal as they came in,' says one participant in the game, whose account wasn't challenged by DOE or lab officials." (Appendix T)

As the Wall Sreet Journal further noted, "The 1997 mock invasion succeeded despite months of guard [protective forces] training and dozens of computerized battle simulations showing that newly beefed-up defenders of the facility would win." (Appendix T)

In 1998, while completing their required annual survey, the Albuquerque Operations Office found the security at TA-18 and other Los Alamos sites unsatisfactory. By the time the report made its way through top management, the unsatisfactory became satisfactory, with no change in actual security. A force-on-force exercise was performed by the 1998 survey team, but they reported that the Los Alamos protective force had compromised the exercise. The DOE Inspector General found that DOE supervisors in Albuquerque refused to investigate the matter. A more detailed description of these incidents is found in the Field Operations Office annual surveys section of this report below. (Appendix U)

In the Summer of 1999, Secretary Richardson's security team inspected Los Alamos and recommended that TA-18 be shut down and immediately de-inventoried because it could not be defended. However, DOE management persuaded Secretary Richardson not to shut down the site immediately, but instead to further study the matter. In the Fall of 1999, Secretary Richardson created a relocation team to recommend alternative sites for the TA-18 missions. (Appendix V)

In January 2000, while on a site visit to TA-18, members of the relocation team raised questions about an obvious vulnerability at this site. In a semi-hardened building, one of the burst reactors with large plates of HEU fuel was properly stored in an upgraded vault. Another almost identical reactor was sitting in the middle of an open area. The obvious security issue was to either put the reactor in a vault, or take the fuel out and store it in a vault. Los Alamos management refused to do either. (Appendix A)

In a meeting to determine the relocation team's recommendation to Secretary Richardson, Defense Programs (the predecessor organization to the National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA]) was the lone voice out of ten DOE offices that resisted relocating the facility. Defense Programs took this position in the very memo where they pointed out it would be less expensive to move TA-18 to a more secure site. (Appendix V)

In April 2000, Secretary Richardson, against strong reactions from DOE Defense Programs, ordered that TA-18 be shut down and the SNM completely removed by 2004. He also ordered that a Memorandum of Decision (MOD) be completed by January 15, 2001, in which he would identify the new location for the TA-18 mission. Defense Programs dragged their feet and had barely started the necessary steps to complete the MOD, including the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by the deadline. (Appendix X)

In October 2000, the Headquarters Independent Oversight group ran a force-on-force attack - gaining access to the reactor fuel and potentially causing a sizable nuclear detonation that would have taken out part of New Mexico and caused havoc downwind. (Appendix A)

On November 22, 2000, shortly after a meeting with Secretary Richardson, NNSA Director General John Gordon sent an angry letter to Los Alamos Lab Director Dr. John Browne threatening to shut down TA-18 after the debacle in October. Gordon wrote:

"The failure of the University of California to submit a suitable corrective action plan and to correct in a timely manner the deficiencies cited in an October 2000 assessment of TA-18 security capabilities is unacceptable. As you know, the assessment identified a number of improvements but also several significant weaknesses - most notably in the security strategy, the level of response training, and in the security forces' understanding of appropriate response procedures. The problems that were noted can be fixed by changes in strategy without the need for the site to incur significant additional costs (emphasis added). . .If any of these actions do not occur, all activities at TA-18 will be immediately suspended until the actions have been taken and verified." (Appendix Y)

A DOE Headquarters security team went to Los Alamos in December of 2000 to verify that Los Alamos had made adequate upgrades. While they had made upgrades, the changes had not been performance tested to ascertain their effectiveness. An internal DOE memorandum raised basic questions about the adequacy of the "new and improved" protection of this site. (Appendix A)

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Transportation Security Division

The Department of Energy Transportation Security Division (TSD) moves nuclear weapons, as well as weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, from site to site across the nation on public highways. The protective forces in the Transportation Division are civilian federal employees. In late 1998, TSD submitted a Site Safeguards and Security Plan (SSSP) to Headquarters for approval. Preliminary examination of the testing scenarios revealed that the SSSP used simplistic attacks and "dumbed down" use of weapons.

During planning phases the TSD team of specialists and commanders were aghast at the proposed use of sniper rifles with armor-piercing incendiary rounds by the adversaries. The DOE Inspector General determined that DOE management considered the use of a sniper rifle unreasonable and that only "super adversaries" would use them. In fact, these weapons have been available since World War I. The GAO found in an undercover investigation that more than 100,000 rounds of Pentagon-surplus armor-piercing incendiary rounds have been sold on the civilian market. (Appendix Z)

At the DOE Pantex nuclear weapons-assembly facility, security officials believed that armored Humvees were death traps, because of the availability of armor-piercing incendiary rounds. The Pantex Security Director lamented that he would never allow his protective forces to fight from them, and that it would have been just as effective to buy Yugo’s. Incredibly, the next day, Secretary Richardson's security team was at Sandia, and found officials in the process of buying armored Humvees. Using these readily-available armor-piercing incendiary rounds, terrorists could shoot through the armored truck cabs, killing the driver and protective forces, making the transported nuclear materials ready for the taking.

In the simulation phase only four tests were run. According to sources familiar with the test, the TSD protective forces were literally annihilated in tens of seconds after an attack was started. In after-action briefings the convoy commander admitted that they had experienced similar results in force-on-force testing many months earlier. Part of the problem was that the guards' weapons were of inadequate range to reach the adversary.

A December 12, 1998 internal DOE memorandum reported on the computerized Joint Tactical Simulations (JTS) evaluations of the Transportation Division's SSSP conducted at Sandia: "JTS results on the first worst case scenario. . .were 3 losses and no wins. JTS results on the second worst case scenario. . .were 3 losses and 1 win. The high TSD JTS loss rate for the first two worst case scenarios caused TSD to request termination of JTS activity. TSD requested DOE Headquarters' assistance to analyze the poor results and begin to determine possible corrective actions." (Appendix B)

In early 1999, a special force-on-force test was run at Fort Hood for the luminaries from Washington - Deputy Secretary, Undersecretary and top security and program officials, to show that the TSD could handle the threat. The U.S. Army Special Forces provided the adversaries. The protective force won. However, according to a Special Forces representative, he noticed a piece of paper held by a protective force member that he had just "shot" - it was a complete outline of the mock terrorists' attack plan. The protective force was cheating. Secretary Richardson's Special Assistant, Peter Stockton, proved the cheating to the Albuquerque manager and the TSD manager. No action was taken. (Appendix W)

In November 1999, an Army Special Forces representative found that the new sniper rifles used by TSD were target range variety, not for combat in rugged terrain. In fact, the sights on the rifles were very sensitive and would not survive the rigors of combat. More than half of the unclassified recommendations made by the DOE Inspector General regarding the SSSP process were focused on improving the security of the TSD program. (Appendix MM)

In the summer of 1995, then-President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39) to address the nation's concern over the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against our citizens ¹¹. Weapons of mass destruction are biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear. In May of 1998 he added a supplemental directive PDD-62 reaffirming PDD-39. These two directives "highlight the growing threat of unconventional attacks against the United States," including, "terrorist attacks, use of weapons of mass destruction, assaults on our critical infrastructures and cyber-attacks."¹²

The use of chemical and biological weapons has barely reached the level of consciousness in DOE. Security tests at the facilities do not include weapons of mass destruction in their scenarios. Chemical and biological weapons are not even considered in the Site Safeguards and Security Plans or SSSPs at any of the DOE nuclear sites. Keep in mind the use of chemical or biological weapons against DOE weapons facilities is as a limited engagement device for the terrorist to neutralize the protective forces and gain access to the SNM on site for theft, creation of an Improvised Nuclear Device (IND), or radiological dispersal sabotage. In a recent force-on-force drill at Los Alamos, the adversary force used a simulated irritant gas against the protective force. The protective force was totally unprepared for even the use of the gas mask. (Appendix A)

Five and a half years after PDD-39 was issued by President Clinton, DOE now has a classified study underway on developing strategies against chemical and biological attacks. It is believed that this study will recommend further study.

A September 2000 CIA Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism report points out, "These massive vehicular bombs have illustrated the need for substantial vehicle access denial systems to afford a buffer area between bomb vehicle and the building or facility requiring protection." (Appendix AA)

A truck bomb at a nuclear weapons plant could be devastating, dispersing tons of PU or HEU over the surrounding communities. As discussed earlier in this report , Secretary Richardson's security team found that Rocky Flats was vulnerable to such an attack. They had placed the vehicle barrier cable on the outside fence rather than the inside fence. A terrorist could have cut the cable on the outside fence (which does not have alarms), driven a large truck through both fences and up against the wall of a vault containing tons of PU, and detonate a bomb before any credible response could be mounted by the protective force. Putting the cable on the inside fence would slow down an intruder once they have already broken through the outside fence, and set off the sensors between the fences thereby alerting protective forces to their presence. This is 16 years after the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, 4 years after the Presidential Decision Directive on terrorism, and 2-1/2 years after this was initially discovered and Rocky Flats was ordered to fix it.

At the Pantex Plant during one of the Secretary's Special Assistant's visits in 1999 it was noted that the vehicle barrier on the primary road into the main storage area was installed backwards. Instead of stopping a vehicle the barrier would provide a ramp for the vehicle to drive over. Pantex, is the crown of DOE, and this area was the jewel in that crown. This area had been inspected and examined countless times by the assessment, survey and inspection groups since 1995.

"Management and security problems have recurred so frequently that they have resulted in nonstop reform initiatives, external reviews, and changes in policy directions. . . . During that time, security and counterintelligence responsibilities have been 'punted' from one office to the next. . . .Particularly egregious have been the failures to enforce cyber-security measures to protect and control important nuclear weapons design information. Never before has the panel found an agency with the bureaucratic insolence to dispute, delay, and resist implementation of a Presidential directive on security, as DOE's bureaucracy tried to do to the Presidential Decision Directive No. 61 in February 1998."¹³

DOE's answer to this crisis was to initiate yet another multi-million dollar commission to study the matter. In the Fall of 1999, DOE's Defense Programs presented a foot-thick report entitled "Information Security Management" to the Undersecretary with a $1.3 billion price tag to solve the problem. Obviously it was not funded due to budgetary constraints. In the Summer of 2000, an internal review of cyber security of classified information found DOE had done nothing effective to stop a trusted insider from downloading the Mother Lode (bomb design information, etc.) and walking out the door - exactly the concerns raised at Los Alamos eighteen months earlier.¹⁴ (Appendix D)

The major threat to the compromise of critical information at DOE is the "insider" - trusted employees. Virtually all of our known spies have been "insiders" with the highest security clearances. The DOE security team reviewed many of the interagency threat documents - all came to the same conclusion - the "insider" is a priority problem. Despite this, the vast majority of planning and preparations was aimed at protecting sensitive information from "outsiders."¹⁵ (Appendix D)

A number of experts believe that there are ways of protecting priority information to near certainty for very little money - but it just doesn't happen. The Labs simply refuse to prioritize what should be protected because they are more concerned about convenience for the scientists rather than security. The Warren Rudman lead President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) Panel concluded:

". . . many officials interviewed by the PFIAB panel cited the scientific culture of the weapons laboratories as a factor that complicates, perhaps even undermines, the ability of the Department to consistently implement its security procedures. . . . The prevailing culture of the weapons labs is widely perceived as contributing to security and counterintelligence problems."¹⁶

There is a device that looks like a child's Game Boy that can download the equivalent of 1100 floppy disks off a computer in 3 minutes and 14 seconds. There is also a device called a memory stick about the size of a stick of gum that can hold the equivalent of 44 floppy disks. Virtually the only way to stop the abuse of this technology is the use of "media-less" computing. To stop an "insider" you have to stop any media (disks, tapes, laptops, etc.) from coming in or going out of priority classified areas. On August 30-31, 2000, a meeting was held at Lawrence Livermore with the Chief Information Officers of the key facilities and labs and the DOE officials from the Operations Offices. Everyone agreed that DOE had to move ahead quickly on the "insider" problem before the Hill or the press found out that virtually nothing effective had been done to stop a dedicated insider. (Appendix D; Appendix CC)

An implementation strategy was established at the Livermore meeting for near-term enhanced security for classified systems including implementing "media-less" computing systems. (Appendix CC) A schedule was developed during this meeting that would have had this system in place before the end of 2000 at a cost in the neighborhood of $10-15 million. The consensus was that these changes would have taken DOE from a low confidence level that a trusted insider could be stopped, to near certainty.

The effort was rejected by the NNSA representative, John Todd, in deference to the alleged functionality and morale concerns of the lab scientists. In the battle between morale of scientists and security, security always loses. In an October 30, 2000 memo to then-DOE Secretary Richardson, his Special Assistant Peter Stockton wrote,

" . . .Todd argued that this effort should be delayed because it may have a negative impact on lab morale. Todd's solution was to install lock boxes like those he was implementing at Naval Reactors. He admitted that the lock boxes were not effective against a dedicated insider, and they would not increase security, but they would increase functionality for the scientists - they could leave their computers on when they left their offices. I visited Naval Reactors and met with their security officials to discuss their experience with lock boxes. They admitted that they would not be effective against the dedicated insider, and that they had obvious vulnerabilities. . .This is again based on the wants of the scientists rather than the real security needs of the system." (Appendix D)

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