Please back that up or apologize.
Did you forget the /sarcasm?
http://www.aim.org/aim_column/A503_0_3_0_C/
This new scandal comes on the heels of the 1999 Chinese nuclear-espionage debacle and the 2000 disappearance of computer hard-drives containing classified nuclear-weapons and intelligence data at Los Alamos. The hard-drives mysteriously "reappeared" behind a copy machine inside a taped-off FBI crime scene. Congressional pressure, mostly from New Mexico senator and lab patron Pete Domenici, forced the FBI to abandon its investigation of the missing hard-drives.
Government reports have repeatedly detailed lax security procedures and a staggering lack of accountability within the Energy Department's national laboratories. Earlier this year, yet another blue-ribbon commission found that continuing management dysfunction within the Department is imperiling both science and security throughout the labs, despite the reforms of recent years. The commission charged that the department has yet to implement risk-based security management practices and that its "tools and technologies" for security and counterintelligence are "woefully inadequate." It said that cyber-security remains the labs' most significant vulnerability. This latter finding comes two years after Wen Ho Lee committed what a federal investigation labeled one of the greatest security breaches in the nation's history by storing over 800 megabytes of classified nuclear-weapons secrets on an unclassified Los Alamos computer network and tapes. The tapes have never been recovered. The commission's report was dead on arrival at the Energy Department.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_51/ai_55432933
The Climber : Bill Richardson's glorious career - Sec. of Energy
National Review, August 30, 1999 by John J. Miller
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Just a minute or two into his Senate testimony on June 9, secretary of energy Bill Richardson began scolding members of the intelligence committee sitting before him. "This amendment would undermine my authority," he said of a plan to enhance weapons-lab security in the wake of the China spy revelations. "I understand that some modifications have been made to the amendment in the last day, which I think shows that the amendment was not carefully drafted."
That brash comment raised eyebrows throughout the room. The changes had actually been made at Richardson's own request. Republican senator Jon Kyl of Arizona shot back, "I'm really astonished at your testimony." Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska also returned fire: "We're a nation of laws. You referred to [the Energy Department] as yours several times . . . You are the secretary of energy for the moment, and, you know, at some point you're not secretary of energy and somebody else is."
Richardson is surely thinking of that moment, when he's no longer secretary of energy. Ever since he came to Washington as a junior aide in Richard Nixon's State Department, he has been a climber, contemplating his next move. He launched his political career as a carpetbagger in New Mexico, and throughout his 14 years in the House he constantly pondered running for senator or governor. He took a series of much-publicized trips to negotiate hostage releases, in Iraq, Kashmir, North Korea, and elsewhere, often with success. In 1996, President Clinton asked him to replace Madeleine Albright as ambassador to the United Nations. Last summer, Richardson moved again, this time to head the Department of Energy. Earlier this year, that became unexpectedly one of the most high-profile jobs in Washington.
Already there is speculation that Al Gore may tap Richardson to join the Democratic presidential ticket next year. The choice could make sense: Depending on how successfully Richardson handles the current spy scandal-early signs are mixed-he could inoculate Gore against what may be one of the GOP's most effective avenues of attack. He's also the most prominent Hispanic politician in the country at a time when Republicans appear eager to nominate George W. Bush, a Texan who polls surprisingly well among Hispanics, a vital Democratic constituency.