Nuke-Lock Breach Could Be 'Devastating' ( Los Alamos )

The recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory was very serious, with sensitive materials being taken out of the facility — possibly including information on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons, officials tell CBS News.

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).

The woman believed to have taken the information — Jessica Quintana, 22, who owned the trailer — worked in three classified vault rooms across Los Alamos:

Safeguards and Security (relating to strategic nuclear material control and accountability)

The woman had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Additionally, she had "Sigma 15" clearance, which allows her access to info on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons. Quintana has not been arrested or charged.

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.

"Authorities in northern New Mexico are looking for ties among three people involved in an apparent security breach of the Los Alamos National Laboratory that surfaced during a home search spurred by a domestic violence incident.

Los Alamos police answered a call at Royal Crest mobile home park last Tuesday about a possible fight between a man and a woman, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. When officials arrived, they said they saw methamphetamine paraphernalia and began seizing evidence.

According to records filed by the Los Alamos Police Department, police confiscated three USB port computer memory sticks. Sources tell CBS News that those memory sticks — small portable computer storage devices — are believed to contain classified information from the nation's top nuclear weapons lab.

Officials arrested a 20-year old man on drug charges along with his girlfriend and the female owner of the trailer. Officials are also checking out reports that one of the women may have had secret clearance to work at the lab in the so-called Dynamic Experiments Program.

Police alerted the FBI to the secret documents, which agents traced back to a woman linked to the drug dealer, officials said. The woman is a contract employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

The official would not describe the documents except to say that they appeared to contain classified material and were stored on a computer file.

Sources tell CBS News the documents were found on a computer flash drive — the very type of memory device banned from the lab two years ago. At that time, the Energy Department prohibited all devices that can be easily copied, Attkisson reports.

FBI special agent Bill Elwell in Albuquerque, N.M., confirmed that a search warrant was executed on Friday night, but he refused to discuss details.

"We do have an investigation with regard to the matter, but our standard is we do not discuss pending investigations," Elwell said.

A lab spokesman declined to comment.

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. And the Energy Department 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.

Even though Los Alamos is now under new management, Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight said the lab has not done much to clean up its act.

"The problem is when you actually have those materials that are supposed to be protected inside the lab and you find them outside the lab in the hands of criminals — that should worry everybody," Brian said.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque were "evaluating the information obtained as a result of the search warrant," Elwell said.

The federal charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/24/national/main2122004.shtml

I got a Q-clearance when I was 21. The government had a job that needed to be done and I needed a clearance to do that job. What age do you think people should be before they can get clearances?

Regarding trailers, people live where they live. I have known trailer trash, apartment trash, suburban trash, and mansion trash, as well as knowing fine people from each type of shelter. The type of home they live in doesn't make them better or worse. I think it is pretty damn elitist of you to think that makes her morally inferior.

Check out house prices in Los Alamos/Santa Fe and you may see why many young people may live in a trailer.

There is clearly a problem with this woman, and it shows a hole in the clearance process. But saying the problem is that she is young and lives in a trailer is just silly.

I never even heard of top secret "Q-clearance"

Now that you've read about it, someone in the middle of the night is going to come around and kill you.

Seriously many people dropped the ball on this one, nobody's specific security clearance should make it into the news, whether someone has a secret or top secret I can see that making it into the news. But his specific clearance should never have made it into the news. The CBS new organization should know that, this news only shows us that CBS is just another organization that is more interested in revealing secrets for the Democratic/liberals anti-American purpose then they are protecting the American public.

The other thing that is scary is that no government organization has made CBS or the original source to yank this information off of the Internet.

I found a site that claims to have uncovered her myspace page. If you google her name, you can pull up the cache of the site.

Los Alamos Owner of Meth Trailer's MySpace Page We can't be 100% sure, but this may be Jessica Quintana's MySpace page. Quintana is the owner of the Los Alamos trailer where Justin Stone was arrested for drugs and three flash drives were found that allegedly had classified information from Los Alamos National Laboratory on them. It adds up: We did a search for Jessica Quintana on MySpace within 100 miles of Los Alamos' zip code. This page is only one that matches that, along with her confirmed age of 22. Furthermore, under "Occupation," the page says she is a "Data Tech." According to the Los Alamos Monitor, "Reports also indicate that Quintana was employed as a data entry clerk at Information Assets Management, a LANL subcontractor, before being laid off." -- Nick Schwellenbach google cache: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:VqO2Nm9b8h8J:www.myspace.com/jesslq+Jessica+Quintana&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&ie=UTF-8

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