Top U.S. Nuclear Lab Loses Keys, Reviews Security

Yahoo.com ^ | May 14, 2003

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

A top U.S. nuclear weapons research laboratory that boasts some of the tightest security on Earth is reviewing security procedures after it lost a set of keys, the lab said on Wednesday.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said in a statement posted on its Internet site that officials learned a set of keys was missing on April 17.

The discovery came a week after retired FBI (news - web sites) agent William Cleveland Jr. resigned as the lab's head of counter intelligence. In response to a question, a lab spokesman said there was no connection between Cleveland's departure and the keys going missing.

He left after admitting to a long extramarital affair with Chinese-American businesswoman Katrina Leung, who has been charged with taking classified documents from the briefcase of her FBI handler, James Smith, who was also her lover. She was not charged with espionage although officials have called her a double agent.

Officials at the lab, located east of San Francisco in Livermore, California, said the missing keys would not allow outsiders access to sensitive areas because they have different types of locks, alarms, key cards and other security measures.

"The keys as a stand-alone would not have allowed undetected access into those buildings containing national security assets and classified materials," the lab said in its statement.

"Due to redundant access controls and security safeguards in place, multiple levels of authorization are required for entry into buildings containing national security assets."

The case of the missing keys comes as officials in Washington and elsewhere have already raised questions about security in the nation's leading weapons labs.

In a report last year, Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey (news, bio, voting record) said lax security at Department of Energy (news - web sites) facilities such as the one at Livermore posed "an unacceptable level of risk that terrorists could successfully target these sites."

After realizing that the key were missing, lab officials replaced the locks, stepped up patrols and vowed it would not happen again.

"This is an incident I take very seriously," lab director Michael Anastasio said. "We are reviewing this aggressively and making the necessary improvements to our key handling and storage procedures.

"Due to the redundant security systems in place, our national security assets were not subject to significant risk. The information from our internal investigations, as well as the conclusions we receive from the external review team, will help us ensure this does not happen again."

[kellynla]

keys? Please tell me the security system is better than what I have at my house.

[b4its2late]

Hey, at least they didn't lose the nuclear weapons launch codes like slick did......

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

I thought the exact same thing.

Except I have a contingency plan for when I misplace my keys...It's never failed me either.

To enhance security, perhaps LLNL should enlist the help of a mother who used to fear her babies might be scared if they had to wait outside for help in a thunderstorm/snowstorm/flood if moms keys were lost?

[Cobra64]

My sources indicated that Slick was in the neighborhood.

[Spruce]

Did someone steal their hollow fake rock-thingy off the front step?

[mabelkitty]

No connection to the Chinese spy my a$$.

[kellynla]

I don't know where they find these people but it is nothing short of a blessing from God that this whole country is not one big mushroom cloud! Educated fools...all of them! A million dollar education and not ten cents of common sense.

[SuperLuminal]

Hah! A clear contradiction in terms: "Security"....."National Laboratories"

[ALS]

[Jonez712]

I used to live in Livermore and I can guarentee you that security isn't very high at all there, at least it wasn't before September 11th. They have a big pool there that anyone can get in for two bucks, and if you tell the one inept guard that you're there to use the pool, he'll let you drive right inside the gates and then go wherever you please I guess, without as much as an ID. Imagine if some Al Qaeda terrorist decided to drive a car full of explosives onto the lab grounds and then detonate it. Nuclear material would fly everywhere, and Livermore and the greater bay area would be ruined, along with some of my best friends who still live there.

This is unacceptable from one of our nation's top nuclear facilities, especially the one where the hyrdogen bomb was first invented.

[StopGlobalWhining]

Legacy of the Hazel O'Leary - Hillary Clinton school of dumbing down national security.