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Here is a reason you need the expertise and services of VGS, Inc. YOU may not have nuclear weapons (hopefully!), but you DO have budgets, employee lists, customer lists, vendor lists, salary information, etc. Do you want this information out of your control??? Would a written security policy have helped? Think about it.......... Scientist at weapons lab transferred secret data, officials say
By JAMES RISEN and JEFF GERTH The data -- millions of lines of computer code that approximate how this country's atomic warheads work -- were downloaded from a computer system at the Los Alamos, N.M., weapons lab that is open only to those with top-level security clearances, according to the officials. The scientist, Wen Ho Lee, then transferred the files to a widely accessible computer network at the lab, where they were stored under other file names, the officials said. In 1996, Lee became the focus of an FBI investigation into a separate case, what American officials believe was China's theft from Los Alamos of design data for America's most advanced warhead, the W-88. That theft apparently took place in the 1980s. China has denied stealing the material. Now officials fear that a much broader array of nuclear test data may have been moved to Beijing in the 1990s. Lee has not been charged with any crime. Federal investigators did not discover the evidence of huge file transfers until last month, when they examined Lee's office computer in connection with their investigation of the earlier theft at Los Alamos, a sprawling lab complex about 35 miles outside Santa Fe. They then found evidence that Lee, who held one of the government's highest security clearances, had been transferring enormous files involving millions of lines of secret computer code, officials said. Although Lee had been under investigation in the W-88 case for nearly three years, Los Alamos officials failed to monitor his computer use and let him retain his access to nuclear secrets until late 1998. Lee was fired by the Energy Department for security violations on March 8. His attorney, Mark Holscher of Los Angeles, did not return a telephone call. In the past, Holscher has denied any wrongdoing by his client. President Clinton was first told of the new evidence by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on March 31. During a subsequent meeting at the White House residence in early April, the President told Richardson to ``get to the bottom of it,'' Richardson recalled in an interview Tuesday. Earlier in March, before being briefed by Richardson, the President said he had not been told of any evidence of espionage during his administration. In response to the new evidence and with the President's support, Richardson shut down the classified computer systems at Los Alamos and two other major nuclear weapons laboratories this month. He ordered changes in the computer security procedures to make it more difficult to move nuclear secrets out of the classified networks. ``These Wen Ho Lee transgressions cannot occur any more,'' Richardson said in the interview. Congressional leaders were told of the new evidence in classified briefings last week. The huge scale of the security breach has shocked some officials, and has prompted a new sense of urgency in the FBI to solve the Los Alamos spy case. The bureau is now pouring additional agents and resources into the investigation. The evidence of transfers from his office computer provided the basis for an FBI search of Lee's home on April 10, officials said. Lee is believed to be still living in Los Alamos. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview that the briefings on the new evidence ``confirmed my worst fears that China's espionage is ongoing, it's deep and we can't wish it away.'' There were varying assessments of the gravity of the security breach. One official familiar with the new evidence said, ``This is much, much, much worse than the W-88 case.'' But an Energy Department official said that because it remained unclear whether China actually obtained the data, the case at this point ``is serious but not of the scope of the W-88.'' The fact that the huge data transfers were not detected until the past few weeks has sparked outrage among officials who wonder why computer use by a scientist already under suspicion as a spy was not being closely watched by Los Alamos or the FBI. An internal investigation at the Energy Department into why Lee retained access to American nuclear secrets while he was a spy suspect was begun a month ago and is nearing completion. It is likely to prompt disciplinary action against some lab and Energy Department officials, according to a senior Energy Department official. The information improperly transferred by Lee included what Los Alamos officials call the ``legacy'' codes. According to John Browne, director of Los Alamos, the legacy codes consist of computer data used to design nuclear weapons, analyze nuclear test results and evaluate weapons materials and the safety characteristics of America's nuclear warheads. ``They are codes that integrate our best understanding of the processes that go on in a nuclear weapon,'' Browne said in an interview.
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Available for consulting in the USA and Internationally Contact Information Bruce M. Johnston, CISSP, CCSA 7725 Biltmore Blvd., Hollywood, FL., 33023-5825 [B] +1 954.967.4065 [M] +1 954.558.2083
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