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As technology has developed, so too has the confidence of the United States government that their most cherished and important secrets would be safely protected by this very technology. However, with the recent disappearance of two hard drives from the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, their confidence has wavered.
The hard drives, each being the size of a deck of cards, were reported missing over a week ago. In actuality, the drives may have disappeared roughly 2-3 weeks ago around the time that wildfires swept across the region surrounding the laboratory in Los Alamos, NM.
Containing very important information illustrating ways to disarm U.S., Russian and other nuclear devices, the hard drives are to be used by emergency response teams in case of a nuclear bomb threat or accident. The two drives were found this past Friday.
Although this comes as good news to the Los Alamos lab, it is not the only news floating around about the nuclear laboratory. Recently the case of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born scientist charged with spying for China, has also resurfaced. Lee, whose case took place less than a year ago, is suspected of downloading classified data about the miniaturized W-8 nuclear warhead to an unsecured machine. Lee has admitted downloading information, but says it was a routine procedure and denies passing anything to China.
Along with these security threats, the U.S. State Department was itself caught out when it was reported that a laptop computer containing highly classified information had disappeared. "The common feature of all of these incidents is that it involves large amounts of sensitive data in a very compact electronic form," said Steven Aftergood, a member of the Federation of American Scientists.
One has to question the reasoning as to why such trained professionals could allow hard drives carrying secrets about disarming nuclear bombs to 'vanish' into thin air? How could a laptop being used by the U.S. State Department just simply disappear? The answer: It's the scientist's fault!
Apparently, there is a lack of cooperation between these agencies (Los Alamos) and the various scientists that may be affiliated with them. Scientists are like a fraternity, having their own 'inner circle'. They want to be able to share information openly amongst the members of their fraternity. However, security officials do not take kindly to this behavior, considering the important information being loosely transferred from unsecured equipment such as in the case of Dr. Lee.
"It's a long-standing problem that we have had in our atomic program since the beginning," said Kenneth de Graffenreid, former director of intelligence at the National Security Council. "It's a cultural thing ... scientists dislike secrecy," said de Graffenreid.
Although the idea and practice of espionage is not new, he brought to light an important point. "One person, one incident could not physically have done the damage even 15 years ago that can be done today. Thousands of safes are on one CD, so you can put the CD in your pocket," he said. "It's going to be increasingly difficult in the future to protect secrets."
David Major, a retired member of the FBI's counter-espionage bureau who had served the organization for over 24 years echoed these sentiments, saying, "There is an attitude in the United States about how important the secrets are. We tend to be the kind of country and society that favors openness."
Major believes that the scientist fraternity is way too open. He believes, "Scientists always see security as getting in the way of exchange of information - that makes scientists a wonderful target for the intelligence service. I don't think it's a systemic problem. There are no big weaknesses in the system of secrets protection, but there is a potential risk in some federal agencies because of the attitude of laxity."
There are other experts that are more harsh than Major on this issue. For example, Frank Gassney states, "This is an endemic problem with security with this present administration in this country. The philosophy they represent is one that is indifferent to the most basic principle of physical information and personal security."
Gassney, a former Pentagon official added, "Los Alamos is the (latest) example of a physical security problem. This administration has made a practice of sharing intelligence with other governments including some hostile ... its craziness."
With this rash of security breaches, the United States government is dealing with a double-edged sword. The technology age has offered resources like never before to ensure that secret information remains a secret. However, with the laxity of scientists and the dualistic increase in technology available to individuals and/or governments that are interested in stealing secrets, the U.S. government has a handful of headaches to deal with.
Remember the days when the safest way to keep a secret was to keep it to yourself rather than document it on paper or even highly secured computer programs? Those days were before I was even born. Unfortunately, we have become so dependent on technology that it has become and end rather than a means for our use in some cases. Perhaps the U.S. government should consider that tactic
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