One of America's largest nuclear weapons research laboratories has suspended its activities after secret information went missing. Officials are not saying what data has disappeared from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but it is thought to be highly sensitive. The laboratory was temporarily closed four years ago as forest fires got dangerously close to it. Several security breaches have hit the birthplace of the first atomic bomb. Its closure comes on the anniversary of the first atomic bomb test in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Its head, John Browne, resigned in January last year, following allegations of theft and fraud, including allegedly questionable purchases and the disappearance of computers and other equipment from the complex. A few months later, the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was instructed by the government to make "aggressive and far-reaching" changes to tighten security at all nuclear weapons laboratories in the US. Security lapses at all three major US nuclear weapons labs - Sandia and Los Alamos in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore in California - have included the loss of keys, laptops and even a van, as well as the two-year disappearance of two vials of plutonium oxide.
As yet there is no evidence of any deliberate act to steal the data at Los Alamos - probably CDs - which was reported missing last week from a unit known as the Weapons Physics Directorate. One official is quoted as saying there is no evidence yet that the missing data has even left the facility, although that may be difficult to prove one way or another. "These breaches of national security will not be tolerated," Gerald Parsky, chairman of governors of the University of California which manages Los Alamos, told Reuters news agency. Officials are currently conducting a detailed inventory of sensitive data at the lab, logging CDs and floppy discs. That work is expected to take several days. Staff who had access to the items in question are being allowed into the plant under escort only. The NNSA, the federal agency which oversees the industry, has sent a team to Los Alamos to investigate the disappearance. |