Monday, February 26, 2007
Take Classified Work Away from LANL at Great National Peril
Excerpt from an anonymous contributor earlier on this blog:
--
LANL is all about classified work. Nuclear stockpile stewardship (most of the stockpile is still made up of our designs), non-proliferation and (nuclear) threat reduction and response. The very core of LANL's work is addressing the very defense threats that, short of biological warefare, scare the daylights out of decent people everywhere. So, these fools would like to make it go away ... leaving the United States dramatically weaker in the face of monstrous threats from many corners of the globe, and they want to do this for the purposes of political grand-standing, power and control.
It's not about security ... it's about power. If it was about security, we'd see the FBI before Congress for the tens of laptops they lose each year, which they can't account for holding classified information or not. We'd have seen equally public thrashing of Sandia for apparently attempting to cover up the successful hack of their network by hostile foreign powers. We'd have seen the FBI thrashed over the Hansen spy incident. Or the CIA over the Adrich Ames incident. Or the navy over the Jonathan Pollard spy incident.
Instead, what we've got is a continuous piling on, punishing time and again LANL personnel who struggle in the face of byzantine, incomprehensible policies, procedures and rules to work safely and securely. When an individual chooses to violate their oath, everyone pays except the one individual at the root of the deceit. The follow-on is more byzantine rules, policies and procedures, layered heavily on top of the already confusing, contradictory and vulnerable morass of existing rules. And the Congressionally demanded public floggings of the staff who continue to struggle under the crushing weight of management and policies that does not work.
Those among the LANL staff who want to know who got fired or disciplined over the incident need to understand that while it must feel really good and righteous to demand indiscriminant punitive actions, it also means that they themselves could be next. "Oh, never!" they might cry. Well, never say never. Because in the system we have that is ready to collapse under its own weight, a well intentioned, hard working, detail-oriented LANL employee can try as hard as they can to cover every angle and still be buried alive if something goes wrong with safety or security.
You may ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
Experts in human performance improvement can certainly see the ongoing disaster the LANL management-by-appeasement-to-politicians approach has precipitated. The response to this and past security and safety incidents has effectively taught LANL personnel to adopt a siege mentality, which leaves management standing alone in the face of solving the real problems. The Director's proud and frequent statements about how he's disciplined 24 people should be a shameful admission that he is destroying the incentive for staff to bring security or safety incidents or problems to management's attention. When it's widely known that anyone within sight of a problem will be subject to a witch hunt by HR-ER on the behalf of the Director and devastated by the results, why in the world would anyone trust them with the knowledge that a problem exists?
Congress simply feeds this fire of incompetence by stimulating this defective and destructive cycle of failure.
If LANL is to improve and perform, it has to make it easy, automatic and rewarding to work safely and securely, and it must tap the real-world understanding the personnel have of the vulnerabilities and solutions to our safety and security problems. It must make it safe for individuals to admit mistakes and help the institution learn how to prevent them in the future.
As it is, bureaucrats write new layers of confusion to lay down on top of the rotting old layers of confusion. While they try hard, they have no idea what the real high-probability, high-consequence vulnerabilities really are. They only make the situation worse by giving management the false belief that they've really got the problem fixed this time. It's not going to stop until LANL management, and Congress, stop circling the wagons and firing inward at the lab personnel.
The Laboratory is living in abject fear, which is driving many many people to shut up and keep their head down, depriving the institution of the very experts who could actually be part of the solution. The Lab's done this for years, and it's doing it again, expecting a different outcome.
To remove classified work from the lab is to kill the lab, and probably most of our nuclear knowledge. The capabilities of the Laboratory are totally embodied in the people and the history of our work which lives there. It cannot be transplanted like a tulip bulb. Once it's wiped out, it's gone forever. Whatever might be reconstituted elsewhere will be a different place, starting from scratch.
I'm sure Iran, North Korea, and other proliferant threats to our world would greatly benefit from the setback.
-Anon.
--
LANL is all about classified work. Nuclear stockpile stewardship (most of the stockpile is still made up of our designs), non-proliferation and (nuclear) threat reduction and response. The very core of LANL's work is addressing the very defense threats that, short of biological warefare, scare the daylights out of decent people everywhere. So, these fools would like to make it go away ... leaving the United States dramatically weaker in the face of monstrous threats from many corners of the globe, and they want to do this for the purposes of political grand-standing, power and control.
It's not about security ... it's about power. If it was about security, we'd see the FBI before Congress for the tens of laptops they lose each year, which they can't account for holding classified information or not. We'd have seen equally public thrashing of Sandia for apparently attempting to cover up the successful hack of their network by hostile foreign powers. We'd have seen the FBI thrashed over the Hansen spy incident. Or the CIA over the Adrich Ames incident. Or the navy over the Jonathan Pollard spy incident.
Instead, what we've got is a continuous piling on, punishing time and again LANL personnel who struggle in the face of byzantine, incomprehensible policies, procedures and rules to work safely and securely. When an individual chooses to violate their oath, everyone pays except the one individual at the root of the deceit. The follow-on is more byzantine rules, policies and procedures, layered heavily on top of the already confusing, contradictory and vulnerable morass of existing rules. And the Congressionally demanded public floggings of the staff who continue to struggle under the crushing weight of management and policies that does not work.
Those among the LANL staff who want to know who got fired or disciplined over the incident need to understand that while it must feel really good and righteous to demand indiscriminant punitive actions, it also means that they themselves could be next. "Oh, never!" they might cry. Well, never say never. Because in the system we have that is ready to collapse under its own weight, a well intentioned, hard working, detail-oriented LANL employee can try as hard as they can to cover every angle and still be buried alive if something goes wrong with safety or security.
You may ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
Experts in human performance improvement can certainly see the ongoing disaster the LANL management-by-appeasement-to-politicians approach has precipitated. The response to this and past security and safety incidents has effectively taught LANL personnel to adopt a siege mentality, which leaves management standing alone in the face of solving the real problems. The Director's proud and frequent statements about how he's disciplined 24 people should be a shameful admission that he is destroying the incentive for staff to bring security or safety incidents or problems to management's attention. When it's widely known that anyone within sight of a problem will be subject to a witch hunt by HR-ER on the behalf of the Director and devastated by the results, why in the world would anyone trust them with the knowledge that a problem exists?
Congress simply feeds this fire of incompetence by stimulating this defective and destructive cycle of failure.
If LANL is to improve and perform, it has to make it easy, automatic and rewarding to work safely and securely, and it must tap the real-world understanding the personnel have of the vulnerabilities and solutions to our safety and security problems. It must make it safe for individuals to admit mistakes and help the institution learn how to prevent them in the future.
As it is, bureaucrats write new layers of confusion to lay down on top of the rotting old layers of confusion. While they try hard, they have no idea what the real high-probability, high-consequence vulnerabilities really are. They only make the situation worse by giving management the false belief that they've really got the problem fixed this time. It's not going to stop until LANL management, and Congress, stop circling the wagons and firing inward at the lab personnel.
The Laboratory is living in abject fear, which is driving many many people to shut up and keep their head down, depriving the institution of the very experts who could actually be part of the solution. The Lab's done this for years, and it's doing it again, expecting a different outcome.
To remove classified work from the lab is to kill the lab, and probably most of our nuclear knowledge. The capabilities of the Laboratory are totally embodied in the people and the history of our work which lives there. It cannot be transplanted like a tulip bulb. Once it's wiped out, it's gone forever. Whatever might be reconstituted elsewhere will be a different place, starting from scratch.
I'm sure Iran, North Korea, and other proliferant threats to our world would greatly benefit from the setback.
-Anon.
Comments:
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I doubt that the blog owner will allow this post, but I would be surprised if this did not happen:
"To remove classified work from the lab is to kill the lab, and probably most of our nuclear knowledge. Once it's wiped out, it's gone forever. Whatever might be reconstituted elsewhere will be a different place, starting from scratch."
Based on many years of security violations at LANL I am surprised that you have still maintained the amount of people you have on board and that everyone is not under current reinvestigation and I do mean deep, deep, deep investigation with implementation of the tightest security measures possible, unless of course they are in fact watching to see where the leaks are.
"To remove classified work from the lab is to kill the lab, and probably most of our nuclear knowledge. Once it's wiped out, it's gone forever. Whatever might be reconstituted elsewhere will be a different place, starting from scratch."
Based on many years of security violations at LANL I am surprised that you have still maintained the amount of people you have on board and that everyone is not under current reinvestigation and I do mean deep, deep, deep investigation with implementation of the tightest security measures possible, unless of course they are in fact watching to see where the leaks are.
# posted by 
: 2/26/2007 4:58 PM
: 2/26/2007 4:58 PM
Why would the blog owner not allow your post? You voice the fears that each of us may be repressing.
However, just because a person posts on a blog (assuming they are keenly aware and adequately trained), the info found on these pages shouldn't qualify as 'leaks'.
However, just because a person posts on a blog (assuming they are keenly aware and adequately trained), the info found on these pages shouldn't qualify as 'leaks'.
# posted by : 2/26/2007 5:43 PM
: 2/26/2007 5:43 PM
I find the statement "Based on many years of security violations at LANL" to be totally without merit. There are hundreds of folks who daily work with or have access to classified information, yet there are not hundreds of daily security violations.
Please document what you mean by "based on many years of security violations at LANL" or address the problem as an adult and not a teenager whose favorite words are "always" and "never".
Please document what you mean by "based on many years of security violations at LANL" or address the problem as an adult and not a teenager whose favorite words are "always" and "never".
# posted by : 2/26/2007 6:25 PM
: 2/26/2007 6:25 PM
Let's see: The total number of documented "leaks" at Los Alamos number just about one (1), namely, Klaus Fuchs, circa 1945. From a couple of classified internal sources, we know (let me repeat that: KNOW) that Wen Ho Lee did not leak anything to Red China. We are also nearly 100% certain, from a number of independent internal sources, that nothing was lost from the 2 hard drives that were misplaced during the Los Alamos fire in 2000. And the two missing pieces of CREM that led to the Infamous Nanos Shutdown in 2004 NEVER EVEN EXISTED -- a purely bureaucratic snafu. In other words, the number of leaks/day at Los Alamos is ~0.00004, which is orders of magnitude lower than the CIA or the FBI or Livermore or Sandia, and FOR SURE, the DoD. I suspect, Mr/Mrs Anonymous 2/26/2007 4:58 PM, that you are someone of the caliber of Notra Trulock, a truly disturbed individual, who cares more about his narcissistic preening before a mirror than about national security.
--Pat, the Patriotic Dog
--Pat, the Patriotic Dog
"It cannot be transplanted like a tulip bulb. Once it's wiped out, it's gone forever. Whatever might be reconstituted elsewhere will be a different place, starting from scratch."
Please........
If you don't think LLNL can do a lot of what is done at LANL, you have lived at altitude too long.
Please........
If you don't think LLNL can do a lot of what is done at LANL, you have lived at altitude too long.
# posted by : 2/26/2007 7:48 PM
: 2/26/2007 7:48 PM
Pat 2/26 7:33 pm:
You are totally wrong on Wen Ho Lee. Just because you don't like the government's actions, doesn't mean he didn't actually steal essentially all our weapons program's best tools for modeling performance. He did, as documented in the Bellows Report and in the Freeh testimony. Your disingenuous statement that he "did not leak anything to Red China" is unworthy of anyone who believes in the truth. How do you know who he "LEAKED" it to?? You ought to back off statements that blatently show you don't know what you are talking about. Want to provide some facts that support your position?
You are totally wrong on Wen Ho Lee. Just because you don't like the government's actions, doesn't mean he didn't actually steal essentially all our weapons program's best tools for modeling performance. He did, as documented in the Bellows Report and in the Freeh testimony. Your disingenuous statement that he "did not leak anything to Red China" is unworthy of anyone who believes in the truth. How do you know who he "LEAKED" it to?? You ought to back off statements that blatently show you don't know what you are talking about. Want to provide some facts that support your position?
# posted by : 2/26/2007 8:03 PM
: 2/26/2007 8:03 PM
Wouldn't Quintana's clearance indicate the process is somehow broken and that others cleared by this same process should be cleared again by a new and improved process?
And further, once LANL loses control of classified material, even if temporarily, isn't it impossible to say with certainty that it was not comprimised?
And further, once LANL loses control of classified material, even if temporarily, isn't it impossible to say with certainty that it was not comprimised?
# posted by : 2/26/2007 8:13 PM
: 2/26/2007 8:13 PM
A few observations:
Much of what you read on this blog is inflammatory, unfair, or untrue. Let's face it, you never know which posts were made by the LANL-haters.
Even so, anonymous posting is useful, since it is a way of communicating your thoughts around the lab without fear of reprisal.
The vast majority (maybe 99.999%) of people working at LANL are responsible people, worthy of protecting our nations secrets, and are some of the few people in the nation who want to or can do the jobs they are doing. They aren't arrogant (for the most part), and they are normal people like your neighbor Bob who runs a gas station. They wouldn't break security rules any more than Bob would steal something you left in your car while he worked on it. It's a matter of pride and a sense of national responsibility and trust.
Yes, there are a very few bad apples at the lab. Wen Ho Lee was one, and the woman from the trailer park was another. We have thousands of people at the lab, and we can't protect against the stupid actions of one or two of them without crippling the rest of us. Even if we instituted full cavity searches on every person entering or leaving the lab, we can't protect against the unauthorized disclosure of classified material that walks out the door in our heads. We have to trust the people that work at LANL. We need to check them out enough to make sure that we can trust them.
The spotlight from the national media that is on LANL now is dooming us to failure. There will be some screwup in the future. There are too many events that could fail. No situation like this is perfect. Compare this with driving in New York City: we license all the drivers and have them take tests to ensure their proficiency. The individual drivers have strong incentives to drive correctly to avoid tickets and to protect their passengers, their cars, and themselves. Yet, accidents happen. We cannot guarantee "no accidents" in New York; we can't even guarantee no (driving) accidents in Los Alamos.
Look for motives. Assume stupidity or ignorance rather than malice. The trailer park woman was trying to get her job done and stupidly put that ahead of security. Nanos wasn't bright enough to understand the problem, so he tried to force a solution the only way he knew how. Various congressional types are trying to satisfy their constituents or to make a name for themselves. Wen Ho was not that smart and was worried about losing his job. None of this makes what these people have done right, but it does help to understand their actions.
Instead of all the complaining on the blog, we should direct our energies towards something positive. One thing that I note LANL is lacking is positive PR. Our managers seem to have trouble coming up with a reason for our existence, and don't seem to understand what we do. I suggest that all the blog posters should put something together to show the world why we are important. If we don't like what the media, congress, and the DOE/NNSA are saying about us, we should give them better things to say. Maybe a Wiki site where lab staff could post their achievements, their publications, their capabilities. We can also counter any inaccuracies in the media, not with a sniping soundbite, but with a well thought out response. We are the ones who can do this best. Nobody is fighting for us, we must fight for ourselves.
Much of what you read on this blog is inflammatory, unfair, or untrue. Let's face it, you never know which posts were made by the LANL-haters.
Even so, anonymous posting is useful, since it is a way of communicating your thoughts around the lab without fear of reprisal.
The vast majority (maybe 99.999%) of people working at LANL are responsible people, worthy of protecting our nations secrets, and are some of the few people in the nation who want to or can do the jobs they are doing. They aren't arrogant (for the most part), and they are normal people like your neighbor Bob who runs a gas station. They wouldn't break security rules any more than Bob would steal something you left in your car while he worked on it. It's a matter of pride and a sense of national responsibility and trust.
Yes, there are a very few bad apples at the lab. Wen Ho Lee was one, and the woman from the trailer park was another. We have thousands of people at the lab, and we can't protect against the stupid actions of one or two of them without crippling the rest of us. Even if we instituted full cavity searches on every person entering or leaving the lab, we can't protect against the unauthorized disclosure of classified material that walks out the door in our heads. We have to trust the people that work at LANL. We need to check them out enough to make sure that we can trust them.
The spotlight from the national media that is on LANL now is dooming us to failure. There will be some screwup in the future. There are too many events that could fail. No situation like this is perfect. Compare this with driving in New York City: we license all the drivers and have them take tests to ensure their proficiency. The individual drivers have strong incentives to drive correctly to avoid tickets and to protect their passengers, their cars, and themselves. Yet, accidents happen. We cannot guarantee "no accidents" in New York; we can't even guarantee no (driving) accidents in Los Alamos.
Look for motives. Assume stupidity or ignorance rather than malice. The trailer park woman was trying to get her job done and stupidly put that ahead of security. Nanos wasn't bright enough to understand the problem, so he tried to force a solution the only way he knew how. Various congressional types are trying to satisfy their constituents or to make a name for themselves. Wen Ho was not that smart and was worried about losing his job. None of this makes what these people have done right, but it does help to understand their actions.
Instead of all the complaining on the blog, we should direct our energies towards something positive. One thing that I note LANL is lacking is positive PR. Our managers seem to have trouble coming up with a reason for our existence, and don't seem to understand what we do. I suggest that all the blog posters should put something together to show the world why we are important. If we don't like what the media, congress, and the DOE/NNSA are saying about us, we should give them better things to say. Maybe a Wiki site where lab staff could post their achievements, their publications, their capabilities. We can also counter any inaccuracies in the media, not with a sniping soundbite, but with a well thought out response. We are the ones who can do this best. Nobody is fighting for us, we must fight for ourselves.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 12:36 AM
: 2/27/2007 12:36 AM
"Want to provide some facts that support your position [on Wen Ho Lee]?" -2/26/2007 8:03 PM to Pat.
Sorry, can't do that; it would be revealing classified information which I am not free to divulge.
--Pat
Sorry, can't do that; it would be revealing classified information which I am not free to divulge.
--Pat
BTW, 'Helga Gauss' has got it exactly right. If LANL haters get their way, namely, LANL stops being a research laboratory, they will end up doing far more damage to national security than Wen Ho Lee, Jessica Quintana, and G. Peter Nanos, combined.
--Pat
--Pat
"If you don't think LLNL can do a lot of what is done at LANL, you have lived at altitude too long."
Spoken like a true LLNL employee. So you want it all. Well, good luck because you might be able to do it after a long learning curve. By that time we'll be in 4th place behind Iran, North Korea, and China.
"Wouldn't Quintana's clearance indicate the process is somehow broken and that others cleared by this same process should be cleared again by a new and improved process?"
This shows ignorance of how one is granted a Q Clearance. The process is not LANL's. The process is DOE's.
PR is a sticky point with many of us. If you are doing good work, you should not have to beat your own drum. And for too many years we worked without problems. Folks working on unclassified projects did the drum beating via papers and conferences. Those on the classified side just worked 50+ hours/week.
Suddenly we have Wen Ho supposedly copying the "weapons program's best tools for modeling performance" or maybe not the "weapons program's best tools for modeling performance" to tape, we have idiots buying camping gear on LANL PR's, we have the "was it or wasn't it an attempt to purchase a mustang", we have lost disks found behind a Xerox machine (with no understanding of how those little buggers escaped from a vault and crawled behind the machine), we have missing CREM that never existed, and finally (no not final, just the last for now), we have JQ writing classified information to a USB drive and removing it from LANL. This last problem was easily preventable had computer security been on the ball in 2005 and followed up on a notification about the USB vulnerability on the secure. Oh, then we have John Mitchell and his abrupt departure which will probably be buried as a "personnel issue". Of course he's a Bechtel employee so he's not really a LANL problem.
You want good PR? Form an organization and dump all the good PR you possibly can onto the news services. They won't care because it's not interesting. The news story with the highest ratings the last few weeks has been where Anna Nicole will be buried, followed by who is the father of Anna Nicole's daughter. Try to top that with a story that says LANL did thus-and-such without any safety or security problems, but we can't tell you what thus-and-such is because it's classified.
Spoken like a true LLNL employee. So you want it all. Well, good luck because you might be able to do it after a long learning curve. By that time we'll be in 4th place behind Iran, North Korea, and China.
"Wouldn't Quintana's clearance indicate the process is somehow broken and that others cleared by this same process should be cleared again by a new and improved process?"
This shows ignorance of how one is granted a Q Clearance. The process is not LANL's. The process is DOE's.
PR is a sticky point with many of us. If you are doing good work, you should not have to beat your own drum. And for too many years we worked without problems. Folks working on unclassified projects did the drum beating via papers and conferences. Those on the classified side just worked 50+ hours/week.
Suddenly we have Wen Ho supposedly copying the "weapons program's best tools for modeling performance" or maybe not the "weapons program's best tools for modeling performance" to tape, we have idiots buying camping gear on LANL PR's, we have the "was it or wasn't it an attempt to purchase a mustang", we have lost disks found behind a Xerox machine (with no understanding of how those little buggers escaped from a vault and crawled behind the machine), we have missing CREM that never existed, and finally (no not final, just the last for now), we have JQ writing classified information to a USB drive and removing it from LANL. This last problem was easily preventable had computer security been on the ball in 2005 and followed up on a notification about the USB vulnerability on the secure. Oh, then we have John Mitchell and his abrupt departure which will probably be buried as a "personnel issue". Of course he's a Bechtel employee so he's not really a LANL problem.
You want good PR? Form an organization and dump all the good PR you possibly can onto the news services. They won't care because it's not interesting. The news story with the highest ratings the last few weeks has been where Anna Nicole will be buried, followed by who is the father of Anna Nicole's daughter. Try to top that with a story that says LANL did thus-and-such without any safety or security problems, but we can't tell you what thus-and-such is because it's classified.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 6:43 AM
: 2/27/2007 6:43 AM
Wouldn't Quintana's clearance indicate the process is somehow broken and that others cleared by this same process should be cleared again by a new and improved process?
"This shows ignorance of how one is granted a Q Clearance. The process is not LANL's. The process is DOE's."
Nice diversion, however LANL isn't mentioned in the question. Perhaps you have lived at altitude too long.
"This shows ignorance of how one is granted a Q Clearance. The process is not LANL's. The process is DOE's."
Nice diversion, however LANL isn't mentioned in the question. Perhaps you have lived at altitude too long.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 10:09 AM
: 2/27/2007 10:09 AM
Spoken like a true LLNL employee. So you want it all. Well, good luck because you might be able to do it after a long learning curve. By that time we'll be in 4th place behind Iran, North Korea, and China.
After a long learning curve? I don't think we have to worry about learning anything from LANL. If it gets to the point where LLNL needs to do it all, plus whatever LANL does, I am sure they will do a very good job; and without anyones help. Having seen this post it may truly be time to make LANL a manufacturing facility only, where the "skeleton crew work force" is watch as closely as the employees in the counting room of any Vegas casino's.
After a long learning curve? I don't think we have to worry about learning anything from LANL. If it gets to the point where LLNL needs to do it all, plus whatever LANL does, I am sure they will do a very good job; and without anyones help. Having seen this post it may truly be time to make LANL a manufacturing facility only, where the "skeleton crew work force" is watch as closely as the employees in the counting room of any Vegas casino's.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 1:42 PM
: 2/27/2007 1:42 PM
"Wouldn't Quintana's clearance indicate the process is somehow broken and that others cleared by this same process should be cleared again by a new and improved process?"
No. No matter how thoroughly someone is investigated, it's not possible to be 100% sure that the person will never do something wrong. Please get out of the mindset of thinking that a process can be developed that will ensure nothing bad will ever happen.
And the altitude has nothing to do with it. Perhaps sea level causes fuzzy thinking. I think OPM still performs the clearance process. Please feel free to contact them.
LANL has not had many years of security violations, contrary to the 2/27/07 4:58PM comment, and based on that it looks like the clearance process works pretty well. One can walk out of LANL with lots of information in his/her head. One can walk out with lots of printed information if it's not stamped correctly. JQ should not have been able to use a USB device on the secure because the computer security people were, in 2005, unable to understand a simple explanation of why LANL should disable USB ports on the secure ASAP. In my opinion the computer security people are just as responsible and should be fired. That won't happen, of course.
No. No matter how thoroughly someone is investigated, it's not possible to be 100% sure that the person will never do something wrong. Please get out of the mindset of thinking that a process can be developed that will ensure nothing bad will ever happen.
And the altitude has nothing to do with it. Perhaps sea level causes fuzzy thinking. I think OPM still performs the clearance process. Please feel free to contact them.
LANL has not had many years of security violations, contrary to the 2/27/07 4:58PM comment, and based on that it looks like the clearance process works pretty well. One can walk out of LANL with lots of information in his/her head. One can walk out with lots of printed information if it's not stamped correctly. JQ should not have been able to use a USB device on the secure because the computer security people were, in 2005, unable to understand a simple explanation of why LANL should disable USB ports on the secure ASAP. In my opinion the computer security people are just as responsible and should be fired. That won't happen, of course.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 1:52 PM
: 2/27/2007 1:52 PM
Pat 2/27 5:52 am:
"Want to provide some facts that support your position [on Wen Ho Lee]?" -2/26/2007 8:03 PM to Pat.
Sorry, can't do that; it would be revealing classified information which I am not free to divulge."
Interesting. All of the classified information about Lee's activities and their results that I am aware of is damning, not exculpatory. He got off because all of the evidence presented in court was unclassified.
"Want to provide some facts that support your position [on Wen Ho Lee]?" -2/26/2007 8:03 PM to Pat.
Sorry, can't do that; it would be revealing classified information which I am not free to divulge."
Interesting. All of the classified information about Lee's activities and their results that I am aware of is damning, not exculpatory. He got off because all of the evidence presented in court was unclassified.
# posted by : 2/27/2007 7:20 PM
: 2/27/2007 7:20 PM
Anonymous said...
"If you don't think LLNL can do a lot of what is done at LANL, you have lived at altitude too long."
Spoken like a true LLNL employee. So you want it all. Well, good luck because you might be able to do it after a long learning curve. By that time we'll be in 4th place behind Iran, North Korea, and China.
This is after the B61-Mod 500? Another "new" design?
"If you don't think LLNL can do a lot of what is done at LANL, you have lived at altitude too long."
Spoken like a true LLNL employee. So you want it all. Well, good luck because you might be able to do it after a long learning curve. By that time we'll be in 4th place behind Iran, North Korea, and China.
This is after the B61-Mod 500? Another "new" design?
# posted by : 2/27/2007 8:29 PM
: 2/27/2007 8:29 PM
Anonymous, 2/27/2007 7:20 PM:
Like many who make comments here on the blog, you don't read very carefully. It's a skill you should work on. I said, "From a couple of classified internal sources, we know (let me repeat that: KNOW) that Wen Ho Lee did not leak anything to Red China." I did NOT say that Wen Ho Lee did nothing wrong; he did; he did a helluva LOT wrong. But leaking LANL bomb-design data to Red China was not among them. -Back to school, Jack!
--Pat
Like many who make comments here on the blog, you don't read very carefully. It's a skill you should work on. I said, "From a couple of classified internal sources, we know (let me repeat that: KNOW) that Wen Ho Lee did not leak anything to Red China." I did NOT say that Wen Ho Lee did nothing wrong; he did; he did a helluva LOT wrong. But leaking LANL bomb-design data to Red China was not among them. -Back to school, Jack!
--Pat
Pat,
Besides posters not carefully reading other people's posts, there's also the problem of people's posts containing exaggerations such as "Based on many years of security violations at LANL".
My best guess about these folks is that they know that no one takes them seriously but they like to read their own posts, sort of like hearing their own voices even if they have nothing to contribute.
Besides posters not carefully reading other people's posts, there's also the problem of people's posts containing exaggerations such as "Based on many years of security violations at LANL".
My best guess about these folks is that they know that no one takes them seriously but they like to read their own posts, sort of like hearing their own voices even if they have nothing to contribute.
# posted by : 2/28/2007 11:04 AM
: 2/28/2007 11:04 AM
"2/27/2007 6:43 AM" said "You want good PR? Form an organization and dump all the good PR you possibly can onto the news services. They won't care because it's not interesting."
Well 6:43AM has it just right == positive news stories, phone calls, and emails flood out of here to reporters all the time on good work here, but there's a key component you have to take into account: Editorial News Judgement. If the readers are focused on Anna N. Smith's rotting remains, why in God's green earth do we think a story on quantum cryptography or a new air monitoring station in Germany is going to light their fires?
Will the new NISC conference room named for a fine scientist make Congress feel good? Is 40 years of nuclear safeguards really going to lead the NYTimes above the fold?
Face it, that stuff's only important to LANL STAFF. Try even telling your wife and kids about the ARM station or safeguards. See their eyes glaze? You can put out all the verbiage you want, but the national taste for scandal will not be reduced.
Yes, we should be responding quickly and fiercely when the facts are wrong, and we should be pushing our corporate overlords to get off their duffs and protect us.
But don't be thinking a cascade of happy talk onto the reporters' fax machines is going to change the way they see us -- unless one of you bright folks comes up with (1)a fantastic IED detector to deploy in Iraq TOMORROW that (2) DOD lets us talk about.
Well 6:43AM has it just right == positive news stories, phone calls, and emails flood out of here to reporters all the time on good work here, but there's a key component you have to take into account: Editorial News Judgement. If the readers are focused on Anna N. Smith's rotting remains, why in God's green earth do we think a story on quantum cryptography or a new air monitoring station in Germany is going to light their fires?
Will the new NISC conference room named for a fine scientist make Congress feel good? Is 40 years of nuclear safeguards really going to lead the NYTimes above the fold?
Face it, that stuff's only important to LANL STAFF. Try even telling your wife and kids about the ARM station or safeguards. See their eyes glaze? You can put out all the verbiage you want, but the national taste for scandal will not be reduced.
Yes, we should be responding quickly and fiercely when the facts are wrong, and we should be pushing our corporate overlords to get off their duffs and protect us.
But don't be thinking a cascade of happy talk onto the reporters' fax machines is going to change the way they see us -- unless one of you bright folks comes up with (1)a fantastic IED detector to deploy in Iraq TOMORROW that (2) DOD lets us talk about.
# posted by : 2/28/2007 12:08 PM
: 2/28/2007 12:08 PM
Pat 2/28 8:30 am:
"I did NOT say that Wen Ho Lee did nothing wrong; he did; he did a helluva LOT wrong. But leaking LANL bomb-design data to Red China was not among them. -Back to school, Jack!"
My last word on WHL: to repeat myself, if you admit he stole secrets. how could you possibly know who wound up with them? Do you think China refused to look at them once they were available? Or are you simply disingenuously claiming that WHL didn't INTEND them to go to China? Either way, no sale, being a WHL apologist isn't very becoming.
"I did NOT say that Wen Ho Lee did nothing wrong; he did; he did a helluva LOT wrong. But leaking LANL bomb-design data to Red China was not among them. -Back to school, Jack!"
My last word on WHL: to repeat myself, if you admit he stole secrets. how could you possibly know who wound up with them? Do you think China refused to look at them once they were available? Or are you simply disingenuously claiming that WHL didn't INTEND them to go to China? Either way, no sale, being a WHL apologist isn't very becoming.
# posted by : 2/28/2007 7:35 PM
: 2/28/2007 7:35 PM
Your "last word," eh? I guess you have a kind of white-hot blind spot on this whole WHL thing. I am no "apologist" for him; I have just consistently pointed out that his accusers wanted him to be the Red Chinese spy of their wet dreams, and he wasn't. Someone else was. And that individual was NOT from Los Alamos.
Take your hatred of LANL elsewhere, Jack.
--Pat
Take your hatred of LANL elsewhere, Jack.
--Pat
Well, 2/28/2007 12:08 PM, how fantastic remains to be seen, but apparantly TNT-crazed bees do some of the trick: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-11-26-bees-bomb-sniffing_x.htm
Whether it helps to boost LANLs public image, I doubt it.
Whether it helps to boost LANLs public image, I doubt it.
# posted by : 2/28/2007 9:01 PM
: 2/28/2007 9:01 PM
Pat 2/28 7:52 pm:
"Take your hatred of LANL elsewhere, Jack."
What, so YOUR "hatred of LANL" can be ascendant?? What a joke! Just FYI - I don't hate LANL, or else I wouldn't have stayed here 30 years (see, I have choices). Unlike you, I don't even hate its management, past or current. I'm just a simple scientist who wants truth instead of invective or spin. Once more, for the just-tuned-in, my complaint was never about LANL, DOE, or anyone else. I just wanted to get the truth out once I saw statements by you that were short of that, on a subject about which I have some detailed knowledge. If you meant no misstatement, my apologies. On the other hand, if your original intent was to deceive by omission or misdirection, you are by no means alone these days. My intention is to keep fighting and exposing that particulsr despicable practice.
"Take your hatred of LANL elsewhere, Jack."
What, so YOUR "hatred of LANL" can be ascendant?? What a joke! Just FYI - I don't hate LANL, or else I wouldn't have stayed here 30 years (see, I have choices). Unlike you, I don't even hate its management, past or current. I'm just a simple scientist who wants truth instead of invective or spin. Once more, for the just-tuned-in, my complaint was never about LANL, DOE, or anyone else. I just wanted to get the truth out once I saw statements by you that were short of that, on a subject about which I have some detailed knowledge. If you meant no misstatement, my apologies. On the other hand, if your original intent was to deceive by omission or misdirection, you are by no means alone these days. My intention is to keep fighting and exposing that particulsr despicable practice.
# posted by : 2/28/2007 10:07 PM
: 2/28/2007 10:07 PM
I give you the last word, 2/28/2007 10:07 PM. But I'll give you even more than the last word if you tell me what WHL's real internal motivation was. By that I mean, what really drove him to do the things that he did, and who, if anyone, likely benefited from his espionage, if that's what it was.
Obviously, you and I have seen the same things and drawn quite different conclusions from them. (Including the uniformity of the quality of management in the last 30 years.) And my guess is, upon reflection, that we can disagree quite vigorously and still not hate LANL.
--Pat
Obviously, you and I have seen the same things and drawn quite different conclusions from them. (Including the uniformity of the quality of management in the last 30 years.) And my guess is, upon reflection, that we can disagree quite vigorously and still not hate LANL.
--Pat
Obviously no one knows WHL's motivations. It is clear he did what he did intentionally, over a long period of time, and knowingly violated a vast number of regulations and deceived a large number of his supervisors and coworkers in doing so. And, it wasn't just about computer files. That much is public record. I just know the result was potentially catastrophic to US national security, depending on who actually received the stolen material. As for our disagreement, I agree with your statement. Peace.
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# posted by : 3/01/2007 7:26 PM
: 3/01/2007 7:26 PM << Home
