![]() The official said that a password was needed to access the information even after Lee transferred it from the classified computer system. When the FBI finally searched Lee's computer last month, following his dismissal March 8, the official said, they found he had made an effort to erase some of the classified material. "It looks like he was moving quickly to get it transferred before the new system came in," the official said. The transfers took place from 1983 to 1995, when Los Alamos began installing a new mechanism that would have made such transfers more difficult. ![]() One senior administration official, sounding far less optimistic than Richardson, said that "a massive amount of very, very sensitive information was transferred from classified to nonclassified computers, and we may never know if it went anywhere else." "This does not come as news to this administration," he added. The espionage in the Manhattan Project pale in comparison."ĭavid Leavy, a National Security Council spokesman, said Clinton has been briefed on the case by Richardson and is "confident that he is doing everything that should be done."Īsked whether Clinton stands by a statement he made last month that there was no evidence indicating Chinese espionage on his watch, Leavy said administration officials are "investigating a number of recent allegations and are under no illusion that China and other nations continue to try to acquire our secrets." McKinzie, said that unauthorized access to those programs – so-called legacy codes used to simulate warhead detonations – would represent "an unprecedented act of espionage, in its scope. "If someone had access to unclassified computer, this could be all over the world." Norris, a senior analyst and nuclear weapons expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's staggering – I'm still in shock here," said Robert S. His concern was shared by leading nuclear weapons experts, who described the computer programs and data inputs transferred by Lee as a body of historic knowledge developed through 50 years of research and more than 1,000 nuclear tests. "We've got to get to the bottom of this whole thing." "I've known that this is an ongoing investigation and they were just at the tip of the iceberg – and that's obvious now," said Shelby. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the new information about Lee's massive data transfer "confirms my worst fears" about lax security and counterintelligence at the weapons laboratories. This seemed likely to add fuel to a highly charged debate over the administration's handling of the espionage case centering mainly on Lee. The acknowledgment also makes clear for the first time that serious security breaches and evidence of possible espionage, first uncovered at Los Alamos during the Reagan and Bush administrations, continued into President Clinton's first term. "We don't know the extent of the damage, but I hardly believe that it's on a massive scale, from our preliminary findings."īut Richardson's statement, confirming a report in yesterday's New York Times, raised the possibility that Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born physicist at Los Alamos fired last month after reports he was a suspect, may have made available to China far more sensitive information than previously imagined. "We need to make a thorough assessment and not compromise the law enforcement investigation," Richardson said in an interview. The Clinton administration acknowledged yesterday that an espionage suspect at Los Alamos National Laboratory transferred secret nuclear weapons data from a classified computer network to an unclassified system vulnerable to outsiders.Įnergy Secretary Bill Richardson called the data transfer, between 19, "a serious security breach that is unconscionable." But he stressed that FBI agents have yet to determine whether the highly sensitive data, covering years of nuclear weapons research and testing, have been pilfered from the unclassified computers by foreign countries. ![]() Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called the security breach "unconscionable."
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |