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Los Alamos Security Infiltrated By Reporter
morcheeba writes "Wired reported Noah Shachtman gives a first-hand account of his entry into a high-security area at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yes, there are pictures. It seems that the birthplace of the atom bomb is being guarded by string, backed up by guards with empty holsters. There's a little more info on Noah's Defense Tech website."
Actually, Aline was the one to fend off the would-be stabber using a state of the art "big rock" (an inuit sculpture). The wife was doing most of the threatening as I understand it ;- )
We also had a journalist go and plant a big roung prop with a string sticking out and the word "Bomb" in bold white letters on the PM's summer home's porche...
You can't take the sky from me...
So this guy got onto the grounds of the lab, and was able to access a decrepid old shack. I'll bet money he couldn't have gotten anywhere where there was top-secret research or information.
So he made it onto the grounds and into an abandoned buiilding. They have problems with coyotes doing the same thing. Most of the grounds are not guarded or even fenced in. Its parameter is some 40 miles. There are even trailer houses in the unsecure areas, for civilian paperwork and such, sometimes known are the Leper Colony. The secure parts are, however, quite secure. Surveillance, armed guards and razor wire galore. This area is still not very interesting. The good stuff is wrapped in a couple more layers. Even someone with Q clearance cannot take a recording device or cell phone in there.
Watch. He will be prosecuted, and any journalists that try to make a fuss about it will be shown the secure facilities and then be reminded that trying to break into a government facility is a bad idea, regardless. The reporter will be shown to be the fool that he is.
The reason the US didn't rank well was due to their hesitacny to allow unprepared reporters into combat zones.
The report was heavily biased BTW, for Political Reasons.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Allow me to refer you here.
This is where you lose me. If you dont think that terrorists are a "Real Problem" I'd like to know what is, or I can give you a tour of Ground Zero.
Methinks that, when he mentioned overinflated threats, he was referring to the impending war with Iraq. That seems to imply that the parent poster likewise considered terrorists to be a "real problem", but one which is not addressed by bombing Baghdad.
I remember an anecdote (in Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, I think) that Los Alamos's security was pretty lax even during the Manhattan Project. Apparently there were a few places in the gate where local Indians were occasionally let through by the scientists and workers to watch movies and hang out.
If I'm not mistaken, Los Alamos is also where Feynman got his reputation for lockpicking, since he taught himself how to break into the safes where classified documents were stored and prove to the higher-ups that security wasn't as tight as they'd wanted to believe.
:wq
For example, you kill someone - a criminal act. If it is shown that you didn't intend to kill them (for example, that your brakes failed), you have no criminal intent.
Some types of crimes require intent, others don't. So, while you won't be convicted of murder i n the above case, if it is shown that you were aware the brakes were defective and that you neglected to do anything about it, you will probably be convicted of manslaughter. :-(
Yeah, there are a LOT of places around Los Alamos that you really don't want to break into. You gotta remember, they did a lot of things with dangerous materials between 1940 and 1960. That was before people really thought that just dumping stuff in a hole might not be enough. There are quite a few places where you want to wear gloves, plastic baggies over your shoes, and a filter mask. Admittedly, AFAIK they're all behind fences, but they may not all be guarded. Never jump a fence at LANL. You don't want alpha-emitters in your bloodstream.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
Layers. Sure, at most US military bases, you can probably sneak over the fence and walk around. Maybe even sneak into a warehouse or other empty building.
One person walking around and getting into an office building is almost certainly no problem (depending on the alert level).
But to get to the 'good stuff' you have to go through an incredible number of steps. And there is *no way* to access anything really sensitive without quite a few people knowing and challenging you.
This is much ado about nothing.
Don't get me wrong. There is plenty to criticize about security at Los Alamos. But the article is akin to bragging that you got into the "johnny on the spot" outhouse in an used section under construction on the outskirts of a military base.
I will admit that they ought to be more secure about letting people *out* of facilities though. I used to work late and the guards left at 6 and there was only a unidirectional turnstile "guarding" the place. While there were other measures to retain building security, I could have walked out with lots of stuff had I wanted to. If I wanted to get in at night I'd just call the Pro Force and they'd let me into the building, no questions asked, so long as I had a security badge.
However lets also be honest. Most of the stuff labelled "top secret" really isn't terribly significant. The stuff that is important has a *lot* more security on it. For instance our really important servers and stuff were in sealed rooms and then inside rather large safes in those rooms. And only a few people had the passwords. We had all sorts of restrictions for cable length to avoid hacking via E&M signals. We had pretty amazing encryption devices. And the really important areas had amazing security. The weakest link, as always, tends to be the employees and not these sorts of things.
There are problems, but what this story discusses aren't they.
Most of the lab grounds are open access. I have photos of some of the same regions from hikes I took around the region. The "No Trespassing" signs that he took pictures of don't say "No Trespassing" because it's a top secret region, they say it because if you walk past them, you will plummet off a cliff to your immediate death. The fences are there for protection of hikers, not security. The REAL secured areas of the lab have high quality prison caliber barbed-wire fences, video surveillance entirely surrounding the area, armed guards in watch towers, and you aren't even permitted to slow down when driving past.
Basically, this reporter took a glorified hiking tour of the region, but missed most of the beautiful landscape of the area.
It's probably too late in slashdot time for anyone to hear this but I'm currently reading a book called "The Savage Nation" and the Author was just talking about how this specific place was broken into.
In October 2000 Mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear material, which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of sevral states including New Mexico and Colorado. In an earlier test at the same lab an army special forces team used a household garden cart to haul away enough weapons-graded uranium to build sevral nuclear weapons. Feeling secure?
A different site (incase you are curious) on the Rocky Flat site near Denver, Navy SEALs cut a hole in a chain-link fence as they excaped with enough plutonium for sevral nuclear bombs.
The scary part about this is that ALL sites were told a security exercise would come.
The Author says these are not B.S. and were reported in the Chicago Tribune
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller