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."

Comments

Re:No Criminal Intent

[tomhudson]

Actually, intent is crucial in the most important cases. You have the "actus reus" - the criminal act, and the "mens rea" - the criminal mind.

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. :-(

Not much different than most mil bases

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

Exaggerated

[WatertonMan]

He got into TA-33 which while labelled high security really isn't that big a deal. Now had he gotten into TA-55 with 3 layers of barbed wire, lots of guys with machine guns and other stuff *then* I'd be impressed. Hell, I'd have thought he'd have at least gotten into the secure part of the library. But no, all he did was wander into the forest near a National Park. Hell, even the unused forests up from there have motion detectors and security forces.

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.