US Nuclear Weapons Lab Loses 67 Computers

pnorth writes "Officials from New Mexico's Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory have confessed that 67 of its computers are missing, with no less than 13 of them having disappeared over the past year alone. A memo [PDF] leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost nuclear laptops to the public's attention, but the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed fears the computers contained highly-sensitive or classified information, noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.' Three of the 13 computers which went missing in the past year were stolen from a scientist's home on January 16 and the memo also mentioned a BlackBerry belonging to another staff member had been lost 'in a sensitive foreign country.' The labs faced similar issues back in 2003 when 22 laptops were designated as being 'unlocated.'"

Comments

I just wonder one thing

[causality]

I just wonder one thing. How many examples of incompetency like this do we need before maybe people will reconsider whether having government get into the health care business and all these other "growth areas" for government is really such a good idea? I mean, at least law enforcement, public works, and national defense really are legitimate roles of government; this one would fall under "national defense" and they failed miserably with this too.

I suggest that this incident highlights the fundamental untrustworthiness of government even when it's performing what is without question one of its proper roles. I mentioned some implications of this that may or may not have crossed your minds. What I am not doing is endorsing any alternative proposals or anything like that. I think we already have enough presented problems and prefabricated solutions; philosophical understanding or at least a grasping of some simple principles are what I'd like to see more of. I observe that our Founding Fathers had a strong and well-founded distrust of governmental power and that history since then has only provided more reasons to feel this way. I see this and then I notice that most Americans don't appreciate it, and that's despite the fact that we are close to becoming a totalitarian police state (to you reactionary knee-jerk types, the health care issue is not why I feel that way). The stage is set for it and if you study the early history of some of the 20th century's worst dictatorships, the parallels to their situation and ours are appalling. I just wonder at what point we can all decide "hey, the government is big enough and powerful enough and nothing good will become of continuing to expand it, maybe it's time to try something new".

Re:This doesn't jive

[myVarNamesAreTooLon]

How many people do YOU know that keep 13 computers in their ho... wait, scratch that... this is /.