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82-Year-Old Nun Breaks Into Nuclear Facility, Contractors Blamed
Lasrick writes "Private security contractors strike again, this time at the Y-12 National Security Complex. A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter cut through three security fences to find themselves 20 feet away from highly dangerous nuclear material. And of course, only one guard has been fired (the one who arguably acted the bravest and did the right thing). A Department of Energy report (PDF) on the incident found 'troubling displays of ineptitude in responding to alarms, failures to maintain critical 2
security equipment, over reliance on compensatory measures, misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and weaknesses in contract and resource management.' The contractors have been put on notice, (PDF), but they still have the contracts."
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Sounds like the start of a joke, "A nun, a gardener, and a house painter go into a nuclear facility..."
I read 'over reliance on compensatory measures' as needing their paychecks too badly... Now if you'll excuse me, I have bills to pay.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
I'm totally picturing this happening like it's an episode of the Simpsons in my head.
A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter walk into a bar...
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
Admittedly, he didn't shoot anyone, which he was apparently entitled to do, but at the same time, he actually stopped any further mischief and was the only person (aside from the protesters) who didn't embarrass the whole nation.
It's a pity Joseph Heller isn't around to write his life story or something.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
...the easiest person to fire is the one who got fired. How many times does that happen each day.
is that the guard who encountered the intruders was fired.
There will be a small flap, and exchange of letters, self-righteous speeches, and it will be back to bidness as usual, which is to say what comes out of this will be slip-shod, ineffective, pretty on paper, and a few highers will make more money.
When will government figure it out, that private firms are crap...
Next time you're being fondled or irradiated at an airport in the Holy Name of Security think back to the extreme examples of incompetence, like this, that constantly bonk each other in the head at all levels.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry
I blame Apple maps.
I know, dead horse is dead.
They keep throwing around this phrase "within 20 feet", but what does it actually mean? Were they a short walk away from touching the nuclear material, or were they separated from it by 20 feet of steel walls and blast doors? You can fit a lot of security into twenty feet.
A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter walk into a bar. The bartender says: "Is this some kind of joke?"
"B&W Y-12, a partnership of the Babcock & Wilcox Company and Bechtel Corporation, operates Y-12 under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy, of which the NNSA is a part". link
This is Slashdot. Nuclear material is perfectly safe, in fact it's quite delicious, and unless we build new reactors for every single suburb, in ten years we will be living in an apocolyptic world with no electricity.
Seriously, I've heard that many of them have started making a little extra doing espionage for foreign governments - to feed their habits.
um... if security is so lax, why aren't all those terrorists out there taking advantage of these security lapses? something doesn't add up here.
and the profit motive at work.. it really brings a tear to the eye when I consider how well unregulated private industry can solve these problems that governments just waste money on!
The fact that you anticipated the accusation that you are new here, by admitting that you are new here, suggests that you are not new here.
If security is this lax in the US, what's it like in other countries long forgotten stockpiles?
If the guard force had responded properly, there would be dead bodies. The people approaching the facility had cut through three fences and had backpacks which could have contained explosives. Shooting them was authorized. But the IG report doesn't admit that.
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
If he's the only person doing his job then that means his superiors that fired him also were not doing their job correctly -- their correct job being to fire the people who had failed through inaction. So, in order to maintain his status of being the only person who did his job, he would have to be fired otherwise his superiors might be misconstrued as doing their job correctly. This is all very simple Dilbert 101.
My work here is dung.
Precisely because:
The company was asked why it shouldn't be fired. They suck and had no plan, but by firing someone they could appear to be "taking action". Buy why the guy who did something? I'm not really sure how that logic works. Probably claimed he should have found the intruders sooner - obviously it was his area to patrol since he found them (not obviously anyone else's problem). Yes yes, I'm remembering how a PHB thinks.
God knows....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You have been taught that terrorist would like to use "nookular" dirt bomb. In reality it is very difficult to spread radioactive elements which are not in liquid form in the atmosphere. You ahve to chose a medium half life element(short half life would be gone before the attack, long half life are much less dangerous and you can act upon them, for example by chelation and other operations or giving a similar non radioactive elemnt to saturate the body). So that leaves medium half lives. Then you have to have it in dust, and have a way to spread it wide, or have it soluble. And if you spread it too thin, then you don't get any effect, as people won't be able to get fears by seeing their geiger counter see anything. If it must be thick then the quantity matters, as a heavy weight is not easy to lumber around. And you have to avoid the various radiation detector.
Now compare to simply putting a bomb, say, at a a building like the WTC parking. Much MUCH easier. And as effective. And very cheap.
It's cause they don't get none!
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here in the Tiki Room all week. Try the duck.
And this is why I heavily oppose leaving matters of security, safety, or health completely in the hands of one or more private companies. These three areas are rarely ever cost-effective and they're not meant to be. The reason we have these services in the first place is because people feel that they are valuable to the well-being of individuals as well as society as a whole, not because there is necessarily an economic benefit. I'm not opposed to having private companies involved in these three areas, but I believe there needs to be strict standards on the quality of service they provide, strong government oversight to make sure they're operating up to those standards, and repercussions for failing to meet the standards.
It doesn't sound as sensational after reading TFA.
Wasn't there some news recently about record numbers of unemployed veterans? Kick the private contractors out and bring in a bunch of people with security clearance and guard duty experience.
You can't be that naive.
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Probably has to do with this quote and link from the article:
The obvious problems that result from so much contractor freedom are made clear by the recent inspector general report, which determined that this lack of federal oversight at least partially contributed to the success of the break-in PDF: "When questioned as to why action was not taken to address growing maintenance backlogs, Federal officials told us that with the advent of NNSA's contractor governance system (Contractor Assurance System), they could no longer intervene." In light of these findings, the inspector general had serious questions about the Energy Department's overall approach and determined that "current initiatives to reduce Federal oversight of the nuclear weapons complex, especially as they relate to security functions, need to be carefully considered."
There are many forms of nationalized security: some very bad (TSA) and some very good (National Guard). Private industry will save you money and, when pitted against each other in true capitalism form, they will cut corners to win contracts. Somethings should have security independent of how the economy is doing or how low some no talent ass clown is willing to bid on a contract.
My work here is dung.
Perhaps she was searching for nuclear wessels?
...was that the nun was 8 months pregnant under that habit.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Curse you for beating me to it...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
s/nun/muslim\ woman/ relatively similar attire, devotion to religious purity and god. The reaction i suspect would however have been to close the nuclear facility, seal off the town, arrest the security guards, quarantine the state as a no-fly zone, burn the constitution and start a war with next->countryOn($list);
Good people go to bed earlier.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said, "The department has no tolerance for security breaches at any of our sites, and I am committed to ensure that those responsible will be held accountable."
you're a nun, you say? Well thanks for the free security assessment. In return, heres some biblical retribution.
Good people go to bed earlier.
That's why he was fired; he left the protesters alive, to give their story of how freaking easy it was.
If he'd shot them all, it would have been spun very differently, I'm sure; people would still be looking for the missing protesters, and a "terrorist group" would have been the aggressor, all killed in the attempt.
The Nun in question fell down during a TV interview at the Blount Co. Courthouse, and broke both wrists. :)
I grew up in OR, moved years ago, upwind. :)
In our drunkest hours, we never would have thought to do anything like this, lol. I always just assumed they Would shoot anyone on sight...
Talk about Security Theater... :facepalm:
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Is it possible that this is misinformation? intended to deceive some would-be attackers? Just a thought.....
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
I have seen security ignore an alarm that the AC failed in the server room. Security is only as good as you pay for. The military should be securing the weapons grade material not some contractor. Of course it is all the contractors fault and not the people hiring and auditing the contractor.
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Why is this being handled by private security at all? I pay taxes to give young, trigger happy marines the state of the fucking art tools for committing mass murder in the most efficient way possible. Why aren't there a ring of marines surrounding this place with orders to kill ANYTHING that doesn't come through the main gate with orders signed in triplicate?
Military weapon fuel, military security.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I lived in that area, and these people were in the news every year around August 5th (the Hiroshima anniversary). They and a lot of others gather to protest outside Y-12. You might look for better coverage in the local press, like the Knoxville News Sentinel. The linked article seems to exaggerate a bit, or at least to overstate the situation. At any rate, these people aren't violent, so far, and aren't likely to be, and I doubt they were actually near any "nuclear material," unless you're talking about the radioactive duck shit or "hot frogs on the loose." As to security and problems, well, oh boy. There are some there. Fires. Leaks and the aforementioned radioactive fauna. And then there are the Billy Bob Bubba approaches to security. And there's stuff that has gone on, at least according to hearsay that is more serious and that doesn't get covered, things like people watching the place and following the shipping trucks around.
Sounds like a movie script involving Robert Redford, Syney Poiter and Anne Hathaway
Pakistan gets droned because their pile of Uranium is insecure?
Friend of a friend was a hacker who got that dream job: Security compliance at the Texas nuclear plants.
After he:
1) Fooled them into letting him in by carrying a box and asking them to hold the door.
2) Punched into a secure room by going through two sheets of sheetrock.
3) Punched into a "steel clad" area by showing the "steel" was easily cut with a hacksaw.
4) climbed out of the "man trap" within 30 seconds of being "trapped"
5) fooled employees into giving various passwords and access to secure areas..
and a half dozen other weaknesses...
They posted his PICTURE and told employees to be sure to keep an eye out for the security compliance guy.
They didn't really want to fix the problems.
Nuke plants are apparently mostly security through obscurity and bluffing.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So this nun gardener, and house painter walk into a nuclear facility...
[insert joke here]
I saw it on the local news yesterday, in fact, the notice is now a cancellation of their contract. I can tell you, they weren't your five star security contractor.
This isn't the first time in recent years this has happened... in 2009, protestors broke into SWFPAC at Naval Base Kitsap... which is where the USN keeps both D5 missiles and their warheads.
Sister Act 3: The Gardner Spy ...
right?
...I'd blame them
How many of those feet consisted of steel and concrete?
Have gnu, will travel.
The way I see it, there are several opportunities here. For starters, there are several jobs that should be advertised soon, also, there should be some contracts to come for security systems design, installation and maintenance. Failing that, I guess some enterprsing people could get into the business of uranium trading.....
Surely this at least calls for a wag of the finger!
The US has (from TFA) 300 to 400 metric tons of bomb-grade uranium?!
That... That is.. I mean. Who let them?!
*listens to phil collins and sting once more*
Privacy is terrorism.
This type of direct action civil disobedience has been going on since 1980, when the Berrigan brothers and others broke into a GE nuclear weapons plant in Pennsylvania and hammered on warhead nosecones. Dramatized in the excellent film "In the King of Prussia".
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
This is why we're not allowed to have nice things :(
Nuclear power could be awesome, but human beings struggle to maintain the level of focus required to keep it safe.
Seniors breaking into a Nuclear reactor?
I know it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that I've seen this show before...
I know what kind of people are hired for security. They are shit. They have annoying personalities. But seeing as how most of society is full of self-righteous assholes with an immense rap sheet, they are the best for getting hired on minimum wage, seeing how no one else wants them. As for the 'bravest' security guard, he was fired to be promoted to a higher level with lower-than-permitted benefits.
What is more frightening is that they don't know precisely how much weapons grade uranium they have.
Oak Ridge has terminated the Wackenhut contract for security services at Y-12 on 9/28, four days before the byline of the article, and will assume responsibility for security itself. http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/release.php?id=308
It looks like this fact got missed by the writer of the article who stated, incorrectly, that "... Wackenhut Services, Inc. in Oak Ridge -- who knowingly allowed the security at Y-12 to fall far below acceptable levels. And yet, neither company has been held accountable in any discernable way."
Nun shall pass!
this actually happened on July 28, as may have been noticed by others.
these guards are not public employees as some seem to be trying to assert.
as someone who lives near enough to Y-12 to be incinerated if anyone has a bad day out there, I am afraid these contractors would turn tail and run in the face of a real attack. The only reason there are not highly trained and motivated Marines guarding the place instead of the fat, old, lazy wighams is a long standing desire by DOE to do its own thing independently of DOD. I for one would be very happy if DOE started its own elite guard school, or farmed it out to the military, and got rid of the hessians.
with a private contractor motivated by money rather than patriotism you always have to wonder how cheaply the security force could be bought off, and the whole cookie jar ripped off or destroyed, leaving us with no cookies at all or having to make the unfortunately-worded request 'please send back our nuclear warheads as quickly as possible'.
although i doubt it i hope the cookie jar is really a honeypot designed to lure in the bad guys, while the real nukes are in an abandoned bowling alley somewhere.
'During the early morning hours of July 28, 2012, three individuals (hereinafter referred to as the
trespassers), gained access to the area surrounding the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials
Facility (HEUMF) at Y-12 and defaced the building without being interrupted by the security
measures in place'
Defaced? What did they bless it?
captcha: tappers
The nature of public security requires liability for failure. The reason the corporate legal structure exits is to diminish liability. As long as grasping shareholders can wash their hands while lining their pockets providing an inferior service through corrupt minions, many corporations will. The defence industry is another case in point.
Like the billion+ Catholics who do not break into abortion clinics? How many of those are excommunicated? Zero.
Please don't attack straw men.
You have to draw the line somewhere. Just like we design a nuclear facility to survive certain level earthquakes, but not a magnitude 9, the same can be said for security. If the nun had been 70 even 75 years old, they would have been able to stop her, but 82? That's asking too much.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
'please send back our nuclear warheads as quickly as possible'.
I know a guy who could handle this in 24 hours, or less.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter" walk into a nuclear facility.
Yeees... and what's the rest of the joke?
Speaking as a former U.S. Marine *and* as a current contractor working in and around nuclear power facilities, I sincerely hope you're just joking. The idea that you consider Marines "trigger happy" is highly offensive.
I was just joking. The completely ridiculous statement about paying taxes to buy 'state of the fucking art tools for committing mass murder in the most efficient way possible' should have been a tip off.
The marines are tough, well disciplined troops who are really good at what they do. I said 'marines', and not army (typical for national defense installations), air force (since they control most of the delivery platforms), or national guard (The locals for the area) is because if you tell a marine to kill ANYONE who get within 100 years of the nuke fuel, he will do his job and he will do it well.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Hitler was a housepainter...
That is no reason not to flog it. I want to see bone showing before you put the whip down. Get to it!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Hyperbole, flamebait. The Inquisition practiced violence. The Congregatipon for the Doctrine of Faith only affirms what is Catholic teaching and what is not. In extreme cases, they may move a heretic bishop from his see - this is immensely different from what the Inquisition did.
And they are lenient - if you go to a Catholic university, you will find lots of undisturbed Marxist professors. Hell, even in Catholic parishes you can find Marxist priests.
In fact, even the USCCB issues very progressive statements on immigration, the environment, the death penalty, government welfare and most other issues. John Paul II opposed the Iraq War. The clergy is only "conservative" on the right to life and family values.
Saying that the Church clergy are conservatives is an outright fabrication.
The Church is not asking the LCWR to "focus less on social justice"; the Church is only asking them to be more Catholic - respect the importance of the Eucharist, stop absorbing New Age beliefs, stop moving "beyond Jesus" (their words)- and that they _also_ start defending integral Church teaching. Oh, and they should also stop publishing books that defend sexual chaos.
They don't have to diminish they anti-poverty actions one bit.
"A nun, a gardener, and a housepainter cut through three security fences [...]" What was the punchline?