This article has been posted to DoctorZin’s New News Blog!
Posted on 08/10/2004 9:27:12 AM PDT by Cooter
The presumed missing computer disks that forced the security shutdown and political uproar at Los Alamos National Lab, appear to not be missing at all.
KRQE News 13 has learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has concluded the disks, thought to have contained nuclear weapon secrets, were never missing.
In early July, lab officials announced that the disks were missing, prompting a massive and unprecedented security shutdown and consequent investigation. Nearly two dozen scientists and administrators were placed on leave and virtually all lab operations were suspended.
Now, sources tell KRQE News 13’s Larry Barker that FBI investigators have concluded the disks in question, generally called 'Classified Removable Electronic Media' or C.R.E.M., were never missing and may have never existed in the first place
The clerical error appears to center around the bar codes used to track classified material. The bar code stickers that would have been found on the supposed missing disks were instead discovered still affixed to their original printed forms.
The FBI declined comment on this report and the lab says it will release the findings of its investigation “when appropriate”.
Much of the lab's classified work is still shut down pending the outcome of a Department of Energy review.
The shut down has called into question the University of California’s management of the facility, made longtime political supporters question lab practices and has cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Where did that story go?
Oh, yeah never existed. I would like to see proof!
Duh, ya think?
...and has cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Every penny of which should be reimbursed by the U of C!
uhhh, what would constitute proof that something never existed?
I'm going back to my symbolic logic text on that one.
Its a rather amusing error. Because of all the major stress on handling classified disks now...there are likely to be a major amount of manpower who are involved in security, and likely walking all over each other in their processes. If the guy doing the inventory had simply asked the guy who creates labels if there were any "left-over" labels, then this whole episode never would have occurred.
And their fix on this...no made-up labels sitting in a box to be ready for new disks...everything will have to created on the spot and documented, meaning more manpower and more man-hours.
Doesn't sound right.
A) The "original printed forms" would, I assume, be associated with disks.
B) The disks ought, it appears, to be identified by bar code stickers.
C) The bar code stickers seem to originate on the "original printed forms".
D) These particular bar code stickers remained on the forms, and were never affixed to any disks.
But if A) is true, then there must be disks that lack the requisite stickers, and these disks (as far as I can see) are unaccounted for ("never existed"?). I think we are supposed to believe that someone looked at the forms and asked "But where are the disks?" and everyone checked the situation out and responded "We've lost the disks!!" and then, upon reflection, they decided "These forms don't have any disks associated with them."
Doesn't add up. The forms either cite the existence of disks, or they don't. Clearly, a bunch of people thought that disks were being cited by these forms. Now, "poof!" the problem is solved, because, hey, there was no problem. It's a coverup -- and not the first at Los Alamos.
A bill in congress right now to remove U C as operator of "any" lab. DOE trying to put BWXT umbrella over entire NNSA complex for operational control. Film at Eleven......
'slike when I'm searching for my missing car keys. Maybe they never existed afterall...
I thought Larry Barker got a gig on the dilbert cartoon as Dilberts sidekick ? The bald headed one with the birth control glasses ? Please tell me they haven't rehired Dan True as the nooooze weather guesser also .........:o)
I thought there was some scientist of Chinese descent who was accused and charged for some indiscretions as a result of this "lost disk".
Shazamm!!! Right here they are. Right here behind this copy machine. Shazamm!!
"Never exisited," is shorthand for "close enough for government work."
Still Dan True free! Steve Stucker still does the weather with his dog on 4 in the morning though.
What appears to have happened here is that not all of the numbers on the preprinted label sheet had been assigned perhaps allowing later items to be labeled from the next sheet.
Having worked for federal agencies and having to comply with the old CMR and even having once been assigned the thankless task of trying to track down long-lost items, it is easy for me to understand how such a mixup could easily occur.
Los Alamos may have the largest concentration of Phd's in the world but common sense seems to be an after thought. I do miss the blue sky and rainbow trout-filled mountain streams near Las Vegas NM. :o) I used to look out the classroom window and daydream about climbing Hermit's Peak.
ping
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