Subj: COMMENTS ON THE MISSING LOS ALAMOS HARD DRIVE
Date: 6/18/2000 9:51:39 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Rayelan
To: RUMILLS@EGROUPS.COM

From Rayelan

A knowledgeable RMNews "Visitor" made the following comment and sent the enclosed story regarding Los Alamos and the missing hard drives...

RMNews has been cautioned, by our wiser advisors, not to publish "wild speculations" from some of our normally accurate "agents". We have been told the Los Alamos missing hard drive story is highly compartmented. Even Congress and high level operatives are not being told the full story. Hold tight -- stay skeptical -- know the media doesn't have a clue ... If and when the real story can be told -- Rumor Mill News will tell it.

From our "Visitor"

"They've certainly created a good "COVER STORY" for the missing nuclear secrets, haven't they? "

An RMNews Source further remarked on the Missing hard drives ---

"Don't believe ANYTHING they are saying about those hard drives -- "

Okay -- RMNews Readers -- You heard it -- Don't believe anything the media is telling you about these hard drives -- Hopefully this story will develop and not be pushed under the rug and covered with more lies. Fortunately Clinton is not being allowed to start any more Kosovos -- but this doesn't mean that he couldn't do another OKC or Waco to get the attention off the hard drives -- Watch the news and see what happens to this story -- which I believe is the most important of the Clinton years ---

Rayelan
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http://news.excite.com/news/r/000616/22/news-nuclear-found-dc
Missing Hard Drives With Nuclear Secrets Found

Updated 10:49 PM ET June 16, 2000
By Patrick Connole

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two computer hard drives containing nuclear secrets that disappeared at the U.S. nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos have resurfaced under questionable circumstances in a secure area within the facility, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, at a hastily called news conference in Phoenix, said the area where the hard drives were found -- the so-called X Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- is being treated by the FBI as a crime scene. The location where the hard drives were found previously had been searched by investigators.

The drives contained highly sensitive technical information on nuclear weapons design, including on U.S., Russian, Chinese and French systems. Officials have not ruled out the possibility of espionage.

Government officials said they suddenly turned up under questionable circumstances.

Richardson added that there were "inconsistencies" that were being probed concerning the missing hard drives. He did not elaborate.

"I want to assure the American public that we're going to get to the bottom of the incident. We're going to hold people accountable, there's going to be disciplinary action," Richardson said.

"This is not a victory speech, we still have a long way to go to ensure that security is protected in our national labs," he added.

CNN reported that the hard drives were found behind a photo-copying machine in an area that had been twice searched previously.

Government officials said an investigation would determine where the drives had been, who had access to them and whether the information they contained had been compromised.

The hard drives were in kits kept in vaults to be used by the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), which is responsible for disarming nuclear devices and could be called upon to respond to a nuclear emergency such as a terrorist act or some other event involving nuclear weapons.

The drives were found within X Division, which houses the vault that holds the NEST's materials, including the hard drives, the Energy Department said.

SENATOR SAYS EVENTS "EXTREMELY DISTURBING"

Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has sharply criticized Richardson for allowing lax security at nuclear sites, said there was concern that someone inside the lab was trying to cover up their actions.

"The disks were found in Division X, an area that was searched on two separate occasions. It is extremely disturbing that the drives may have been surreptitiously placed back in the X Division," the Alabama Republican said in a statement.

"If that is in fact what happened the counter-intelligence implications have increased by an order of magnitude. We may have someone on the inside who doesn't want anyone to know they had the drives or what they did with them," he said.

The discovery that the files were missing followed a forest fire that had closed the laboratory and damaged some of its buildings.

It prompted sharp rebukes of Richardson from Republican lawmakers, who accused him of failing to implement new safeguards after Los Alamos researcher Wen Ho Lee was arrested last year for allegedly illegally handling nuclear weapons data.

About 25 FBI agents, aided by about a half dozen Energy Department investigators, this week interviewed and administered lie-detector tests to members of NEST who had access to the missing hard drives at Los Alamos.

Some 85 scientists at Los Alamos work on nuclear weapons design work part-time as members of NEST, and about 25 of them had unescorted access to the vaults with the hard drives and did not have to sign out the kit, officials said.

The White House said President Clinton had been informed of the drives' discovery, but had no further comment.

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