LOS ALAMOS

How is this for national security? Two hard drives full of classified data are missing from the weapons section at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. And this is not the first such incident to occur at this highly sensitive lab. Four years ago, almost to the exact day, two other hard drives were reported missing. At that same time, two floppy discs were missing but later found attached to a paper in another secure area. And a door was left unlocked.



Then in December 10, 2003, it was reported in the Mercury News that nine floppy discs and one large capacity disc were reported missing. Although the University of California's vice president of laboratory management stated that the disc did not contain classified data, he couldn't be sure until he found them.



Even last month, keys to area 18 were reported missing for 16 hours. The guards changed shifts twice before the keys were located in a security truck under some equipment that wasn't moved during the prior searches. This lab contains enriched uranium and other nuclear material, but these security lapses is causing the government to think about moving the material the Whites Sands, New Mexico, where security is better.



I don't know why the government tolerates so many incidents before they take action. Look at the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. It was discovered that the O rings were at fault and that Morton Thiokol knew about the gases leaking around the O rings and didn't stop the shuttle missions. Yet even after they were proven responsible, NASA still let Morton Thiokol have the shuttle contract. Why should they err on the side of safety? You can kill seven astronauts and still have the contract.



Here, Los Alamos is a danger to national security. How many security lapses will it take before they move the lab to another more secure facility? Does someone have to die first? No, because its been shown that even death doesn't mean you will lose a government contract.