FBI Spurns Energy’s Request to Investigate Lab’s Lost Data

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday that he wanted the FBI to investigate the loss of classified computer disks at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But FBI officials in New Mexico say they will only monitor the case.

Abraham issued a public memo that called on Energy Department officials in New Mexico to “request the FBI Los Alamos Field Office open an investigation.” FBI officials said they did not have a Los Alamos field office.

FBI spokesman Bill Elwell in the agency’s Albuquerque office said they were in touch with the lab and did not plan to assign any of its agents to the case. It also does not appear that the U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico has assigned anybody to the case.

“We will continue to monitor the situation,” Elwell said. “We are not initiating a separate investigation. We want them [the Los Alamos lab’s internal security force] to exhaust all of their avenues. They are questioning their own employees and that can be easier than those employees sitting down with an FBI agent.”

Lab officials have said they do not think the missing computer disks represent a case of espionage. Officials think it is an internal matter in which an employee failed to follow proper procedures.

Abraham’s memo reiterated that there was no “evidence of activity with a hostile intelligence motive.” But he went on to say that criminal penalties apply to individuals who fail to abide with the broad provisions governing security in the Atomic Energy Act.

In most cases, workers who unintentionally fail to follow security rules in federal workplaces are not prosecuted criminally. Often, they are fired and that is considered by prosecutors an adequate penalty.

The FBI has a long history of investigating security lapses at Los Alamos.

The Justice Department aggressively investigated and prosecuted Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, but the case eventually unraveled and became a major embarrassment to the department. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one count of improper use of classified materials, but allegations of espionage were dropped.

In another case, the FBI investigated missing computer drives and eventually found two tucked away behind an office copying machine. Since FBI officials had previously searched the room, it was presumed somebody abandoned the drives behind the copying machine after the matter gained notoriety. Nobody was prosecuted in that case.

James Fallin, chief spokesman at the Los Alamos lab, said the facility was making every effort to find the disks and determine who was responsible for the loss.

“We are going to get to the bottom of this matter,” Fallin said.