Senator: Lax Security Endemic to Administration
go2net.com
Senator: Lax Security Endemic to Administration
Jun 18 1:34pm ET
Michael Smith/Newsmakers/Meet The Press via Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Security breaches at federal government agencies under the Clinton administration are endemic and pose a continuing threat to the United States and its allies, a key Republican senator said on Sunday.
Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told ``Fox News Sunday'' the failure to guard national secrets constituted a ``malignancy'' at the heart of the U.S. government.
Asked to comment on the most recent national security breach at a federal agency, the disappearance of two highly sensitive computer hard drives at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Shelby said ``our (public) libraries would have better security on their books anywhere in America.''
The Los Alamos lab is charged with maintaining the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Speaking later on Sunday on CBS News' ``Face the Nation'', Shelby called on Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to tender his resignation. ``He should step down, he should be responsible,'' he said. ``I don't believe he's served his president well and I don't believe he's served his nation well.''
If Richardson had been the CEO of ``any corporation ... in America,'' Shelby said he would ``be gone'' for allowing a comparable breach of corporate security.
Speaking on ``Fox News Sunday,'' Deputy Energy Secretary T.J. Glauthier said investigators ``can't tell for sure'' at this time whether the hard drives, recovered on Friday under suspicious circumstances in an area of the lab already searched twice, had been copied or tampered with.
The FBI is looking into that possibility, Glauthier said.
IMPROVEMENTS IN SECURITY PROCEDURES
He defended improvements in security procedures at Energy Department labs over the past year, but conceded ``we had not properly accounted for the human element'' and needed to make greater efforts to ``change the culture at these laboratories.''
While no evidence of espionage had been uncovered and ``the vast majority are doing their jobs well'' at the department, Glauthier admitted the agency probably harbored ``a few bad apples'' who had compromised security out of negligence or, possibly, criminal intent.
Shelby told ``Face the Nation'' he found the reappearance of the hard drives tucked behind a copier highly suspicious. ``The FBI had done a rigorous examination of the room and didn't find anything'' in two previous searches, he said.
The Republican senator said the security breach at Los Alamos, the second major lapse at the lab discovered in just over a year, ``is just another example of the lax attitude'' toward security in the Clinton administration.
He cited the loss of sensitive laptop computers at the State Department and the failure to prevent the transfer of secret documents to an unsecure personal computer at the home of a former director of the CIA.
Richardson and other officials tried to shift the blame to the University of California, which conducts research at Los Alamos and other labs under contract to the Energy Department.
``They are very strong on science. They are a great institution. But on security ... they haven't done a very good job,'' said Richardson, who said the government might have to sever its contract with the university.
Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said he was not satisfied with Richardson's explanations. ``You hear him here assuming full responsibility by blaming others,'' said Kyl, who also called on Richardson to resign.
|
