Classified Disk Is Missing at Arms Lab

Officials at the federal nuclear weapons research lab in Los Alamos, N.M., confirmed Thursday that a computer disk containing classified information was missing from the lab, but said the loss posed no threat to national security.

Los Alamos National Laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark said he could not comment on the nature of the lost material, nor would he specify what was missing beyond a “classified removable electronic media,” which could mean a CD or floppy disk.

“I don’t want to downplay this too much. We take these things very seriously ... but we don’t believe national security was placed in jeopardy by this particular event,” Roark said.

The item had been scheduled to be destroyed but was missing when lab officials took inventory Tuesday, he said.

The missing computer disk is another in a series of security lapses at the lab, which is administered by the University of California. In December, 10 classified computer disks were lost.

Previous allegations of fraud, security breaches and lax oversight prompted the Energy Department to open the lab management contract to bidding. UC has held the contract for six decades and is deciding whether to compete for its renewal next year.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington group promoting government accountability that has been critical of the lab’s management, called the incident “a major security breach.” Los Alamos “can try to spin it however they want. Classified data is missing once again,” she said.

Scott Sudduth, UC’s assistant vice president for federal relations, said there was no indication the disk held anything that would pose a national security risk.

Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous arm of the Energy Department that oversees the labs, were notified this week of the missing disk, Sudduth said.

The disk may have been destroyed, although the lab has found no record of that, he said.

“What we know is that it’s missing, it’s unaccounted for and it’s classified,” Sudduth said.