Navy officials sent secret documents to employees accused of being security risks

Navy officials in Port Hueneme inadvertently mailed the Social Security numbers and security classifications of more than 200 civilian employees to an engineer and two other employees accused of being security risks, according to the engineer, his attorney and a union representing government employees.

Also mailed were several documents marked “secret” and “top secret,” according to the engineer, Gary Biggers, and his attorney, Jack Futoran. Navy spokesman Darrell Waller said the documents “were inappropriately marked, but not by this command.” They contained no sensitive or classified material, he said.

The apparent lapses were first reported by the Ventura County Star, which made public a 2008 Navy-ordered investigation that accused the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center of chronic security problems. Waller said the problems have been corrected and the center in September earned commendations from a Navy inspector general.

Specialists at the center design runways, piers, energy plants and other projects around the world for the Navy and the Marines. .

Biggers, a longtime engineer at the center, was given the additional position of security manager after a one-week training course in 2007.

According to the 2008 investigation, which was ordered by the center’s commanding officer at the time, Biggers “provided no leadership” and allowed security lapses that had been previously identified to persist.

Lax practices included a failure to keep classified materials properly locked away and allowing people to continue in jobs for which they didn’t have the appropriate security clearance, according to investigators.

But Biggers contends he was trying to do the job he’d been given and met resistance from higher-ups. In an interview, he said he also ran afoul of officials who wanted him to give false testimony in a discrimination case.

“They were looking for a fall guy,” he said.

Stripped of his security clearance and placed on unpaid leave in 2008, Biggers appealed to the Navy and regained his engineering position after 10 months without a salary. He is asking the Navy to remove the suspension from his record and award him back pay.

In 2008, during his legal battle, Biggers received a letter from the Navy with the Social Security numbers and purportedly classified documents attached.

His attorney said he called a counterpart at the Navy about the confidential materials, but the documents were not retrieved.

“My client rented a safe-deposit box for them,” Futoran said. “There was no way he could have access to those materials, but we couldn’t get the Navy to take them back.” He said the Navy alerted workers only last October -- after Biggers informed the Navy’s inspector general of the problem.

Navy spokesman Waller said officials thought the release was so limited that it would cause no harm. The materials, he said, went to three suspended employees who would have had access to them in the course of their jobs. But those employees, Futoran pointed out, had been deemed so untrustworthy by the Navy that they’d been suspended.

One of them has reached a settlement with the Navy and the other, Futoran said, has retired. Meanwhile, a union representing employees at the center is waiting to hear a detailed report on the mix-up from the Navy.

“People are frightened to death,” said Harry Berman, an attorney for the National Assn. of Government Employees. “Engineers working on sophisticated projects require clearance. If your bank accounts are frozen or checks bounce because someone’s taken money from them, you’d be subject to a review -- and you might be out of work.”

steve.chawkins @latimes.com