LOS ALAMOS STIFFS WHISTEBLOWER

Los Alamos is at it again, smack­ing down whis­te­blow­ers who are point­ing out eye-​​popping safety and secu­rity con­cerns.
Los Alamos audi­tor Dan Brown dis­cov­ered that one of the lab’s most impor­tant atomic facil­i­ties didn’t even have a basic ‘con­tain­ment struc­ture’ to hold in radi­a­tion in case of a nuclear acci­dent,” CBS reports. And he found out that the lab’s top-​​secret X dvi­sion — the one at the cen­ter of the Wen Ho Lee scan­dal — had never been sub­jected to a proper secu­rity or safety review.
But when Brown told lab man­agers about his con­cerns, he tells CBS, “the only response I got was the areas I had been given respon­si­bil­i­ties to audit have been taken away from me.“
I could link to a dozen sim­i­lar sto­ries, of course. (Here’s one.) But, frankly, the relent­less grind of Los Alamos’ ser­ial incom­pe­tence is really start­ing to get to me. Maybe this is how the bad guys win in the end — by exhaust­ing their oppo­nents, by per­se­ver­ing in a war bureau­cratic attri­tion, by being so awful, so often that we even­tu­ally just grow numb. Or maybe it’s just Friday at five, and I need a beer.

February 11th, 2005 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.