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.