SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE ANNOUNCES JOINT HEARING WITH THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES ON THE LOSS OF NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION AT THE LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold a joint hearing to examine the apparent loss of extremely sensitive national security information at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The hearing will take place at 10:15 a.m. in SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. The Committees have invited Secretary Richardson; General Eugene Habiger, the Director of the Office of Security and Emergency Operations; Ed Curran, Director of the Office of Counterintelligence; and Dr. John Browne, Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory to testify.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the Committee Chairman, stated, "I am very disturbed that not long after Secretary Richardson assured the American people that our nuclear weapons secrets were safe, some of our most sensitive and critical nuclear secrets have vanished under his care. If this information falls into the wrong hands, it will be a breach of national security on a scale that is difficult to quantify. Secretary Richardson has some explaining to do."
Sen. Richard H. Bryan (D-Nev.), the Committee Vice Chairman, stated, "There is a culture of indifference to security at our national labs that needs to be rooted out. Last year we confronted the Wen Ho Lee case. And now we have another embarrassing and potentially very harmful compromise of highly classified and sensitive information. This security lapse by the Los Alamos lab is indefensible. Apparently, these fellows just don't get it."
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