Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
A Los Alamos National Laboratory classification officer disclosed “sensitive, national security information” after misclassifying six documents, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General Office said in an apparent draft report released on the LLNL: The True Story blog this week. The undated draft report from Inspector General Gregory Friedman also revealed that Los Alamos management did not investigate or resolve alleged violations by the classification officer.
One misclassification incident appeared to involve whistleblower James Doyle, a nonproliferation analyst who has alleged his firing in July was linked to an article he wrote that was cleared for publication only to be later classified. A whistleblower claim by Doyle was accepted by the National Nuclear Security Administration and Doyle and lab officials met earlier this month for settlement discussions.
IG: Classification Officer Failed to Issue ‘Interpretive Guidance
The draft IG report said the classification officer failed to issue “interpretive guidance” for a classification bulletin dealing with an article submitted by a Los Alamos employee for publication, which appears to be a reference to the article written by Doyle. Because the classification officer didn’t issue the guidance, the article was twice cleared for publication before it was ultimately determined to contain classified information.
In another incident, a Los Alamos employee made a presentation at a “large public function” with information that was initially cleared but later determined to be classified. The employee’s manager approved the presentation, but had not received the relevant classification bulletin on the subject from the classification officer, and it wasn’t until two months after the presentation that a Los Alamos classification analyst determined the presentation should have been classified.
Lab Looking to Correct Issues
The IG said in the draft report that the classification officer said he had asked that the classification guidance be distributed to the lab’s derivative classifiers, but classification analysts told the IG that the officer never discussed the guidance or ask that it be circulated. When the classification officer distributed the guidance two years after the initial bulletin was issued, the IG said it was not done so properly. “Timely distribution of classification bulletins and related documentation, including interpretive guidance and enhanced contractor and Federal oversight will alleviate confusion among classification analysis and derivative classifiers, reducing the likelihood that classified information will be inappropriately disclosed in the future,” the IG said.
The IG also said the classification officer sent a classified document via an unclassified system, then failed to immediately report the mistake to lab security officials. The classification officer also failed to alert security officials after a Work For Others proposal that had been deemed unclassified by the lab was later determined to be classified by another agency. A lab spokesman said the lab is “looking at addressing the issues raised in the report through a set of corrective actions.”
Low Morale Found in Lab Classification Office
The IG said complaints were filed with lab management, but they did not act because they were made by “disgruntled” workers in the classification office. “We were told that morale was low among certain employees working in LANL’s classification office due to a lack of trust with senior classification officials and a lack of confidence in the LANL Employee Concerns Program,” the IG said. “It was our sense that these factors may have contributed to the workplace concerns expressed by the complainants.”
