Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/20/2015
The National Nuclear Security Administration is evaluating the causes of several incidents of misclassified material at Los Alamos National Laboratory in response to a Department of Energy Inspector General report that revealed that “sensitive, national security information” had been inadvertently disclosed by a LANL classification officer. The IG report, released last week, included several instances where guidance on classified information was not issued or not properly disseminated, including an incident that 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.
In a response to the IG report, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said the agency would use its evaluation of the issues highlighted by the IG to “validate and/or establish additional controls as necessary.” He said NNSA headquarters would also expand its reviews to place “additional focus on processes in place for requesting and providing interpretative guidance to determine its formality and adequacy.” Klotz said the NNSA “takes seriously any potential breach in protocols” and also said the agency would “continue to perform periodic program reviews to ensure we sustain a strong oversight presence.”
Classification Officer Didn’t Issue ‘Interpretative Guidance’
As previously reported when a draft version of the report was published on the LLNL: The True Story blog last month, 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.
More Incidents Cited
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.”
