SANTA FE (AP) — A memo released by whistle-blowers at Los Alamos National Laboratory says nearly $1.3 million worth of computers, phones and other property was unaccounted for in the budget year 2001.
Pete Stockton, senior investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., that received the memo, said missing computers pose "one hell of a potential security problem."
"There's no way they can assure us those computers didn't have classified information on them," said Stockton, who was a special assistant to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson — now New Mexico's governor-elect — in the Clinton administration.
The inventory of missing items also included two printers whose custodian was listed as Wen Lee. There was no immediate confirmation as to whether that person was Wen Ho Lee, a former scientist who was fired and accused of lab security violations in downloading nuclear codes.