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Editor's note: The following are some security-related highlights from the September meeting of the University of California Board of Regents
Security highlights UC regents meeting
The University of California has hired a veteran counterintelligence specialist to provide needed expertise in safeguards and security issues at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories.
Wayne Kennedy, senior vice president for Business and Finance, announced to UC Regents [Sept. 16] that the hiring of retired US Air Force Col. Terry Owens, 52, will help UC's Laboratory Administration Office support security and counterintelligence efforts at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories.
When he starts his new assignment as manager of safeguards and security in early October, Owens will join other UC managers who oversee such areas as procurement and property management, human resources, financial management, and environment, safety and health at the DOE's national labs.
Owens is currently in the process of retiring after a 30-year Air Force career. He most recently has been serving at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as commander of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for a region encompassing Europe, Africa and parts of the Middle East.
"Security and counterintelligence are complex, rapidly evolving and highly specialized fields," said Robert L. Van Ness, UC assistant vice president for laboratory administration. "The addition of Terry Owens to our office will add a new dimension of expertise to UC's oversight of the DOE laboratories and complement activities in this critically important area within the DOE and at the laboratories."
This is just one of the steps being taken "to strengthen the University's management of the laboratories," Kennedy said. "We are also planning several enhancements to the UC President's Council on the National Laboratories that will bring the same level of expertise and advice in security and management as the council provides us in the areas of science and technology."
The UC President's Council on the National Laboratories annually evaluates the performance of the laboratories in science and technology, and makes recommendations to UC President Richard Atkinson.
Other UC actions include enlarging the council's membership and structure to provide permanent and active oversight of security activities at the labs; recruiting nationally known figures with security expertise to serve on the council, and recruiting people with large project management skills to complement the council's scientific expertise and provide experienced oversight of projects such as the National Ignition Facility.
In addition, UC aims to quickly recruit a new council chair who will bring the same depth and balance to security as well as science and technology issues as Sydney Drell, the former chair who stepped down earlier this year.
UC Regents also received updates on security issues from Los Alamos Laboratory Director John Browne and Lawrence Livermore Director Bruce Tarter.
Browne noted that Los Alamos has strengthened its systems for the "control and accountability" of nuclear materials. A DOE report earlier this year called for improved security at nuclear materials facilities at both Los Alamos and Livermore. DOE has three basic ratings for security -- satisfactory, marginal or unsatisfactory.
A recent DOE audit rated the Los Alamos systems for control and accountability of nuclear materials "best of class," Browne told regents. "We continue to make significant progress toward achieving what Energy Secretary Bill Richardson set for our laboratory. He wants the nuclear weapons labs to achieve a rating of satisfactory (the highest rating) by the year's end."
Tarter reported that the Livermore has likewise made progress in the areas of physical, computer and personnel security. "We have put measures in place that address areas of security that have been judged inadequate in the past," he said. "We're confident these will meet expectations."
Physical security, the security of nuclear materials and the Livermore's ability to respond to emergencies has been enhanced by the deployment of LLNL's SWAT team, Tarter said.
Noting that the price tag for cyber security can be "very large," Tarter said the Livermore is "trying to make it essentially impossible" to move classified information onto any outside network or electronic medium. "Classified areas are self-contained units with no communication links, physical or otherwise, to the outside world," he said. "This effort is difficult and expensive, but we've found ways to do it.
"In the unclassified area, a top priority is putting up firewalls and enhancing ways to sense intrusions," he said. "Working with other security agencies we are developing a set of security measures. We all have the goal of taking the national security complex of the United States and together identifying the best we can do for our own institutions as well as other government institutions."
Addressing personnel issues, Tarter said the LLNL was the first lab to undergo a counterintelligence review. "My sense is that it was a very good review."
Both Tarter and Browne reported that employees at their respective labs have raised concerns about polygraph examinations during recent DOE's public hearings on the proposed polygraph regulations.
"Polygraph testing is a very emotional issue," Tarter told regents. "At the hearing in Livermore last Tuesday, there were some very well-spoken, very articulate and impassioned statements by a number of employees. I believe it's a very complicated issue to balance all security considerations."
Browne said that the issue of polygraph examinations "is causing great anxiety and tension for employees at Los Alamos. It's as much a matter of principles and trust as it is about details of [polygraph] processes."
--Don Johnston, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
S Division to conduct required training for CDCs, OSSOs and OSCRs
The Security and Safeguards (S) Division has scheduled a required refresher training session for Laboratory classified document custodians, organizational safeguards and security officers and organizational computer security representatives from 8:30 a.m. to noon next Tuesday in the Administration Building Auditorium.
This will be an unclassified session. However, a clearance is needed to attend. Attendance at the session is required, said Billy Pearl of Information and Personnel Security (S-6).
The refresher training requirement is part of a Laboratory corrective action plan for a finding resulting from the recent security inspection by the Department of Energy, said Pearl.
Among items to be discussed will be physical security, computer security, classification reviews and other items related to the protection and control of classified matter. Trends in security incidents and infractions also will be presented. There will be time allotted for questions and answers throughout the session. Subject matter experts from S Division will be in attendance to answer questions throughout the session.
A makeup session will not be scheduled, Pearl noted. Employees are asked to pre-register for the required briefing through the Virtual Training Center under "Information."
For more information, contact Billy Pearl (S-6) at 5-7467 or write to broncosbilly@lanl.gov by electronic mail.
--Steve Sandoval
Speaker discusses challenges of the 'new' New Mexican
Erwin Rivera of Santa Fe talks about the
"Culture of the Southwest that was left out of textbooks,"
Wednesday in the Physics Building Auditorium as part of the Laboratory's
Hispanic Heritage Month observance. The Hispanic Diversity Working
Group sponsors Hispanic Heritage Month, which continues through
Oct. 15. More information about Hispanic Heritage Month can be
found online at http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/dvo/hdwg/hdwg.html.
Photo by Steve Sandoval
New Mexico's number one export isn't green chile, Santa Fe style furniture or even world-class science. According to Erwin Rivera of Santa Fe, it is its youth.
High school seniors, Rivera said, can't wait to leave Santa Fe or other New Mexico communities, in part because they've lost the sense of community and lack of cultural awareness and identity.
Rivera talked about the "Culture of the Southwest that was left out of textbooks," Wednesday in the Physics Building Auditorium as part of the Laboratory's Hispanic Heritage Month observance. "Diversity: Unity for a Greater Future," is the theme of the Lab's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, which is observed nationally from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.
Rivera talked about rarely shared history dating back to the Anasazi cultures, and challenges of the "new" New Mexican in the 21st century.
The exodus of New Mexico's youth is due in part to youths not understanding -- or not being aware -- of New Mexico's culture, said Rivera. "It's not so much that leaving the state is their first choice, it's that there's no choice in staying here," he said. Legislators and government officials, he said, also send the wrong message to youths by pouring millions of dollars into construction of new prisons rather than in schools.
While school history textbooks tell about the first Thanksgiving and Christopher Columbus' discovery of a new world in the 1400s, indigenous peoples living in present day New Mexico had been celebrating their own thanksgiving for decades, he said.
The world's largest shopping mall in pre-Columbus times, Rivera contends, was in present day Mexico City, where turquoise taken out of the mountains south of Santa Fe called "God stone," or "touch stone," were sold and traded as a precious commodity. "Turquoise had a high, spiritual value to many indigenous peoples . . . they were exchanged for spiritual feathers," he said.
As a result of this indifference or lack of understanding of New Mexico's history and culture, residents have developed a love-hate relationship with their own home towns, explained Rivera. He said this is quite evident in Santa Fe, where he lives and works as a facilitator, mediator, grant writer and consultant for Raices y Alas (roots and wings), a business he owns.
Rivera talked about how earlier this decade, Santa Fe was voted as the top travel destination in the world by Conde Nast Traveler magazine. But in 1996, he said, Santa Fe also led the nation in the number of teenage suicides. He said his 13-year-old son attended seven funerals that year of youths he knew or were his friends.
Rivera urged those in attendance to stop the exodus of youth by becoming weavers of a blanket of peace, "weavers of diversity." Rather than calling for English-only legislation in schools, legislators, teachers, parents and school officials should follow Japan's lead where school children know or are encouraged to learn three or four languages.
And he told a story of a young boy and an old man who was cold but wouldn't say anything because he didn't want to burden his family. Rivera said the young boy found a blanket in a barn and cut it in half. When asked by his father why he was cutting the blanket, the boy said, "This half is for grandpa today. The other half I will save for when you get old," said Rivera.
"The greatest thing we have ever done is create the next generation," said Rivera. "It's in our own self interest because that generation will take care of us if they see us taking care of the older generation. They're going to do what they see, not what we say."
Hispanic Heritage Month activities continue at noon next Wednesday in the Physics Building Auditorium. Valdez Abeyta y Valdez of Santa Fe will speak about "Adobe Palettes: Circle of the Centuries." The talk focuses on the history of adobes within a global perspective.
Valdez Abeyta y Valdez is an instructor in the Santa Fe Public Schools and is associated with El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe.
The talk is free and open to the public.
Hispanic Heritage Month activities conclude Oct. 15 with a reception, art exhibit and a dance at the new El Museo Cultural in the Guadalupe Area Railyard property in Santa Fe. The event begins at 6 p.m. and includes food and entertainment. Tickets cost $15 each or $25 a couple. Alfonso Jaramillo of the Project Management (PM) Division Office can be contacted for tickets to the closing ceremony at 5-0000. Proceeds from the closing event will be donated to the museum, MANA del Norte, IMAGE de Los Alamos and the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) Northern New Mexico chapter.
The Hispanic Diversity Working Group is sponsoring Hispanic Heritage Month at the Lab. The Diversity (DV) Office and the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) are providing in-kind and financial assistance to pay for expenses associated with the Hispanic Heritage Month activities. Several other Laboratory organizations, including the Engineering Sciences and Applications (ESA) and Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) divisions, and the Lab's Diversity Council also are providing funding and other assistance.
Lab employees, subcontract personnel, Department of Energy employees and the public are encouraged to attend Hispanic Heritage Month activities.
More information about Hispanic Heritage Month can be found online at http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/dvo/hdwg/hdwg.html.
--Steve Sandoval
Laboratory workers invited to participate in environmental review Tuesday
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will host a public meeting Wednesday in Los Alamos to discuss plans for interviewing current and retired Laboratory workers as part of the Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment project. Project leaders also will report the project's progress to date. The meeting begins at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Fuller Lodge, located at 2132 Central Ave. in Los Alamos.
The three-year project will review historical documents related to Laboratory operations from 1943 to the present. The study will identify and evaluate documents that contribute information about releases of radioactive and chemical materials that had the potential to affect human health.
Interviews with current and retired workers are considered essential for the completion of the study. "Experienced workers continue to be one of our most valuable sources of historical information. They help us put what we find in written records in proper perspective," said Project Manager Thomas Widner.
The meeting will discuss the interviewing process, which includes provisions for discussing classified information. Interviews will be summarized, submitted for classification review and submitted after the classification review to the interviewee for a factual accuracy review. Interviewees will be given the option of remaining anonymous.
During the meeting, members of the project team will be available to schedule individual or group appointments with active or retired workers who have relevant information they would like to offer.
For more information, call Thomas Widner at (510) 521-5200. Questions or comments regarding the study also can be directed to the project's toll-free comment line at 1 (800) 894-0085. The Laboratory point of contact for the project is Joe Graf. Graf can be reached at 7-5296.
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The LDRD Environmental Aerosol Characterization Study monitored background aerosols on Los Alamos Public Schools property across Trinity Drive from the Mari-Mac Shopping center last week. The monitoring took place from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 22. The goal of the project is to support improved biodetection systems to counter bioterrorism. Two tripod monitoring stations were set up, one close to the road and one about 130 feet away from the road. These stations measured and logged every 10 seconds the ambient aerosol concentration and particle size distribution, the wind speed and direction, and other data. The Mobile Bio Laboratory also was parked adjacent to the road next to the tripod station. Inside the Mobile Lab, the SCP XM-2 Liquid Sampler was used to collect aerosol samples in liquid for later analyses for their biological aerosol content. The team collected samples during three one-hour periods during the day: 7 to 8 a.m., noon to 1 p.m. and 4 to 5 p.m., times when aerosol concentrations were expected to be higher due to traffic. The team hopes to find correlations between aerosol measurements and relate total aerosol levels to bio aerosol levels. Shown inside the Mobile Bio Laboratory are, from left to right, Tom Wehner of Systems Engineering and Integration (TSA-3) and principal investigator, Greg Wagner of Bioscience and Biotechnology (CST-4) and Cheryl Lemanski of Cell Molecular Biology (LS-5). The three observe liquid samples being gathered mechanically within the mobile laboratory. Photo by Nancy Ambrosiano Flanked by the mobile laboratory, Roy Goeller of Space Instrumentation and System Engineering (NIS-4) sets up one of the tripod monitoring stations in the school district parking lot. Photo by Tom Wehner |
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Lab Counsel offers guidance on dealings with investigators The Laboratory Counsel Office has issued a memorandum that provides guidance to employees who might be asked for documents or interviews by investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or U.S. Attorney's Office. Click here for the memo. |
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Team studies background aerosols