DOE Cleared Dozens of Drug Users

[This just in from a loyal blog reader...]

Members of a congressional subcommittee said during a hearing last week that they were shocked to learn that Quintana, 23, admitted using drugs shortly before her clearance was approved.

Shocked! ... Marijuana! ... At the Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb!?!

What next at this Den of Iniquity, Thieves, and Spies? A Deputy Director ... (HORRORS!) ... taking home Classified on his laptop?

Oh, woe! Oh, DOE!


ABQ Journal
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

DOE Cleared Dozens of Drug Users

By John Arnold
Journal Staff Writer
The Department of Energy approved security clearances for more than three dozen workers over a 13-month period, despite evidence that those employees had used illegal drugs within the year prior to approval, a department review has found.
Three of those workers— including the former Los Alamos National Laboratory archivist at the center of the lab's most recent security breach— used drugs within a month of clearance approval, the review concluded.
DOE, through its National Nuclear Security Administration, oversees the nation's nuclear weapons labs, including LANL.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman commissioned a task force to examine the department's personnel security program after hundreds of classified LANL documents turned up during a drug investigation at the home of the former archivist, Jessica Quintana.
While the program's existing policies and guidelines are sound and have proven effective over time, they have not been applied consistently, states the task force's report, released publicly last week.
The task force made several recommendations for strengthening the program, including rejecting security clearances for applicants who admit to using illegal drugs within 12 months prior to their clearance request.
DOE should invoke a "strong presumption against granting a clearance" for applicants who admit to using drugs within the past two years.
Security screeners consider one to two years of abstinence evidence that an applicant has quit using drugs, "but no minimum period of abstinence is mandated," the report states.
It also recommends that all DOE federal and contractor employees with security clearances be subject to random and "for cause" drug testing, as well as pre-employment drug screening.
In addition to drug policy changes, the personnel security program's organizational structure should be revised to provide more accountability, and workers involved in granting security clearances should receive more training, the report says.
Members of a congressional subcommittee said during a hearing last week that they were shocked to learn that Quintana, 23, admitted using drugs shortly before her clearance was approved.
After reviewing 453 National Nuclear Security Administration security clearances granted between June 2001 and June 2002— the time period when Quintana's clearance was being processed— the personnel security task force determined that two other workers also received clearance, despite indications that they too used drugs within a month of approval.
Additionally, 35 other clearances were issued despite indications of drug use within 12 months prior to approval, according to the report.
It said that both the DOE Inspector General's office and an independent panel of inter-agency security personnel reviewed Quintana's case file and concluded that "various indicators suggested that granting (Quintana) a security clearance was not in the best interests of national security."
The task force recommended that DOE review all clearances granted in the last five years to identify cases where employees used illegal drugs within the year prior to their clearance being granted. In reviewing these cases, DOE can determine whether the workers should remain eligible for clearance, the task force said.
During last week's hearing, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, asked Bodman whether Quintana's security clearance violated department policies.
"I don't know if it was a violation of DOE policy," Bodman replied, "but it didn't make any sense to do that."
Bodman testified that DOE is working to implement the task force's recommendations. LANL's corporate manager, Los Alamos National Security, strengthened its drug testing program this year.
The projected cost of LANL's program, which requires pre-employment drug screening and random drug tests for employees and contractors, is $800,000 a year. A DOE program would cost roughly $5.6 million a year, the task force report says.
Quintana, who was employed by a lab subcontractor, says she took paper and electronic documents home to catch up on work.
Los Alamos police discovered the materials during a drug investigation that targeted Quintana's roommate. Quintana has not been charged with a crime, and her lawyer says that while she experimented with drugs as a high school student, she did not use them while working at the lab.