Grasping the Secrity Problems at Y12

Anonymously contributed: ------------------------------------------ Grasping the Secrity Problems at Y12 ------------------------------------------ There were so many problems that contributed to the July 28 security breach at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant that the Inspector General had to lump them into categories just to keep them organized. Some things in the investigation report released Friday were almost incredible. For instance: In the predawn morning, after three Plowshares protesters had cut through security fences and entered the Protected Area without resistance, the activists hung banners, spray-painted messages, and used a hammer to bang against a wall of the plant's uranium storage facility. Inside the fortress-like facility, security guards just assumed the noise was coming from maintenance workers. Guards later told investigators they often weren't told about scheduled maintenance. They said it wasn't unusual for workers to just show up -- even in the dark, without warning -- in the high-security area. Y-12's highly touted security system failed at multiple levels, according to the damning, 18-page "Special Report" by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Inspector General. "We identified troubling displays of ineptitude in responding to alarms, failures to maintain critical security equipment, over reliance on compensatory measures, misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and weaknesses in contract management," Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote. Some problems identified by investigators were too sensitive to include in the publicly released report and were shared with federal officials privately. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2012/08/grasping-the-security-problems.html