DOE shuts down lab computers

The shutdown affects the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, DOE spokesman Chris Kielich said in Washington, D.C.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson ordered the shutdown as part of "an overall initiative to improve cybersecurity," Kielich said Monday.

Security checks have escalated at Los Alamos since reports surfaced last year that a lab employee might have committed espionage in the 1980s.

Wen Ho Lee, who was fired from the lab March 8, became the target of an FBI investigation in 1996. Lee, a Tawainese-born American citizen, has not been charged with any crime.

He reportedly was put in charge of updating computer software for nuclear weapons in the spring of 1997, less than a year after the FBI began investigating whether China obtained U.S. secrets during the 1980s that gave it the technology to create miniaturized warheads.

China has denied that it engaged in nuclear espionage.

Low grades
Last week, the Energy Department said that three of the government's 12 nuclear weapons facilities, including the weapons lab at Los Alamos, received a less than satisfactory security rating for last year.

Los Alamos lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said the security shutdown could affect 2,000 employees. Lab director John Browne said he will review worker "self-assessments" and decide if the computers can come back on.