Just say Yes!

Italian Fascist Headquarters in Rome

Si! Ja! Ya! Da! Oui! Yes!
Sir, Yes Sir!
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full! Sir!

---

LANL, despite our high security has been an open society in many ways, but this has been shifting significantly over the last decade.

In this post, the Good Doctor summarizes Naomi Wolfe's 10 Steps to Close an Open Society. For the knuckleheads in the crowd (and there seem to be a few who simply cannot grasp the relevance of this kind of post to LANL) we also describe this relevance from our own point of view. Collectively our audience (what appears to be a steady 100+ daily readers) have a lot more detailed evidence of these steps being taken locally. We wonder if anyone but the hecklers and sycophants will speak up. (Hecklers and Sycophants are still welcome of course, but we will tease you mercilessly!)

---

10 STEPS TO CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY by Naomi Wolfe

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Internal:
* Spies (goes with the territory)
* Cowboys and Buttheads (Thanks Pete, thanks a lot!)
* Polygraphers
* Piss Collectors
* Incompetent and Self-Serving Middle-Management
.
.
.
External:
* Evil Enemy Nations who want our secrets
* Evil Terrorists who want our secrets
* Greedy and Incompetent Bechtel who want ???
* Executive Branch who wants to give us to their corporate friends
* Legislative Branch who wants to shut us down because we are "evil"
and/or give the golden goose to their corporate friends
.
.
.

2. Create a gulag
* We already have the fences and guards.
* When will we quit worrying that the automated badge readers won't let us in and start worrying that they won't let us back out?
* Wen Ho Lee spent a year in Solitary *before* they proved anything (or not)...
* When will the results of our Urine and Poly tests (false positives and all) be used to prosecute the implied crimes related (illegal drug use, mishandling/misreporting/misthinking)?

3. Develop a thug caste

* Internally, our middle-to-upper management often fit this description.
* We have some powerful bureaucracies in the lab that fit this as well.
* Our guards have been pretty careful to avoid this image in the past, will this last?
* New "crimes" (anti-policy activities) may provide the thug cast new opportunity to exercise their (metaphorical) sappers, batons, tear gas, and stun guns. These new policies include drug-testing and searching of private vehicles (don't shop over the lunch hour and leave a bottle of wine in your car... that is technically against policy... alcohol on lab property), don't even pretend to take a picture with a personal camera or cell phone on lab property (say of the 3 pissmobiles lined up all red-white-and-blue), be in your office by 8 and don't leave it for 9-10 hours excepting the required minimum 30 minute lunch... the list goes on and the "thugs" are standing by for their orders to "enforce" them.

* Bechtel is a "privately held corporation". They can hide behind a different mask than DOE to protect their potential thuggery.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system
* This comes with the territory.
* But it can be amped up and abused.
* And the various new policies being put in place seem to support that potential abuse.
* Nanos encouraged us to weed out the Buttheads and Cowboys sitting next to us... sound like Fascist Italy and Germany and a few hundred other places?

5. Harass citizens' groups
* Notice how unwelcome any dissent in this environment is.
* The list is too long to put here.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
* If you don't show for your piss test in 30 minutes (by policy) you are considered to have failed and you are fired. If you show and cannot produce, you are not allowed to leave and after 2 hours are "escorted" to see a doctor to determine the reason.

* During Wen Ho Lee, NEST years, people were taken from their homes in the middle of the night for Polygraphs. Maybe they could have refused, but I don't know if we know that. Did anyone refuse? How did it turn out?

*Wait until YOU find yourself on a no-fly (terrorist watch?) list because you:
A) attended some dissenting rally
B) spoke up in public (including a blog)
C) read a blog (not trying to chase anyone off here!)

7. Target key individuals

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't
toe the line.

* We might *all* be considered "key individuals". The abuse we are suffering (including the implied threat of it) might very well be little more than this Step being taken in a larger arena. Big as we feel in some ways here, we are "small potatoes" to the larger forces at work.

8. Control the press

* This is an important feature of these blogs... to gather relevant press information, to vet it against our own experience, to discuss it' s implications... and to notice what is NOT being published, what the biases are, etc.


9. Dissent equals treason

* There are voices in the commentary on our blogs that seem to precisely say this. LANS policy on misuse of government resources could easily be used (and may already) to slam the lid on people even glancing at these blogs on "company time and equipment". This might be well within their policy but their motivation is surely to intimidate potential dissenters.
* Very few bloggers (Pat the Dog, Pinky, The Brain, Strangelove Ourselves, MaskedCalvin, Oppy, Feynman, et alii) seem to be too excited about exposing their "true names" and few of the commentors seem to be interested in this. Hmmm???

* Doug, Brad and Eric are the only ones to speak up in-persona. Brad is the only one within immediate reach of LANS/Bechtel and as it has been pointed out, he only has a little to lose by this self-exposure compared to say, an early-mid career employee.



10. Suspend the rule of law
* By accepting a job and a security clearance, many of us have (voluntarily?) given up some rights explicitly and implicitly. How many of these they add as a condition for employment or clearance (adding drug-testing and polygraph screening, ...) and the (increasing?) consequences of refusing or of not passing (different than failing) are a close parallel to this. Get us to waive the "rule of law" around privacy and habeus corpus and ???

---

This Post is framed around the 10 steps in:

10 STEPS TO CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY by Naomi Wolfe

* Naomi Wolf's ‘The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot’
will be published by Chelsea Green in September.

To Blog or not to Blog?

Even Scott Adams gets into it!


an anonymous poster said...
How ridiculously juvenile....

then later...

Do you really think ridiculously juvenile blog entries with silly pictures and a fake memo has a net positive effect on anything related to what you are railing against? Of course not. That was my point. All it does is help paint the picture that Congress is right about us scientists at LANL. It simply propagates the general picture. We are losing the perception war that we just don't get it and stuff like this does not help. Sorry I did not spell it out with silly pictures and fake memos for all of you. Nice job giving the enemy more fodder for their canon.

and then after a little more back-and-forth with other posters:

Kind of right back to the beginning of the comments on this blog posting, aren't we?

Perhaps you should reflect on my original question and ask yourself if you think blog posts like this one and the inane comments (including my own of course) that follow help or hurt the laboratory. The blog post itself does not irritate me. And it is kind of funny, but (in my opinion) it is also harmful. Perhaps I just don't understand the purpose of the blog. If it is to blow off steam and make fun of folks and assign blame to people we disapprove of like a bunch of preening middle school kids, great! Looks like it is hitting that mark perfectly. And it does make for fun reading at times.

Unfortunately it also serves those aligned against the laboratory, but at least it's fun. But I guess nobody said we can't have fun while we feed fuel to those trying to burn the place down. I'm sure all of those "C students" that pay our bills can't stop laughing at our non-stop self-annihilation.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh lads?

The Good Doctor wants to open the question: To Blog or Not to Blog?

What are the merits of a public forum like this?

Do we need a place to discuss things anonymously?

Does dark humor and satire (and juvenile humor?) have a place in any public forum?

Does this forum have any value beyond "venting"?

Are we doing more harm to ourselves, to our cause, than good?

Do our critics and detractors get what they want through our public self-examination?

Is what we are doing too important to have this kind of open discussion?

Is what we are doing too important NOT to have this kind of open discussion?

We have asked "anonymous" to compose his (or her) own post... to open a serious discussion on this topic right here.

This may or may not be the right forum.

- Doc

Los Alamos Blocks Researcher Access To Archives

That would be Bechtel/LANS doing the blocking
(we have no policy to cover this)
Read about it here.

Training Day

How to NOT beat a Polygraph (Video)

Brad gets Pissed too!

This in from a friend of Brad's

Open Debate on RRW - SciAm Style

John Pedicini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Martz

Scientific American Blog: The Present and Future Role of Nuclear Weapons in the U.S. and the World

We commented on Joe Martz's statements regarding the RRW project before it was "awarded" to LLNL. Joe stood up and made a strong (and in our opinion) well motivated statement about the possibility of using the RRW project as a means to achieve disarmament.

This would be a really good time to debate this. With the privatization of LANL (and soon LLNL), it is really a good time to make sure that the existing risks of the abuse of nuclear weapons do not get escalated.

Does this nation, this world, need a private corporation like Bechtel (not that far removed from Halliburton, from Blackwater, from ...) controlling the nuclear weapons complex?

This discussion that Scientific American wants to have is overdue. Let them start with reviewing what Joe Martz and John Pedicini have already had to say.

Pathological Forensics????

Forensic Pathology is now heaped on top of the steaming pile...

This memo was forwarded to us by numerous interested parties:
The problem of false-positives has never been addressed...

Careers are at stake. So is national security.

To/MS: LANL Employees

From/MS: Roger L. Hagengruber, MS A105

Phone/Fax: 606-2263/606-2264

Symbol: DIR-CCSO: 07-010

Date: April 30, 2007

Subject: DOE Polygraph Program

For some years, DOE has been planning to implement a polygraph

policy as part of its counter-intelligence (CI) program.

Recently, LANL was notified of the official commencement of

random counter-intelligence scope polygraph examinations for

personnel in certain “high risk” categories. These exams will

cover employees across the NNSA facilities including LANL. In the

past week, we have received a list of names of individuals at the

lab that will be contacted soon to set up the schedule for their

polygraph. This memorandum is intended to announce the new

program and to provide you with some explanation of the

situation.

The letter of notification that we received is reproduced in part

below:

“Effective October 30, 2006, the Department of Energy issued

10CFR 709 Counterintelligence Evaluation Regulations.

Subparagraph 709.3 explains the provisions covering Random CI

Evaluations, including the requirement to complete a counter

intelligence scope polygraph examination. The Counter

Intelligence Evaluations Division (CIED) is responsible for

administering this program.

This regulation may be accessed on the DOE Homepage under the

National Security, Intelligence and Counterterrorism tab. ……..”

In our discussions with DOE, it became apparent that LANL had

essentially no choice in shaping the policy implementation for

the lab. Per direction from DOE/CI, LANL provided names and other

data for all people in the categories that they specified. Some

of this information was conveyed to DOE/CI via NNSA or IN. This

included all personnel at the laboratory with the following

accesses or clearances:

1. NNSA Special Access Programs (an access requiring a Q)

2. SCI (a clearance)

3. Classified computer system administrators (a position

within LANL)

4. Sigma 14 and 15 (an access within RD)

5. All LANL Counter Intelligence personnel (a position

within LANL)

6. All personnel within the Human Reliability Program at

LANL (HRP) (an additional personnel vetting process at LANL)

(Some of these categories have already required that a security

agreement be signed that included an acknowledgement that the

signer could be subject to a polygraph examination.)

All people in the above categories will be subject to random as

well as investigatory polygraph examination. If informed to

present themselves for a polygraph, they are to understand that

participation is mandatory. Should they fail to pass the test,

they will be removed from the pertinent category list and will

not be allowed to participate in any of the other categories. If

they choose to object now to the implied participation in the

polygraph program, they will immediately become ineligible for

any of the accesses or programs listed. They will be informed

that failure to participate in the polygraph program by itself

will not affect their basic security clearance.

The total number of names submitted by LANL numbers over 5000

(for Sandia some 3800). We expect the random sampling rate to be

a few percent at most per year since the capacity for exams is

limited, which means that the likelihood of being called in any

year is very small. The LANL/CI organization will notify

individuals when we are given a list of people that will be

contacted directly by DOE/CI. The Chief Security Office and CI

will schedule sessions to explain the polygraph program and to

help people prepare.

Mistaken Identity in DC?

Richard Marquez testifying for LANL in 2004.

Pinky and The Brain in LANL-THE-REST-OF-THE-STORY
asks who this man (clearly not Anastasio is)...


AP - Fri Apr 20, 11:27 AM ET

Michael Anastasio appears before the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee in Washington Friday, April 20, 2007, on mismanagement at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

---

commentary on LANL-THE-REST-OF-THE-STORY suggests (strongly) that Marquez left LANL under questionable circumstances that he has been (repeatedly?) accused of sexual misconduct and perhaps even of something involving a minor.

The Doctor does not respect false accusations but if there is evidence of this kind of misconduct, it should come out (in public). Speak up folks if you *really* know anything.

- Doc Strange

Dr. Strangelove never gives up!

The Good Doctor has been getting a little attention lately

Pinky & The Brain sent us this quote from SCI.PHYSICS:

"Dr. Strangelove never gives up"

Wethinks that "The Brain" is the one who "who never gives up" in his/her pursuit of taking over the world (through the use of wierd science):


The mutual admiration continues! Go PATB

Whack-A-Blog!

Looks like the Blogs are popping up faster than Steven Bechtel, Pete Nanos, and maybe even Michael Anastasio can whack them down!

The Good Doctor(?!!#$%@)
just discovered a new Blog by a young chap calling himself Calvin, apparently inspired by Our own recent use of the Calvin Peeing image.

And another called What Would Oppy Do? by the Ghost of Oppenheimer hisself!

---

Sure enough, Calvin just contacted Us (and Pinky and the Brain) for a cross-posting! It's only a matter of time before Oppy checks in!

---

Gentlemen,
I am a PostDoc at LANL who has stuck it out through the shutdown (as a GRA) and changeover and want to see things turn around so I have a place to stay. Your blogs are good but you don't seem to get much input from younger people like me... it is mostly old-schoolers. I want to give a forum to my own peers... I hope you will link to my blog. Doc's image of Calvin pissing inspired my identity.

Check it out at: http://boyamipissed.blogspot.com

---

And another!

Richard Feynman hisself!

Better to be Pissed Off than Pissed On?

Hopping mad?


Bechtel behind the thin beard of LANS, has instituted a piss-in-the-cup random drug-testing policy. Most of these folks have DOE Q clearances which require extensive background checks and a vow that they have not, do not and will not (Sam I Am) use illegal drugs. Some have higher, more rarified clearances or certificates already requiring them to submit to random drug testing and in some cases polygraphs. But those are pre-employment choices.

What many are angry about is that this new policy does not address any real issue but instead aggravates several real issues.

Real Issues:

1. People handling highly sensitive and classified information and materials must be reliable.
2. The same people must not be overly subject to blackmail.
3. LANL has a bad reputation (not record) for safety and security.
4. Morale at LANL has been dropping steadily through numerous attacks.
5. One recent security incident has been loosely linked to illegal drugs.
6. Drug tests have a measurable error-rate.
7. The Bechtel/LANS policy only addresses:
1. Their right to testing. (They declare it, employees are at-will, so be it)
2. Consequences of failure to report for testing. (Treated as failing the test)
3. Consequences of a positive result. (Immediate dismissal)
8. It does not address:
1. False Positives
2. Verification
3. Due Process

False Positives
The incidence of illegal drug use at LANL (especially among those with or aspiring to a clearance) is a tiny fraction of the use within the general population. A reasonable number of "random tests" cannot be high enough to keep the false-positive rate from going through the roof. Many known prescription and over-the-counter medications can generate a false-positive.

Meanwhile a bill to legalize Marijuana for Medical purposes has passed the Senate in NM with encouragement from Governer Bill Richardson (former Secretary of Energy no less). Director Anastasio pulled alcohol from the test suite (it is rumored that he even stated... "I like to have a martini or two at lunch") maybe they will have to pull Marijuana off the list too? THC is one of the few (along with Phenobarbital and PCP) substances the random urinalysis approach is likely to pick up over more than a few days after use...

And the LANS (Bechtel) Policy reads pretty clearly (LANS policies appear not to be public information, by the way) that "failure to appear for a drug test will be treated as a positive result from the test" and "an employee with a positive result will be immediately terminated". Now it *appears* their actual practice is slightly less draconian than this, but the stated policy would appear to allow them to terminate an (at-will anyway) employee simply for failing to report for a urine test within 30 minutes (what about failure to produce urine in a timely fashion?) or for failing the screening test (false-positives abound). There is nothing in the stated policy about any kind of due process or appeals or redress. There will probably be a few lawsuits... but surely Bechtel is fully lawyered up for that!

Random Drug Testing
It is widely agreed that "random" drug testing has one purpose only: To Intimidate. It may intimidate chronic drug users from applying for a job at WalMart or McDonalds. It may even intimidate well educated, intelligent, highly functional professionals from using illegal drugs that they have already promised (under threat of loss of clearance and likely employment and possibly a career) not to use! But do LANL employees need to be intimidated? Why wasn't the (now becoming) infamous Jessica Q. intimidated? She *was* subject to random testing.

FYI:

• Drug Testing Q&A
• Drug Testing: An Overview
• Official National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Website
• Official Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Website
• Erowid Drug Testing Vaults: The Basics
• The Drug Testing FAQ (v.4.11)
• Marijuana Detection Time Shorter Than Previously Assumed
• Sumary of Findings by The Independent Inquiry into Drug Testing at Work
• All You Need to Know about Hair Drug Testing
• What You Need to Know about Drug Testing Methods

Bechtel Bashing ???!!!

This just in from a regular reader.
Why does Bechtel seem to draw so much fire?

Why does it feel sooooo bad to be under their employ?
What choice do we have except to leave a town and a career and a legacy?

---

New Report Exposes Contractor Bechtel as Threat to Iraqi Environment, Human Rights and Basic Services

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1450


Blood for Water

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0512bechtelrule.htm



The Big Dig

http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2006/07/corruption-fraud-iraq-and-big-dig.html



CROATIA: Croatia pulls out of a highway construction deal with Bechtel

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11497



You're on your own from here, guys . . . .

Just Google 'Bechtel' and 'corruption' and watch it flow.

Gary Eschman

And Boy are they Pithed!

Thousands of scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory are hopping mad! Or they should be.

Stay tuned for more on this topic...

-Doc

PS. There is no love lost between the Good Doctor and pharmacueticals, illegal (aka controlled, recreational, etc) or legal (aka prescribed or over-the-counter). We are an overmedicated population.

On top of that, We have "signed the papers" and "taken the vow" and despite Our love of satire and irony have a fairly strong sense of honor and right and wrong, as most of our colleagues do.

So what WE are pithed about is not that we can't use illegal drugs... no indeedy, that is not the issue!

Pinky & the Brain

Pinky and the Brain and the Doc are going to start our own mutual admiration society here. (apologies to PATB for the bad link these past few days! arg!!!)

We are very grateful to Pinky (and the Brain) and Pat the Dog and Brad and Doug for carrying on this blogging thing so faithfully.

The Doc has been busy of late so We haven't had time or focus to keep up our daily or more-often posts... We thank Pinky for the great introduction and hope to get back to some interesting new posts soon.

Meanwhile, please check out the dozen entertaining posts already offered and let's generate some good discussion about some of these topics! And feel free to send us your own good satirical material, we are happy to use it with/without attribution, anonymously/psuedonymously.

- Doc

Super Ed

Edward Teller was often considered the inspiration for Kubrick's movie "Dr. Strangelove".



Ed was most well known for his relentless pursuit of the H bomb (the Super) and for running over the top of Robert Oppenheimer every chance he got.

A recently declassified (originally intended to be unclassified but then abruptly classified, then edited, then declassified?) talk by former director Harold Agnew reminds us that Agnew didn't have as much love for Oppy as some of us do.






In this photo for his LANL badge, he looks like a white collar criminal being booked, or maybe a John in one of those stings where they instead of the prostitutes get rounded up, photographed and their pictures placed on billboards or in the paper.















Here is Super Ed at his desk during his tenure as laboratory director for LLNL in the late 50's.

Comments On!

Mea Culpa! With his eagerness to lampoon Bechtel/LANS
Nanos/NNSA the Good Doctor failed to allow Anonymous Commenting to this blog.

We have anticipated with equal lust and terror the comments that would likely come flooding in (if LTRS, LTCS, and LTRS were any indication).

The Doctor likes validation of his ideas and opinions... as well as wanting the public, especially LANL staff, retired, community and LLNL, to have yet another forum. And better yet, We look forward to having some fun with the "Wing Nuts" and the "Whiners"...

Love,
Doc Strange

Walkin, Walkin, Walkin Away!

The Good Doctor knows at least a dozen highly qualified, effective LANL employees who have left the laboratory during Nanos' reign of terror, at the Bechtel selloff and then Bechtel's redoubled reign of terror. We know a similar number who could/would/should have left but have no plan to leave until they are fired.



How many do YOU know?

Doc

Mike & Doc go Blogging!

See Also: Pat and Mike Go Blogging .

"Bechtel" - rhymes with "Rectal"?

When the Doc suggested "Bech-tell" rhymes with "Hell", Brad offered that "Bechtel rhymes with Rectal" instead.

And if the following submission via Brad is accurate, then they really are bloody arseholes!


If this one isn't enough, check out how they handled their big-fat no-bid contract in Iraq (pass a bunch right through to Halliburton, the highest no-bid contractee and then pull out after spending up most of the money and not producing).

Or check out the "Big Dig" in Boston.

We can't believe these bastards own us now...

Check this out:

> Here's an e-mail from a friend of mine (not a current or former LANL
> employee, but just a plain US citizen); the Bechtel cancer is deeply
> embedded in Los Alamos now, and the oncological surgery will have to
> be invasive to have any effect. Maybe radiation will be required?
>
> -Brad Lee Holian
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: XXXX
>> Date: April 11, 2007 1:19:36 PM MDT
>> To: Brad
>> Subject: Bechtel
>>
>> 15 minute segment on 'The News Hour w/ Jim Lerner' Monday news show
>> (PBS)
>>
>> Bechtel, via FEMA, received a $3.4 billion no bid cost plus contract
>> for all the trailers that were constructed and moved into the Katrina
>> Hurricane area.
>>
>> Many of the trailers are now vacant, unlivable, etc. but Bechtel
>> won't let them be unhooked or moved as Bechtel STILL receives a
>> monthly maintenance fee.
>>
>> . . . even though nothing is being done to maintain what are
>> essentially worthless trailers.
>>
>> These guys REALLY ARE crooks . . . .! ! ! ! !
>>
>>

Eduardo de Los Alamos

YouTube Video from Constructive Anarchy

Ed Grothus worked at LANL from 1949 to 1969 when he quit in protest against the development of Nuclear Weapons, an activity which he had been intimately engaged in for 20 years.

Today, Ed is an eccentric activist who runs a cross between a junkyard, a surplus shop and a museum.

The Doctor has a lot of respect for Ed, even though he cuts an odd figure and can be very difficult to have a conversation with at times. He has been on a prophetic rant for decades now... some of us might have listened more carefully to his dire warnings...

Ed has received a lot of attention over the years, not all of it positive... There is a rumour that he is on his last legs, we wish him well...

more to come ..... send in your Ed Grothus stories...

We Love you Ed, Strange as We all are,
- Doc