Nuclear Security, Department of Energy

The security of nuclear materials in the United States is assigned to the Office of Security in the Department of Energy (DOE), which protects facilities, personnel, and classified and sensitive materials from threats from criminals, dissidents, terrorists, and security breaches via foreign intelligence. The plants and laboratories managed by DOE are located throughout the United States, including facilities in Nevada, New Mexico, California, and Tennessee and the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The Office of Security is divided into a number of areas, including identification of classified and controlled information; executive and dignitary protection; infrastructure security to protect critical assets, including nuclear materials; and an emergency management center located at the Forrestal Emergency Operations Center at the Washington, D.C., headquarters, from which analytical support is provided during all security-related incidents and all emergency management drills and practice exercises.

The security policy staff is responsible for designing policies to protect the physical security of facilities and the assets entrusted to DOE. Staff also manages the DOE Safeguards and Security Technology Development Program and the integration of cyber security, classification and control policy, and safeguards and security. The security policy staff must also provide an independent adversary team that has the capabilities pointed out in the DOE Design Basis Threat. The team, known as the Composite Adversary Team, provides realistic training and emergency management opportunities for staff through realistic performances of security breaches.

An Office of Security Training and Education manages the Nonproliferation and National Security Institute (NNSI), located at Kirkland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and provides security training and services (e.g., nuclear safeguards and security, protection of the infrastructure, and homeland security counterterrorism measures). Between 1984 and 1998, the NNSI was known as the Safeguards and Security Central Training Academy. It provided the training necessary to counter threats directed at U.S. nuclear facilities. In those years, programs grew to more than 100 courses in five major areas: information security, materials control and accountability, personnel security, program and planning management along with curriculum development and instructional techniques, and protection program operations.

The NNSI, which is operated by Wackenhut Security Services for the DOE, is comprised of the Safeguards and Security Central Training Academy, the Counterintelligence Training Academy (CITA), the Foreign Interaction Training Academy, and the Professional Development Program. Each performs somewhat different functions.

The CITA, which was established on May 1, 2000, provides counterintelligence training and awareness courses and informs the students of the current structure and responsibilities of the Office of Counterintelligence and the Office of Defense Nuclear Counterintelligence. Students, who include DOE/NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) federal and contractor managers and supervisors, are trained to recognize the dangers of the foreign intelligence services threat, the risks and vulnerabilities, and methods of protection for personnel and technology and how to recognize, deflect, and report to DOE/NNSA counterintelligence any attempts by foreign intelligence service personnel to extract information from DOE/NNSA attendees at scientific conferences and business meetings. The practice of economic espionage (types of intellectual property threats and countermeasures) is discussed and analyzed using cases, examples, and the 1996 Economic Espionage Act, as well as the risks involved in scientific collaborative projects. Students are trained in how to spot human behavior and weaknesses that could cause a trusted insider to be recruited by corporate or national intelligence spies. The foreign technical collection documents how threats or how technical espionage (bugging conversations, voice, fax, and data communication, theft of materials, luggage, computer, etc.), technical surveillance, covert searches, and efforts to elicit information can be used against a DOE/NNSA traveler.

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