Department of Energy DOE Needs to Improve Controls Over Foreign Visitors to Weapons Laboratories
Abstract
With the end of the Cold War, the Department of Energy's (DOE) weapons laboratories are moving away from secret nuclear weapons research toward unclassified cooperative research involving a variety of nations and an increasing number of foreign visitors. This openness greatly benefits DOE and the United States by stimulating the exchange of ideas, promoting cooperation, and enhancing research efforts. However, while foreign visitors are providing benefits to DOE's programs, the weapons laboratories are key targets of foreign intelligence interest, according to counterintelligence experts, thus raising concerns about possible espionage efforts against those laboratories, including industrial espionage. To guard against foreign nationals' obtaining information that would be detrimental to U.S. security or business interests, DOE has established various controls to minimize the risk of foreign espionage. However, past work done by GAO in 1988 and more recently by elements of the U.S. intelligence community has shown problems with DOE'S controls over foreign visitors to its laboratories. Moreover, because the number of foreign visitors to the laboratories increased over 50 percent from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, additional burdens have been placed on the controls DOE has in place to manage foreign visits. The high number of foreign visitors, as well as some recent investigative cases involving foreign nationals at DOE'S laboratories, have increased concerns that the laboratories are targets of foreign espionage.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA331256
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office