I have written several commentaries about the event titled “Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 years After the Raid.” This one will be posted earlier because it is about the panel discussion titled “Secrecy and Its Fallout,” and I was originally listed as a panelist. (See the commentary posted June 4th for an explanation.) Nat Miullo, listed as “Former Environmental Protection Agency Inspector at Rocky Flats” was on this panel, and he gave an engaging and personable introduction about how he arrived at that position. He said his father, and he spoke of him in admirable terms, had worked in the military in positions that required secrecy and had discouraged him from accepting the position overseeing Rocky Flats. Mr. Miullo had, as I understood him, worked on waste issues at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and his father said Rocky Flats would be more difficult. He went against his father’s advice and accepted the Rocky Flats assignment. He commented that security requirements were carefully followed at Rocky Flats and none of the people working there were going to break those laws. He discussed how he filed the application for a security clearance and was frustrated at how long it took for the investigation to be completed. Mr. Miullo described that he was prevented from seeing some operations at Rocky Flats even after he received his clearance, but explained that there were strict “need to know requirements.” He did not dismiss the logic of those requirements, and I recall he even said workers with clearances were not allowed to see what was going on outside their buildings unless they had “a need to know.” He said that he was led into some areas blindfolded because there were operations that he did not need to see to do his job, but “Over time that was overcome.” Continue reading
Category Archives: Commentary
Rocky Flats Then and Now, an Overview
I attended several of the panel discussions about the twenty-five year anniversary of the raid of Rocky Flats, and commend the organizers. The event was well attended. It was obvious that there are still high emotions about the Rocky Flats mission and its legacy.
Len Ackland, one of the organizers, gave a good sketch of Rocky Flats history. He did say something I thought was surprising, if my notes are correct. He said there is a fundamental controversy about secrecy of weapons production. I would expect that critics of Rocky Flats would believe that protecting that kind of information would be crucial to at least slowing nuclear proliferation. He mentioned the number of nuclear weapons remaining in the world, and I doubt anyone wishes for more countries to begin building them.
I have some specific comments about the event, and one I do not want to forget is how much I admired Jack Weaver for his participation in the opening event. I also greatly appreciated that Phil Saba stood up after one of the panel discussions to say he came from a job that was dangerous to Rocky Flats where safety came first. I also appreciated Ken Frieberg’s wonderful discussions of how production information was guarded as secret and environmental information was open to everyone. Of course Jon Lipsky, the FBI agent in charge of the Rocky Flats raid, attempted to discredit that statement by saying the waste characterization reports filed by the plant as required by law were marked as “Unclassified Nuclear Information (UCNI)” I expect he knew that the reports contained information about piping diagrams and waste volumes that could be used by interested agents to perform “reverse engineering” to identify processes used at Rocky Flats. Those reports contained “waste processing” information, and not “environmental” information. What Ken said was true. Continue reading
Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the Raid
There will be a series of presentations June 6-8 at the Arvada Center to discuss various aspects of the raid, and I was scheduled to be a panelist. The original schedule was for me to appear with Wes McKinley, the foreman of the Grand Jury that investigated Rocky Flats. I reluctantly agreed to participate when I was reminded I had mentioned in my book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” that I hoped to have a polite discussion with Mr. McKinley some day. I was disappointed when Mr. McKinley had a scheduling conflict that caused him to withdraw. I became concerned when I was told the final make-up of the panel (titled Secrecy and its Fallout). I expressed my concerns to the organizers and offered that they could replace me. They took me up on my offer.
Secrecy was a constant part of my professional life when I was working in the production areas of Rocky Flats. It had practically nothing to do with my work in the environmental organizations. We were required to have environmental reports reviewed by an “authorized classifier,” but I have not one single memory of an environmental report requiring even the smallest modification before receiving the “unclassified” stamp before distribution on and off-site to anyone interested. Continue reading
Social Security Private Accounts
There was a commentary posted February 1, 2012 about George W. Bush’s proposal to allow young people to voluntarily invest a third of their Social Security “contributions” into private accounts. That was successfully vilified as a proposal to “privatize Social Security.” The attacks were based on the lie that the proposal would reduce monthly payments to people already receiving benefits. Older people are dependable voters, and politicians scrapped an idea that would have been wonderful for younger workers.
I wrote in the earlier commentary what would have happened if the proposal had been passed by Congress. Workers could have put the proposed one third or their Social Security “contributions” into a private account invested in an S&P 500 index fund beginning in 2005. There is no doubt 2008 was a scary year for investors. Workers earning $50,000/year would have invested about $8300 into their private account from when the change was proposed. That investment would have dropped in value to about $5700 at the low point of the financial crisis. That would scare anyone! However, what would have happened if the hypothetical investor had the guts to continue to invest two percent of their $50,000 earnings as the market dropped and beyond? The monthly “dollar averaging” investments would have bought more shares in the S&P 500 index fund, and that would have had a powerful effect on the current value of the account. Continue reading
Supreme Court Criminal Trial after a Lynching
I’m often given a stack of legal magazines while visiting our son and his family, and one article that I’ve saved is titled, “A Supreme Case of Contempt” by Mark Curriden published in the June 2009 ABA Journal. You can tell by the date that it took a considerable time before I could post something about this incredibly sad and disturbing story. The article tells the remarkable story of United States v. Shipp. It was the first and only criminal trial in the history of the Supreme Court. There were nine defendants, and all were charged with contempt of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Attorney had filed the charges directly with the court, which gave it “…original jurisdiction in the matter.” The charges alleged that the defendants engaged in action “…with the intent to show their contempt and disregard for the orders of this honorable court…and for the purpose of preventing Ed Johnson from exercising and enjoying a right secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Ed Johnson was a young black man convicted of raping a white woman despite ample evidence he was innocent. He was lynched after police officials stood aside to allow him to be taken by a mob.
The story begins with a 21 year old white woman named Nevada Taylor who was on her way to work in Chattanooga, TN on January 23, 1906. An assailant approached her from behind, put a leather strap around her neck, threatened to kill her if she screamed, and raped her. She ran home and her father called Hamilton County Sherriff Joseph F. Shipp to report the crime. The newspaper report of the “fiendish crime” said that Taylor had not seen the assailant. The report described the assailant as a “Negro brute.” There was a $375 reward announced for anyone who could identify the attacker. A white man named Will Hixxon read about the reward and said he had seen Ed Johnson, a young black man, carrying a leather strap near the scene of the crime about the time it had occurred. Shipp arrested Johnson, who maintained his innocence during a three hour interrogation. Johnson said he had been in a saloon and gave names of a dozen men who could vouch for his story. Continue reading
Social Security Debt Collection
There was a recent media dust-up over the Social Security Administration seizing tax refunds to recoup over-payments that happened more than a decade ago. However, Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press explained that the program would be halted at least temporarily in his article titled “Social Security halts effort to collect old over-payments.” A 2008 law allows use of a “…Treasury program to seize federal payments to recoup debts that are more than 10 years old. Previously, there was a 10-year limit on using the program.” “The Social Security Administration says it has identified about 400,000 people with old debts. They owe a total of $714 million.” Some of the disputed benefits were paid to surviving parents or guardians of children eligible for survivor benefits or the benefits paid to a disabled child. The agency says it has already collected $55 million, and at least some of it was collected from children and grandchildren of those who were overpaid. Continue reading