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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | ||
| Ex-Palo Verde engineer took software to Iran to impress relatives | ||
| 2007-05-18 | ||
| Have at it, 'Burgers. Thinking about the BS in this story makes my head hurt. A former Palo Verde nuclear plant engineer accused of taking plant software to Iran told the FBI that he simply wanted to show off his job to family and friends. New records obtained by The Arizona Republic show Mohammad Alavi, 49, also told federal agents that he moved to Iran to be closer to his family and was about to start a job with an electric-motor company. He said the laptop computer containing the software is still in a closet at his mother's house in Tehran. "Yeah, it's right on top of all my old KISS ARMY stuff!" A transcript of a court hearing not previously available paints a picture of Alavi as a man with no ties to the Iranian government or its nuclear program. It appears to contradict a federal judge's description of the software as "a highly valuable product that presented grave risk to public safety if put in the wrong hands." All this comes as state and federal regulators grapple with concerns about routine security practices at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, the nation's largest nuclear plant. At the court hearing in April, an assistant U.S. attorney raised concerns about how Alavi was able to "walk the blueprints of the Palo Verde plant to Tehran." The transcript indicates that Alavi wasn't the only employee to download the details of control rooms, reactors and designs as part of a software training package onto his personal laptop and take it home. "(Alavi) was not the only one that was being asked to put this information on his laptop," Alavi's lawyer, Milagros Cisneros, said during the hearing in Phoenix. "It was something that was encouraged at his workplace." Indeed, officials with the Arizona Public Service Co., which operates Palo Verde, confirm that employees were encouraged to download the software onto personal laptops and work on it at home. The software provides employees with emergency scenarios and instructs them to react with proper procedures. It has no links to actual plant workings and can't be used to affect operations. "We encourage them to use it at home. . . . What (Alavi) was doing with software was not unusual and certainly not limited to him," APS spokesman Jim McDonald said, stressing there is nothing classified about the software. "That is our point. They work on it at home as a matter of their job duties." "It's ok, really.....it's not like anyone might use this info to, you know, figger out how to exploit our weaknesses or anything like that. Besides, he was a great guy, always brought the most wonderful macaroni salad to the employee picnic....
Alavi, an Iranian native who lived in the United States as a naturalized citizen for 30 years, is being held without bail in Arizona. He has been charged with a single count of violating a trade embargo with Iran, which carries a maximum penalty of 24 months in prison. Trial is set for July 3. Alavi worked at Palo Verde for 16 years until August, when he resigned and moved to Tehran. He was arrested on April 8 as he stepped off a plane in Los Angeles. He had returned to the United States with his wife for the birth of their first child.
There was no evidence that the software played a part in Alavi's move to Iran or that it was connected to his new job with a company reselling electric motors manufactured in Serbia. Alavi told federal agents that he had invested $60,000 in the company, which has an exclusive agreement to sell the motors in Iran. "He wanted to make a go of it in Iran, even though he would make one-tenth of the salary he made in the United States so that he could be with his extended family," Cammack said. Riiiight. The testimony at the April 17 hearing stands in contrast to statements made by U.S. Judge Neil Wake when he denied Alavi bail on April 20. Wake wrote in his order that Alavi's desire to leave the country "was an essential element in his plan and effort to obtain and access the software." He called Alavi a "serious flight risk." He also described the software as potentially dangerous. But transcripts show that three days earlier, on April 17, Wake told authorities there was no evidence "that this involved national security controls or controls relating to proliferation of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or materials." Federal authorities, who argued that Alavi should be held without bail because of his lack of ties to the United States, repeatedly told Wake that that they were not making "a danger argument." Wake responded, "Let's put it this way: If there is a danger, it's already done." | ||
| Posted by:Swamp Blondie |
| #3 Anyone care to guess what kind of "business associates" he was impressing with this software? |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-05-18 23:15 |
| #2 "confirm that employees were encouraged to download the software onto personal laptops and work on it at home" Wow! Nuclear plant software, go work on it in an unsecured area. Some serious "up the poop-shoot" investigation of the arizona public service co are in order. |
| Posted by: flash91 2007-05-18 13:03 |
| #1 A former Palo Verde nuclear plant engineer accused of taking plant software to Iran told the FBI that he simply wanted to show off his job to family and friends. ..and after a few years in prison, he can impress them by showing them his huge, gigantic asshole. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-05-18 12:24 |