

Seven more nuclear guards have been caught napping on the job. It's the latest example of lax security in the nation's atomic complex.

The National Nuclear Security Administration admitted that seven officers have been found asleep in the past eight years at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Tennessee. As Global Security Newswire notes, "the site is responsible for storing weapon-grade uranium and assembling U.S. nuclear weapons, among other activities."

Of the seven sleeping guards, three were found to have been "intentionally sleeping on duty" and were fired, Wyatt said. The remaining four received lesser penalties, including suspensions without pay of up to three weeks, and all were placed on 12-month probations. The guards worked for Wackenhut Services Inc., a security firm whose parent company lost a contract to protect 10 U.S. nuclear power plants after two of its security officers were filmed sleeping on the job at a Pennsylvania power plant. [Another guard, working for a different security contractor, was caught napping at the Indian Point nuclear plant.] A Wackenhut spokeswoman said the firm has been trying to enhance guard alertness by reducing the amount of overtime they work. She also said the sleeping incidents were unusual. *"There have been a few isolated incidents for us, which we took very seriously," said Courtney Henry. "For the number of security officers that we have working at Y-12, it is a very small number." *

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