Hiding in Plain Sight

Where are you on this map?

Have you seen these big rigs rolling next to you on the freeway?

via MJ

As you weave through interstate traffic, you're unlikely to notice another plain-looking Peterbilt tractor-trailer rolling along in the right-hand lane. The government plates and array of antennas jutting from the cab's roof would hardly register. You'd have no idea that inside the cab an armed federal agent operates a host of electronic countermeasures to keep outsiders from accessing his heavily armored cargo: a nuclear warhead with enough destructive power to level downtown San Francisco.

You would think that they have super secret squirrel agents driving & riding shotgun.

You better think again.

In 2010, DOE inspectors were tipped off to alcohol abuse among the truckers. They identified 16 alcohol-related incidents between 2007 and 2009, including one in which agents were detained by local police at a bar after they'd stopped for the night with their atomic payload. After several agents and contractors were caught bringing unauthorized guns on training missions in Nevada between 2001 and 2004, DOE inspectors determined that "firearms policies and procedures were systematically violated." One OST agent in Texas pled guilty in 2006 to trying to sell body armor, rifle scopes, machine gun components, and other assault gear he'd pilfered on the job.