Department of Labor (DOL) officials ignored recommendations they were given in a tax-paid study they commissioned by the Sandia National Laboratory for a study of security flaws in the government’s “lockup” process for releasing new unemployment and other economic data, according to a congressional committee chairman.

In addition, Sandia researchers were prevented from studying the whole process by which DOL conducts the process known as “lockups” because participating journalists are locked into a secured room where they can prepare stories on the new data that are published at the same time it is officially released.