Court investigator says Interior hasn’t acted to fix Internet problems
The Associated Press
By: Robert Gehrke
Associated Press Writer
January 16, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) – Vital Interior Department computer systems managing law enforcement and fire data are still not accessible from the Internet, but a court investigator said Tuesday Interior officials have not requested that the systems be restored. Interior officials say that a court-ordered Internet blackout is hindering their efforts to protect dams and critical facilities from terrorist attacks, protect visitors to National Parks, and access important fire, earthquake and volcano information.
The problems were spelled out in a report used to brief White House and congressional staffers late last week. But Interior needs to fix its own computer problems, according to a report by Alan Balaran, who was appointed by the court to make sure Interior’s efforts to restore Internet access don’t compromise Indian money the Internet shutdown was meant to protect. He said he has granted Interior’s requests to allow some law enforcement and fire information to be put online again. Other departments, including the National Parks Service and Bureau of Land Management, have not sought permission to put their operations – including law enforcement – back online.
Interior spokesman John Wright said the department is working as hard as it can to assure the Indian money will be safe if the systems are brought back online, but it takes time. Sanrda Spooner, deputy director of the Justice Department’s civil division, told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who ordered the Internet shutdown, that security fixes are going slower than expected, but there is hope that the National Parks Service and key systems could be up by late this week or early next week.
Lamberth pulled the plug on the Interior Department’s Internet access on Dec. 5 after the security for the system, which manages $500 million annually in royalties from Indian land, was found to be an easy target for hackers. The problems came to light as part of a lawsuit that claims the Indian royalties have been mismanaged for more than a century and at least $10 billion has been squandered. As a result of the Internet shutdown, 40,000 Indians have not received royalty checks for the use of their land since November. Dennis Gingold, the plaintiff’s attorney, said the department could easily issue the checks.
“I think this is the worst, most offensive, disgraceful thing you can do to people – people who need the money for food, people who need the money for heat, people who need the money for clothing,” he said. But Assistant Deputy Interior Secretary James Cason said Tuesday that paying the Indians is the department’s highest priority. “There is no intent, desire or strategy on the part of the department to leverage the payments to Indians to get concessions to the department’s access to the Internet,” he said.
Balaran said Tuesday that the Interior Department has tried to present the Internet problems as a result of the litigation, “not as one directly emanating from Interior’s negligence.” In his original security report, Balaran said the Interior Department had ignored warnings dating back to 1989 that its computer security was insufficient.
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