Ruling deals setback to Norton
The Denver Post
By: Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
January 16, 2002
WASHINGTON – A federal judge ruled Tuesday that lawyers for a group of American Indians have established “a prima facie” case that Interior Secretary Gale Norton is guilty of contempt of court by failing to safely guard Indian trust records from computer hackers.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth was the latest in a series of setbacks that government lawyers have suffered in their efforts to protect Norton from what the judge had previously described her “clearly contemptuous” conduct in a lawsuit that challenges her department’s admitted mishandling of the trust accounts. “Prima facie” means “at first sight.” His ruling also means that the burden of proof in the secretary’s contempt trial now shifts to Norton’s lawyers. They must now show why the former Colorado attorney general should not be held in contempt for lax computer security.
The Indians’ lawyers also have cited her for contempt on four other grounds. Resolution on the charges won’t come until after Jan. 31, when the proceedings will resume before Lamberth. Tuesday the judge and Norton’s own lawyers continued to express dismay at the Interior Department’s continuing inability to reconnect many of the department’s popular websites to the Internet. The department slashed the connections in early December after the judge expressed horror at the ease at which a computer hacker had gained access to the trust accounts via the Internet.
“In truth, your honor, it’s going a lot slower than we expected,” said Sandra Spooner, a Justice Department lawyer. She cited the National Park Service’s website, which gives the public information about campsites at parks across the nation. “The National Park Service has been more difficult because it is so widespread and relies so heavily on the Internet,” she said. “You can’t just separate out camp reservations?” the judge asked. No, she replied, adding that the Park Service has submitted a plan to Interior officials to reconnect their sites, some of the most popular sites in the department.
That exchange followed the judge’s acceptance of a report by a special master that excoriated the department for lax computer security. Separately, the judge released another report by the master, Alan Balaran, that faulted the department for “failing to adequately convey the delicate and extremely difficult process currently under way to bring IT (information technology) systems on line.”
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