Many Checks Stopped After Judge’s Order Closed Internet Links
by Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post
Forty thousand Native Americans have not received any royalty checks from the federal government since Dec. 6, when a federal judge ordered the Interior Department to shut down its Internet links, ironically, to help protect the Indians’ money.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who is presiding over a long-running lawsuit alleging federal mismanagement of Indian trust funds, concluded last month that inadequate computer security left the trust accounts, with about $3 billion in assets, vulnerable to outside hackers.
The federal government is supposed to issue royalty payments — some monthly, some quarterly, some annually — for the use of the Indians’ land. But because the Interior Department relies on its Internet system to track the accounts, it has not been able to make the last round of payments — what Native Americans say is about $40 million worth.
“The hardship to Indian country has been substantial,” said Keith Harper, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, which is representing the Indians in the five-year-old legal battle. “This is sorely needed money that fulfills basic needs for a lot of folks.”
The Interior Department, Harper said, is playing “a really cruel game of politics” by keeping its Web sites down to increase public — and Native American — pressure on the court to restore the Internet links. “That’s an unfortunate characterization and it’s patently untrue,” Interior spokesman Eric Ruff said.
Ruff said that general-assistance checks have been issued to Indians to help them cover basic needs. Royalty payments will be made eventually, he said, “as soon as we can work out with the [court’s] special master to bring some of our systems back up that relate to this lease information.”
Lamberth’s order, which came at the request of the plaintiffs, affects all Interior agencies with possible connections to Indian trust data through the Internet, thus pulling the plug on Web sites for the U.S. Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.That means people cannot go online and look up campground information from the National Park Service or data on leasing land from the Bureau of Land Management.
The Interior Department restored its U.S. Geological Survey Web site over the weekend, with permission from the court, because the USGS gathers and transmits data used by the National Weather Service and other agencies. The department has a temporary site with speeches and press releases linked via the USGS site.
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