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To: Mannie who wrote (39520)	3/16/2004 1:31:24 AM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

Internet Cutoff Ordered at Interior By Carol D. Leonnig A federal judge in Washington yesterday ordered the Interior Department to shut down most of its employees' Internet access and some of its public Web sites after concluding that the agency has failed to fix computer security problems that threaten millions of dollars owed to Native Americans. The order, the third the judge has handed down regarding computer security concerns at the agency since 2001, enlarges the portion of the Interior Department that will have to disconnect from the Internet. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he was forced to take this step because Interior officials have refused to address obvious lapses and have given contradictory information about computer security. In the past, Interior's Internet shutdowns have made it difficult for people to get online information about national parks and monuments as well as for departmental offices to communicate with one another. Dan DuBray, a spokesman for the Interior Department, said the agency's top officials and lawyers were still reviewing Lamberth's injunction and could not comment on its ramifications for employees or the public. Lamberth's order is the latest in an increasingly bitter dispute between him and the agency. Since 1996, Lamberth has presided over a lawsuit in which a group of Indians sued to force Interior to produce an accounting of all the grazing, energy and mineral royalties from Indian lands that the department had been managing since 1879. The judge has criticized the agency for ignoring its responsibility to Native Americans and found government officials in contempt of his orders. The department's lawyers, meanwhile, have sought to have Congress intervene and have repeatedly appealed each of the judge's demands and deadlines to a higher court. Yesterday's decision came as Interior was arguing before the appeals court to overturn other Lamberth decisions and to get another judge appointed to hear the case. The most recent decision covers computer connections and Web sites in the Inspector General's Office, the Minerals Management Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Office of the Special Trustee, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Surface Mining, and the National Business Center. "The interest of the 300,000-plus current beneficiaries of the individual Indian trust outweigh the potential inconvenience of those parties that would otherwise have access to Interior's Internet services," Lamberth wrote. As in July, Lamberth ruled that Interior could keep emergency systems connected, particularly those involving firefighting and policing. The National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and Interior's budget office also will remain connected because the court was convinced that those agencies are secure. Lamberth first required the department to shut down Internet operations in 2001. A special master he appointed discovered that even a novice hacker could penetrate the Web sites' security and access data on the Indian revenue. In July, Lamberth ordered a smaller portion of the department disconnected and gave Interior a chance to reconnect those divisions and offices that officials could certify were safe from hacking. But the judge wrote in yesterday's opinion that the department's claims of secure systems "mocked this Court's injunction." washingtonpost.com lurqer