Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Because of a court ruling, the Interior Department is running the old-fashioned way: computerless.
Piles of paper have replaced e-mails, and telephoned queries have replaced clicks on Web sites.
A month after a federal judge pulled the plug on the department’s Internet connections, the situation is causing headaches for the public and agency employees alike.
"I think we’re all working very hard to try to deal with these problems," Interior spokesman Hugh Vickery said Friday. "We’re in the 21st century now, and when your e-mail and Web get taken away, it’s a real challenge."
Computer users no longer can look for information on endangered species from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Web site or get campground information for the Grand Canyon from the National Park Service’s site.
Information on leasing land or adopting a wild horse from the Bureau of Land Management is no longer is available via the Internet. Even recruitment of the bureau’s summer firefighters has been hindered, bureau spokeswoman Celia Boddington said.
At the Fish and Wildlife Service, spokesman Mitch Snow said wetlands conservation grants can’t be distributed because the service cannot receive online applications. And state planners and developers can’t get the service’s endangered species lists or wetlands maps.
The disruption also has affected 40,000 Indians, who normally get royalty checks from the Interior Department for leases on their land but have received none since the computer blackout.
It’s a strange twist that U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth shut down the agency’s computer system on Dec. 5 so the department could repair security problems that he said threatened the Indians’ royalty money.
Lamberth is presiding in a 5-year-old lawsuit brought by Indians over the Interior Department’s acknowledged centurylong mismanagement of a trust fund for royalties from their land.
"This is clearly a problem of Interior’s creation," said Keith Harper, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. He said Interior’s extraordinary efforts to make sure its employees get paid while 40,000 Indians go without, ignoring Lamberth’s instructions to pay the Indians, "is just appalling."
"Some of these are for the poorest people in the country. We’re talking about folks who are using this money for basic, basic needs: keeping electricity on, buying heating oil, buying jackets for their kids," Harper said.
Portions of the department’s communications are being restored, under strict oversight by court-appointed investigator Alan Balaran. Systems for law enforcement and Indian welfare services have been restored, and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Web site again is accessible.
But nobody knows how long it will take to install necessary security systems so the rest of the operation can be brought back online.
Balaran said he wants the reconnection done quickly. "I will not, however, accept any shortcuts which could ultimately compromise trust data," he said in a letter to Interior lawyers sent Friday.
Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.