Appeals court orders Interior Department back online

Computerworld - A long-running battle over security practices at the U.S. Department of the Interior entered another chapter today as circuit court judges set aside an earlier ruling which barred the agency from most Internet usage, including e-mail. In addition, the circuit court removed judge Royce C. Lamberth from the case he has presided over for nearly a decade.

The original class-action suit, filed in 1996, sought to correct historical mismanagement of various American Indian trust accounts. The case, Cobell v. Kempthorne, seeks an accounting for billions of dollars held in trust since the late 19th century and belonging to approximately half a million American Indians and their heirs.

The original shutdown in December 2001 took all Interior Department information off-line, including Web sites for the National Parks System as well as payment systems for both employees and contractors. About 40% of the systems were restored  within three months.

The tug of war between the district and circuit courts over Cobell heated up again in 2004 when District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered that all of the department's computers be disconnected from the Internet, except for those deemed essential for public safety reasons. The systems of the National Park Service, the Office of Policy Management and Budget and the U.S. Geological Survey were also exempt. The Circuit Court for the District of Columbia set aside that ruling in December 2004.

An internal IT audit in April 2005 revealed  potential weaknesses in Bureau of Land Management servers keeping track of oil and gas leases on Indian land in the west. No breach was detected, but systems were taken off-line to correct the problems found. In October, Lamberth once again ordered much of the network off-line, but the Interior department received an administrative stay on that order.

In a statement Tuesday on the IndianTrust.com site, plaintiff Elouise Cobell praised Lamberth's work on the case over the years and stated that the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court, since it appears to conflict with previous rulings concerning the Interior Department and its security practices.

The department's computer security has consistently been found substandard by the House Committee of Government Reform, which issues an annual report card on security implementations in federal agencies. The Interior Department has received a failing grade in four of the five years the report card has been compiled.

PDF copies of the ruling and of the order removing Lamberth from the case may be viewed online.

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