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Agencies log off Internet

Department of Interior agencies lose Internet

By FRANK DELANO

Date published: 3/20/2004

American Indian data is at issue

Like thousands of other employees of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Joseph F. McCauley is offline.

McCauley manages three federal wildlife refuges from his office in an old farmhouse near Warsaw. This week, he said, he received a fax from headquarters ordering him to disconnect his five computers from the Internet.

McCauley said he unplugged the cable to the satellite dish in the yard and plunged into "a major inconvenience" of trying to do business without e-mail and Internet search engines.

A federal judge in Washington this week ordered the Interior Department to disconnect from the Internet many of its computers to safeguard from hackers records of Indian lands, natural resources, and funds.

In addition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that McCauley works for, Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs and six other agencies "to disconnect all Information Technology Systemsfrom the Internet forthwith."

McCauley said the situation has slowed spring work at the 6,359-acre Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge by denying workers Internet access to pesticide information.

The loss of Internet and outside e-mail has also hampered gathering information that McCauley needs for presentations next week, he said.

Lamberth presides over a long-running class-action lawsuit in which 300,000 American Indians claim the Interior Department has mismanaged tribal assets.

Lamberth's injunction Monday was the third time since 2001 he has pulled the department's Internet because of security failures.

"Interior clearly brought this on themselves," Lamberth said in a memorandum opinion.

His injunction exempted the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Service, as well as Internet systems used in fire and police protection.

Dan Dubray, a department spokesman, said the shutdown affects about 80,000 computer workstations. In addition, he said, about 50,000 students in schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs have lost Internet service as a result of the court ruling.

Dubray said "a roomful of lawyers" was meeting today at the department to discuss Lamberth's injunction.

"All that is way above us sitting in this poor little wildlife refuge trying to do our jobs," said McCauley.

To reach FRANK DELANO: 804/333-3834 delanobigtree@rivnet.net

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Date published: 3/20/2004