FC: Department of the Interior pulls plug on all websites, email

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Other coverage (the Washington Post was thorough but late):
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/12/07/0223216.shtml
http://www.indiantrust.org/clips.cfm?news_id=158
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40340,00.html

-Declan

********

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10955-2001Dec7.html
   
   By Edward Walsh
   Washington Post Staff Writer
   Saturday, December 8, 2001; Page A04
   
   Responding to a court order, the Interior Department has cut itself
   off from the Internet, crippling the ability of Interior employees to
   communicate by e-mail and blocking access to information gathered by
   the department that is routinely used by other agencies and the
   public.
   
   The shutdown occurred Thursday afternoon on the order of U.S. District
   Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who is presiding over a long-running lawsuit
   alleging decades of mismanagement by the federal government in the
   handling of trust funds for American Indians.
   
   Lamberth earlier commissioned a computer security test that concluded
   trust fund accounts were vulnerable to manipulation by outside
   hackers. He then ordered the Interior Department to "immediately
   disconnect from the Internet all information technology systems that
   house or provide access to individual Indian trust data."
   
   The judge also ordered the disconnection of "all computers within the
   custody and control of the Department of the Interior, its employees
   and contractors that have access to individual Indian trust data."
   
   The Internet cutoff threw the Interior Department back to a time of
   communicating by telephone and paper documents. It left department
   employees without access to e-mail, an increasingly common form of
   communication within the government and between the government and the
   public. For example, Megan Durham, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and
   Wildlife Service, said her agency now distributes almost all of its
   news releases electronically.
   
   The cutoff also shut down department Web sites, such as the National
   Park Service site, which are widely used by a public accustomed to
   easily accessing government information for research on a variety of
   topics.

   [...]



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