Interior Dept unplugged from the Net

CNNMoney ^ | March 16, 2004: 2:46 PM EST | Staff

[glorgau]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wide swaths of the Interior Department were taken off the Internet again Tuesday after a federal judge concluded that the agency still has not fixed security holes that threaten payments owed to American Indians.

It was the third such shutdown for the Interior Department since 2001, when an investigator found that hackers could easily steal money from a system that allocates energy and mineral royalties to 300,000 Indians for use of their land.

[glorgau]

Judge Lamberth update. The Interior department still can't get it's act together.

[MamaLucci]

Why isn't Bruce Babbit in jail?

[kenth]

This is ridiculous. Hackers are the least of the worries when it comes to the wholesale siphoning of the IIM accounts. A hacker would have a thing or three to learn from Congress and BIA officials when it comes to taking money that isn't theirs.

[newzhawk]

I would check Al Gore's bank account and the DNC- this was one of their favorite raiding grounds for moola

[kenth]

My mother receives oil royalties from land held in 'trust'. The past thirty years, the oil production has been the same, slow but steady. She normally received royalty payments monthly, then during the nineties they dropped to every other month, then every three months. The payment amounts did not show a double or triple monthly accumulation. Trying to get any information from the BIA was fruitless, as were her attempts to get the land out of 'trust'.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You'd be hard pressed to find a federal agency more incompetent than Interior.