FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 9, 2002 www.indiantrust.com JUDGE SUGGESTS GAME-PLAYING BY INTERIOR MAY BE BEHIND INTERNET SHUTDOWN Department May Be Suffering From "Washington Monument Syndrome" WASHINGTON, D.C. - The federal judge hearing contempt charges against Interior Secretary Gale Norton suggested today that her department's slow pace in reconnecting its web sites to the Internet and issuing overdue checks to 43,000 individual Indian trust beneficiaries may be due to a case of "Washington Monument syndrome." Lamberth ordered Interior on Dec. 5 to disconnect its Indian trust-related systems from the web because they lack computer security safeguards. Interior responded by shutting down its entire Internet connection, and has yet to bring several popular sites, such as the National Park Service, back online. "I do have some concern about the National Park Service," Lamberth told a Justice Department lawyer, who was trying to persuade the judge that Interior is anxious to get the sites back in operation. "Here in Washington, we have something called the 'Washington Monument syndrome.' Every time Interior loses its appropriation, the first thing they do is close the Washington Monument. Then they go to [Congress] looking for money. In this case, people can't get online to check their favorite campsites. "I really don't understand why Interior can't deal with this differently," he added. Despite a second order by Lamberth on Dec. 17 that allows Interior to reactivate the necessary computer systems to issue the checks, under court supervision, the department has not done so. In his second day on the witness stand, Special Trustee Thomas N. Slonaker testified that although he increasingly suspected that quarterly reports on trust reform being filed with Lamberth by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Secretary Norton were highly misleading to the court, at no time did Interior or Justice Department attorneys involved in their preparation question him about his concerns. Slonaker, a presidential appointee entrusted by Congress with trust reform oversight, said he began to believe shortly after taking office in mid-summer of 2000 that Interior's trust reform efforts were understaffed and that information supplied by some project managers in the field was inaccurate, incomplete and misleading. The information was assembled and massaged by Interior and Justice officials and lawyers, then submitted to Lamberth on a quarterly basis, starting at the end of March 2000. In an August 30, 2000 letter to Assistant Attorney General Lois Schiffer, Slonaker stated that he had "concerns" about the true progress of trust reform. Did attorneys working on the reports inquire about those concerns, asked plaintiffs' lawyer Dennis M. Gingold, ticking off a list of five Justice Department lawyers. "I don't recall any," said Slonaker. Slonaker eventually refused to verify the contents of the 7th Quarterly Report last September, and Lamberth has ordered that Norton personally sign future reports, starting with the 8th report, which is due next week. The contempt charges against Norton are largely based on the filing of false reports with the court. Slonaker also conceded today that the format of the quarterly reports was tightly limited in the information they conveyed to Lamberth, and that as Special Trustee he has considerably more authority from Congress than he has exercised to dig out the facts about Interior's efforts at reforming the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trust. He blamed the restricted reporting format on Interior. "That's what the department decided to do," he said. Questioned by Gingold about a 1996 opinion by Interior's own Solicitor's Office that also held that the department owes wide-ranging, detailed reporting about the trust to the individual Indian trust beneficiaries, Slonaker said he had been unaware of the opinion. "I didn't know it existed," he said. Slonaker completed his testimony today. The Interior Department's chief information officer, Daryl White, will be on the witness stand Thursday morning. ##### To subscribe to the Indian Trust mailing list, please click on the following link (if available) or paste it into your browser: http://www.indiantrust.com/