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Feds Now Allowed To Use Internet

Posted by samzenpus on from the welcome-to-the-web dept.

fast66 writes "Nextgov reports that a new court order allows the Department of the Interior to connect to the Internet, six years after the federal agency was ordered to disconnect. District Judge James Robertson wrote in his ruling, 'I find that the consent order is of no further use and must be vacated.' 'The ... disconnected offices and bureaus may be connected.' He added that his ruling was based not on evidence but 'on a legal conclusion that it is not my role to weigh IT security risks.'"

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. The switch has not yet been flipped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the judge removed the barriers last week, most of the disconnected agencies have not been brought live as of yet.

    It is a misstatement to say that this is against the Department of the Interior. More correctly would be to say the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a few other small agencies that deal directly with Indian matters. While the DOI had originally claimed that the exposed Indian Trust data was too ingrained within their network that it could not be isolated, a ruling by a federal judge that disconnected the entire DOI caused a change of heart and it was realized that just the BIA and a few of its siblings could be sent to the dark ages by themselves.

    In the six years, these groups have had interconnected LAN's, that have been isolated from the outside world (it is fun to do business with BIA folks as they will give you yahoo, & netzero email accounts which they will check and respond to from home).

    Time will tell what impact reconnecting the BIA will have when the switch is officially flipped on Friday.

    1. Re:The switch has not yet been flipped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is a significant court case in which questions have been raised about billions of dollars.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobell_v._Kempthorne

      The order to be disconnected from the internet was spawned from this case (several years after the case had started). With a new judge, a new mindset on how matters were to be approached, likely leading to this reconnect, and possibly to an eventual conclusion to this case.

  2. Re:That was silly.. by belmolis · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not a case of a judge gratuitously injecting himself into computer security. This situation arose when Indians sued for royalties held in the Indian Land Trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is part of the Interior Department. During the suit, it turned out that the problem was not just that they weren't getting paid, but that BIA's record-keeping was woefully inadequate. Just figuring out what the plaintiffs were owed proved to be a huge problem. Judge Lamberth ordered the BIA disconnected because court-appointed experts had hacked into the BIA and found the Indian trust fund records to be insecure.

    Of course, it isn't only external threats that are a concern. BIA is so incompetent or malicious that they are reported to have deleted their backup tapes. Judge Lamberth was so appalled that he threatened to jail the Secretary of the Interior for contempt of court. The government eventually got him removed on the dubious grounds that he was biased against the government, the only evidence of which was his well justified criticism BIA.