A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, on Wednesday granted an emergency administrative stay of a lower court’s injunction that had forced the Department of Interior to unplug most of its computer system from the Internet in mid-March.

As a result of the temporary stay, the websites of the majority of the affected Interior agencies have been restored, with the exception of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), pending the outcome of hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on the injunction, which was issued by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth on March 15.

“We expect a hearing on it [the injunction] as early as next week,” said Interior spokesman Dan DuBray. The BIA was not covered by the stay because it was disconnected from the Internet by prior orders of the district court, he noted.

The latest disconnection from the Internet was ordered after Lamberth concluded that Interior had failed miserably to beef up the security of its computer database containing information on royalties that are held and overseen by the department in the Indian Trust Fund.

This was at least the second occasion in which the agency was ordered to unplug from the Internet its database systems that house or provide access to information on royalties held in individual Indian trusts. The lower court repeatedly has found that Interior’s system containing Indian royalty data is an easy target for hackers.

Lamberth’s action is part of a lawsuit in which Indian plaintiffs cited a lack of Internet security surrounding the Interior-maintained Indian trust accounts, which hold royalty monies from oil and gas production, and timber and mining activities on their lands. The plaintiffs claimed the Indian trust accounts were easy prey for outside hackers, and that this contributed to an alleged mismanagement of billions of dollars of Indian royalties over the years.

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