The Interior Department has shut down its web site in compliance with a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a federal judge in Washington, DC.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the department to disconnect from the Internet its database systems that “house or provide access to” information on royalties held in individual Indian trusts, and to disconnect from the Internet all computers within the “custody and control” of the department, its employees and contractors that have access to the data.

Lamberth reportedly took this action out of security concerns about the systems that hold information on royalties derived from Indian lands, fearing that they could be easy prey for hackers. The TRO did not specify how long Interior’s web site was to remain down.

This latest action is part of an ongoing case, over which Lamberth is presiding, in which Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been ordered to face a civil contempt trial for failure to comply with court orders to clean up the alleged mismanagement of royalty monies held and overseen by the agency in the Indian Trust Fund (see Daily GPI, Dec. 5). The contempt trial is scheduled to begin Monday (Dec. 10).

Interior holds about 56 million acres of land and several billions of dollars of royalties in trust for Indian tribes and other individuals. The Indian plaintiffs in the case argue that Interior has mismanaged royalties in the neighborhood of $10 billion, said one source familiar with the case.

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