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RAIN 8/16 Part 2: Indian Trust Records case, IT problems, Google' s successors



There are 22  stories in this posting

The first stories in this posting cover the Indian Trust Fund litigation.
Central part of the case was the role of records management, especially how
records were maintained and the fact that records were destroyed during the
litigation. To learn more about the case click on the following link which
is provided and maintained by the plaintiff's in the case.
http://www.indiantrust.com/

Anchorage Daily News 8/10/01
Computers no help on Indian trusts
http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/654646p-697564c.html

by Robert Gehrke
AP
Washington -- Interior Department officials misled a judge and Congress
about the viability of a $40 million computer system meant to help fix a
century's worth of mismanagement of Indian trust accounts, a court-appointed
investigator said Thursday.
The report by Joseph Kieffer detailed problems he found in the computer
system being developed by the department that may force it to be scrapped.
Such a move would be a serious blow to efforts to overhaul the $3 billion
trust that manages royalties from Indian lands.


Chicago Tribune 8/15/01
U.S. agency admits errors in Indian case
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0108150316aug15.story

by James Warren
WASHINGTON -- Ineptitude, ignorance and bureaucratic gamesmanship led
Treasury Department lawyers to conceal the existence and destruction of 162
boxes of records potentially relevant to a big Indian-rights case, according
to an internal report disclosed Tuesday.
After fighting disclosure of the report for 10 months, the Treasury
Department was forced to go public by a federal judge overseeing a historic
case involving potentially billions of dollars owed to Native Americans
after their lands were taken more than 100 years ago.


Denver Post 8/15/01
Discipline records on trust unsealed
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E103142,00.html

by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON - A federal judge Tuesday unsealed disciplinary records of six
Treasury Department lawyers accused of misconduct in a major lawsuit filed
by a Colorado advocacy group and berated the Justice and Interior
departments for not taking similar actions against their attorneys.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth appeared to question whether the
punishment Treasury officials gave its lawyers was sufficient, but he was
clearly upset by the failure of the other departments to discipline any of
their representatives in a lawsuit over mismanagement of the 300,000 Indian
trust accounts.


New York Times 8/15/01
No wrongdoing found in Indian suit
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Indian-Money.html?searchpv=aponl
ine

AP
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Treasury Department inquiry has found that six
department attorneys did not knowingly conceal the destruction of 162 boxes
of potential evidence in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over mismanaged
Indian money.
``The lack of intentional wrongdoing is borne out by the record,'' said the
report, unsealed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.


Wall Street Journal 8/15/01
Treasury Department Retrained Lawyers after Rubin was cited in case, papers
say
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB997822242260606320.htm

by John J. Fialka
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department gave more than 2,000 of its lawyers
retraining in legal ethics and federal-court rules after former Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin was cited for failing to respond to court orders in a
case involving allegations of mishandling trust funds for American Indians.
The unusual 1999 retraining effort was disclosed in court papers ordered
released by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth here after lawyers for Dow
Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal, moved to have them
unsealed.


Wall Street Journal 8/10/01
Babbitt misled judge about new system for Indian trust funds, report alleges
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB997389972739612640.djm&;
template=pasted-2001-08-10.tmpl

by John J. Fialka
WASHINGTON -- Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and officials who
worked under him misled a federal judge when they testified in 1999 that a
new computer system would solve the agency's longstanding problems managing
billions of dollars in trust funds for American Indians, a special court
monitor said.
The often-blistering, 130-page report asserts that Mr. Babbitt and other
department witnesses gave U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth information
that was "at best misleading and at worst false" about the new computer
system, called the Trust Assets and Accounting Management System, or Taams.


Washington Post 8/14/01
Indian case punishment criticized
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11217-2001Aug14.html

by Ellen Nakashima
Their offense was destroying potential evidence in a class action brought by
Native Americans and keeping it secret for three months. Their punishment?
Mentoring and communication training.
That was the discipline meted out to four Treasury Department lawyers who a
court-appointed special master said were involved in destroying 162 boxes of
documents as part of routine housekeeping at a department facility in
Hyattsville in 1998 and 1999. Two other lawyers deemed to have lesser
involvement received no punishment.


Washington Post 8/10/01
Interior Dep. Misled court on reforms, report says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57155-2001Aug10.html

by Bill Miller and Ellen Nakashima
Senior managers and lawyers at the Interior Department misled a federal
judge about the progress of Indian trust reform by failing to reveal that a
highly touted new record-keeping system wasn't working, a court-appointed
monitor reported yesterday.
"The range of possible criticism of the senior managers and attorneys for
their failure to provide this Court with a correct picture . . . covers the
full legal spectrum from nonfeasance, misfeasance, to malfeasance," wrote
Joseph S. Kieffer III, who spent the past few months assessing the reform
efforts.




Civic.com 8/10/01
GIS office unfolds marketing plan
http://www.civic.com/civic/articles/2001/0806/web-njgis-08-10-01.asp

by John Stein Monroe
Mapping experts in New Jersey are looking for a few good stories that convey
the value of the work they do.
They want examples of how geographic information systems have helped an
agency save money, shape public policy or other otherwise have an impact
that can be easily understood by people unfamiliar with the technology.


Civic.com 8/10/01
Tech Trails in election report
http://www.civic.com/civic/articles/2001/0806/web-vote-08-10-01.asp

by William Matthews
Better election procedures are more important to election reform than are
new, high-tech voting machines, a task force of election officials said in a
report to Congress.
"Only a small percentage of the problems [in the November 2000 election]
were directly related to any failure by vote tally devices themselves," the
National Task Force on Election Reform said in a report released Aug. 9.
"The problems were created by people, not machines."



Federal Computer Week 8/10/01
Army consolidating IT management
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0806/web-army-08-10-01.asp

by George I. Seffers
The Army is putting its chief information officer in charge of tens of
millions of information technology dollars and will put one organization -
possibly a major command - in charge of operating and maintaining the
infrastructure.
The changes - a total of five goals to be achieved by October 2002 - are
outlined in a policy memorandum signed Aug. 8 by Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army
chief of staff, and Thomas White, the new secretary of the Army.


Government Executive 8/14/01
Thrift Savings Plan upgrade may have to start over
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0801/081401w1.htm

by Matthew Weinstock
Nearly four years of work to modernize the Thrift Savings Plan's computer
system may have to be scrapped, TSP Executive Director Roger Mehle said
Monday.
The TSP board is trying to regroup and push forward with an ambitious
schedule after last month's firing of American Management Systems. The
Fairfax, Va.-based contractor was hired in 1997 to modernize TSP's 15-year
old record-keeping system.


Government Executive 8/14/01
Transportation struggles with new financial software
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0801/081401t1.htm

by Tanya N. Ballard
The Transportation Department's new financial management software is a $26
million dud, according to a new report from the agency's Office of the
Inspector General.
In 1997, Transportation decided to replace its 1980s-era Departmental
Accounting and Financial Management System with Oracle's Delphi system.


Detroit Free Press 8/15/01
Fingerprints retaken after records are lost
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/out15_20010815.htm

AP
The Michigan State Police and the Ingham County Sheriff's office can't find
52 sets of fingerprints from concealed weapons permit applicants.
The missing fingerprints didn't show up in the State Police's database, and
sheriff's officials haven't seen them since they were mailed to the state
early last month, the Lansing State Journal reported Tuesday.


Federal Computer Week 8/15/01
Museum stocks Web with history
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0813/web-wired-08-15-01.asp

by B.J. Ramos
With more than 3 million artifacts and a mere 750,000 square feet of exhibit
space, the National Museum of American History turned to the Web and
partnered with an online investment site to share more of its collection
with the public.
The result, being unveiled today in Washington, D.C., is HistoryWired
(historywired.si.edu), billed as a virtual tour of a few of the museum's
favorite things. The 450 initial offerings, selected by museum curators,
include famous, unusual and everyday items.


Newszap 8/15/01
Audit finds payments to dead in Delaware
http://www.newszap.com/display/inn_delmarva/news02.txt

by Randall Chase
AP
DOVER - State officials paid more than $360,000 to health-care providers on
behalf of dead Medicaid recipients, according to an audit released Tuesday.
The audit by state and federal officials covered the time from July 1998 to
December 2000.
In most cases, auditors said, the Department of Health and Social Services
had information that the Medicaid recipients were dead, but the information
was not processed properly.


Wired 8/14/01
Searching for Google's Successor
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,45905,00.html

by Angel Gonzalez
A new generation of scrappy search engines is emerging to challenge the
dominance of mighty Google.
Google became a huge Web favorite because it's simple and it works.
A lot of people use it, even anti-American propaganda sites such as Cuba's
Juventud Rebelde.


Security Focus 8/14/01
Video crypto standard cracked?
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/?content=/templates/article.html%3Fid%3D
236

by Ann Harrison
ENSCHEDE, NETHERLANDS--A Dutch cryptographer who claims to have broken Intel
Corp.'s encryption system for digital video says he will not publish his
results because he fears being prosecuted or sued under the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act.


The Herald 8/5/01
Songer sued over credit card records
http://www.sharon-herald.com/localnews/recentnews/0108/ln081501e.html

by Tom Fontaine
The Herald filed a civil lawsuit this morning in Mercer County Common Pleas
Court against Mercer County Controller Dennis Songer, who last week refused
to provide the newspaper with bank records regarding county commissioners'
business credit cards.


Times Record News 8/15/01
More Moon papers released
http://www.trnonline.com/stories/08152001/local_news/26573.shtml

by Ann Work
More documents relating to the Midwestern State University's Regents
suspension of president Dr. Henry Moon were made public Tuesday, including
those involving a continuing education agreement with Vernon College.
The documents included the minutes of a July 23 meeting of MSU's Academic
Council that unanimously voted down a continuing education agreement with
the Vernon junior college.


AccountingWeb 8/15/01
U of Mississippi becomes THE Library to the Accounting Profession
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=55132&d=101&h=0&f=0&datefor
mat=%o%20%B%20%Y

The largest and most prestigious accounting library collection in the world
- that of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) -
has arrived at the University of Mississippi (UM) to be housed permanently
in the John Davis Williams Library.
Last week, officials from the New York-based organization presented the
collection of 125,000 items to University officials on the Oxford campus.


Tuscaloosa News 8/15/01
Written in stone
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/news/stories/9614newsstorypage.html

by Jennifer Acosta
NORTHPORT | Carl Swanson pushed a long, green vine away from the woodsy path
in front of him and his wife, Helen. "Watch this one. It's a briar," he
said.
Picking her way around moss-
covered rocks and poison ivy Tuesday
afternoon, Helen gingerly stepped around the brambles, careful not to
collide with a nearby tree limb.




Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Manager, Records Management Group
Woodside Summit Group Inc
Midlothian, Virginia
Office: 804-744-1247 x23
Fax: 804-744-4947
mailto:peter.kurilecz@woodsidesummitgroup.com

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