THE CONTINUING NIGHTMARE OF FEDERAL RECOGNITION
If This Is What They Do To Indians, What Do They Have Planned For Hawaiians ?
WASHINGTON - Lawyers for a group of Indians who are challenging the government's mismanagement of their trust accounts have urged a federal judge to order the Interior Department to face a contempt trial over its failure to produce E-mail messages needed in a hearing.
Dennis M. Gingold, lead attorney for the Indians, stated that the government's failure to produce the E-mail messages came despite frequent assurances from Interior officials that all of the department's messages were being preserved and would be produced in a timely manner.
Yet a government lawyer told Lamberth today that it may be November before many of the messages can be recovered.
That hearing explored whether the department's weak computer security had placed trust records for 500,000 Native Americans at risk.
Led by Elouise Cobell, a member of Montana's Blackfeet Tribe, the Indians have secured orders for an full accounting of funds the government holds for them in individual trust accounts.
The accounts were created by Congress in 1887 at a time when lawmakers did not believe Native Americans could handle their own financial affairs.
Since their inception, the accounts have been mismanaged by the government. It has been unable to certify the correct balance for any one of the accounts.
"It's difficult to change something that has been wrong for 118 years," Gingold told Lamberth.
