----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Bestrom" <rbestrom@earthlink.net> > I would suspect a continued problem due to the original court order > keeping their data offline. They suddenly re-appeared with ALL States > over the weekend might have in itself been a "mistake" in testing > additional databases, thus opening them all again. Another restraining > order may have been imposed Monday morning. I did some additional research on the Internet and the PACER concerning the federal case against the Department of the Interior (DOI), and it's databases. --(Public Access to Court Electronic Records. PACER has documents concerning federal court cases [Criminal, Civil and Bankruptcy] across the United States, online, where one can monitor documents filed in those cases. Criminal cases may have certain documents not available to the general public. Documents can be retrieved at $0.08 per page). The following may help with information concerning the case, where the BLM land patent database was ordered to be taken off line (among all DOI database systems). Another URL on the bottom of this posting identifies a website placed by the plaintiffs in this case. http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/ http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/docs/pdf/04182005_opposition.pdf - This document, an order issued in April 2005, indicates the Interior Department's databases still may not be free from intrusion, thus the plaintiffs reject the motion to suspend the restraining order. The original restraining order concerning the BLM and Interior Department databases online on the Internet, was issued on December 6, 2001. The Judge (Federal District Court Judge Lamberth) issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Interior Department to disconnect all trust-related systems from the Internet until computer security safeguards are installed. --PACER had this document online. It stated: "FURTHER ORDERED, that defendants shall immediately disconnect from the Internet all information technology systems that house or provide access to individual Indian trust data; and it is FURTHER ORDERED that defendants shall immediately disconnect from the Internet all computers within the custody and control of the department of the Interior, its employees and contractors, that have access to individual Indian trust data. On December 17, 2001, the Judge (Lamberth) issued a consent order, extending the effect of his order and spelling out the definitions of the database systems and the criteria for reconnecting trust-related computer systems to the Internet. --PACER has this eight page document online. It fully described Information Systems and Indian trust data. It further identified how the systems could be reconnected to the Internet following additional intrusion system additions. One of the particulars of the Order identified that the Interior Department may reconnect such databases to the Internet for a limited period of time for the testing of the security of the system. >>> My own conjecture: The above paragraph may be the reason for the sudden >>> re-emergence of the BLM data...and subsequent removal. There also may >>> have been another restraining order against the posting of the data. I >>> will recheck for such data in a couple of days...long enough for such an >>> order for the document to be posted on PACER. The removal may have been >>> DOI initiated based on determination that the databases were not free >>> from potential of intrusion. On the PACER there has been 3,223 documents filed on this case. The original Complaint was filed in US District Court for the District of the District of Columbia on June 10, 1996. ... ... I could not retrieve the initial complaint filed by the plaintiffs. However, this website on the behalf of the plaintiffs will identify some of their complaints: http://www.indiantrust.com/ I did download the document containing the order of December 17, 2001. I can forward a copy of this document if anyone is interested in reading it. It is eight pages in *.pdf (adobe) format. The April 2005 document identified above in the second URL further identifies why the databases were not online at that time. Again, this is conjecture on my part, but based on further reviews of the recent documentation on this case, it strongly appears that the BLM database is again down due to the court case. I've also had some difficulty in accessing other Department of the Interior databases. If this conjecture is accurate...it might be some additional period of time before we can again search for our ancestors. Ron Bestrom