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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2002

"Accounting failures in the private sector have been big news lately. But the granddaddy of accounting failures belongs to the public sector — the federal government's handling of money held in trust for more than 300,000 Native Americans.

The government gave allotments of land to various Indian tribes around the turn of the century, but kept control of the property, leasing it out for mining, lumber operations and ranching. The revenue was theoretically held in trust. Yet as Judge Royce Lamberth of Federal District Court observes, "The Department of Interior's administration of the Individual Indian Money trust has served as the gold standard for mismanagement by the federal government for more than a century." This week, Judge Lamberth found Interior Secretary Gale Norton guilty of civil contempt of court for her department's failure to straighten out the mess. . ."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Contempt at Interior (The New York Times 9/19)
Username: indianz.com, Password: indianz.com

Relevant Links:
Indian Trust: Cobell v. Norton - http://www.indiantrust.com
Cobell v. Norton, Department of Justice - http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/index.htm
Indian Trust, Department of Interior - http://www.doi.gov/indiantrust
Trust Reform, NCAI - http://www.ncai.org/main/pages/
issues/other_issues/trust_reform.asp

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