Cobell v. Salazar

Bruce Babbitt US Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton Cabinet from 1993 to 2001.

Gale Norton She was the United States Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President George W. Bush from January 2001 to March 2006, becoming the first woman to hold this office.

Dirk Kempthorne (2006) He was Secretary of the Interior of the United States under President George W. Bush from May 26, 2006 to January 20, 2009.

Ken Salazar He served as Secretary of the Interior of the United States under President Barack Obama from January 20, 2009 to April 2013.

Royce C. Lamberth Judge responsible in the Cobell v. Salazar. He was accused of developing a hatred of the BIA during the trial. He called the BIA a dinosaur and incompetent. He arranged for the BIA's computer network to be shut down

Cobell v. Salazar also Cobell v. Babbit, Cobell v. Norton, Cobell v. Kempthorne was a class action lawsuit initiated in 1996 against the United States Department of the Interior and Treasury Department by Indian activist Elouise P. Cobell . The lawsuit concerned mismanagement and corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Cobell originally represented the Blackfoot Indian James Mad Dog Kennerly from Montana, among others . Although the BIA had given its inherited property to an oil company and there were 5 profitable oil wells on the site, the BIA only received a $ 30 check once a month. Many other victims joined the lawsuit. The amount originally requested was $ 176 billion. It was the largest class action lawsuit in United States history, involving over 500,000 people. The case was settled out of court on December 8, 2009. The federal government promised to pay out US $ 3.4 billion to the landowners affected. To this end, the US House of Representatives passed the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 in 2010. President Obama signed the bill on December 8, 2010.

Facts

On February 8, 1887, the US Congress passed the "General Allotment Act" ("General Land Allocation Act"). Later, he was generally regarded as Dawes Act known by Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts , who had drafted him. The reserve land was divided into 160 acres and given to each head of the Indian family for their sole use. All unmarried reserve residents over 18 years of age and minor orphans received 80 acres, children under 18 received 40 acres and wives received nothing. The plots, which were often unprofitable, only became the property of the Indians after 25 years. The government acted as trustee. Many indigenous people did not have any private property ownership and often did not even know where their parcels were, or the parcels were so far away from their home that they could not be cultivated by them. Since the Dawes Act, analogous to the Homestead Act, stipulated the occupation and management of the plots in order to transfer ownership to the owners, the entry in the land register was often not even made. The formal owner was still the BIA, which gave these properties to white farmers, forest companies and other interested parties leased or issued prospecting rights to mining companies, oil production companies and other companies. Since the property rights were inheritable, the BIA was supposed to pay out the income to the legal owners from the parceling of reserve land. However, this often did not happen or to a limited extent. The owners were also not informed about the leases. They received no information about the status of their property because the BIA tried to avoid lawsuits or the funds were misappropriated within the BIA. The plots were also often leased far too cheaply, or mining rights were given below market prices. The subdivision of reservation land was not finally stopped until 1934 by the Indian Reorganization Act . Even today, hundreds of thousands have claims to property from the parceling of Indian reservations, without there being any land register entries in their names. Without this entry, the owners can neither cultivate the land themselves nor lease it on their own.

Others

During the process, the computer system and the computer network of the BIA had to be switched off several times due to court decisions. It was suspected that accounts and data had been manipulated. The responsible judge Royce C. Lamberth of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia was withdrawn on July 11, 2006 on the grounds that he developed a hatred of the Home Office and sided with the Indians. He would wage a war against the BIA. The case was named after the respective US Secretary of the Interior who appeared as the defendant. The BIA is a department of the Interior Ministry. Since the process dragged on over several governments and legislative periods, the process was given several names. The out-of-court settlement was reached under Ken Salazar .

Individual evidence

↑ ONE OF Cobell V. NORTON'S unnamed plaintiffs is James Mad Dog Kennerly, a man who Should be a prosperous Montanan. One of his hereditary allotments includes as many as five working oil wells. Yet from these he a government-issued royalty check receives for roughly $ 30 a month, and he lives in a house smaller than a modern walk-in closet.
↑ Cobell filed her lawsuit in 1996 after years of kinder entreaties failed, demanding payment of all unpaid revenues from Indian leases for the past century, a tally of past revenues, and a new accounting system to deal with future revenues. According to Cobell's forensic accountants, the government owes $ 176 billion to individual Indian landowners, averaging $ 352,000 per plaintiff, making this monetarily the largest class-action lawsuit ever launched.
↑ 1915 Joint Commission of US Congress releases the Report on the Business and Accounting Methods employed in the Administration of the Office of Indian Affairs citing, “… due to the increasing value of his remaining estate, there is left an inducement to fraud, corruption, and institutional incompetence almost beyond the possibility of comprehension ”.
↑ June 5, 2001 The Senate Government Affairs Committee cites Interior's “abusing the trust of American Indians” as No. 2 in the Government's Top 10 Worst Examples of Mismanagement. The betrayal of trust includes: 1. Untold billions in income from the use of Indian-owned land, held in trust by the US but “lost” by the Interior and Treasury Departments. 2. $ 31 million in federal litigation costs. $ 625,000 in fines paid by the US government for contempt-of-court citations in 1999.
↑ Blackfeet tribe leader Eloise Cobell filed the lawsuit in 1996, several independent investigations found that the Interior Department had never kept complete records, used unknown amounts of the funds to help balance the federal budget, and let the oil and gas industry use Indian lands at bargain rates.
^ The court originally imposed the moratorium by stipulation of the government and the plaintiffs in the 1996 Cobell class action litigation. The ban was necessary because the BIA computers were not safe from hackers entering the system and apparently creating their own accounts and moving money between Individual Indian money accounts. US District Court Judge James Robertson turned down the BIA's request. The new head of the BIA, Asst. Secretary Carl Artman, claims the BIA is severely limited in its operations and communications by this continuing ban on BIA internet usage. Artman also contests the Cobell plaintiffs claim that the case is worth $ 100 billion.
↑ DOI's Internet connection shut down for third time TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2004 The federal judge handling the Indian trust fund lawsuit ordered the Department of Interior to shut down its Internet connection on Monday, a move that plunged many of the agency's computer systems back into the dark ages. For the third time since December 2001, US District Judge Royce Lamberth blasted the department for failing to correct known security vulnerabilities. In a 29-page decision, he called Interior "incapable" of ensuring that billions of dollars of Indian money are safe from computer hackers.
↑ Because it is indisputable that the 'poor state of network security' creates an imminent risk of irreparable injury ... plaintiffs request that this court disconnect from the Internet and shut down each information technology system which houses or access individual Indian trust data to protect plaintiffs against further injury to their interests ...
↑ Washington Post A federal appeals court took the rare step of removing US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth from a long-standing legal battle involving billions in Native American oil and gas royalties, saying the judge appears to be biased against the Interior Department.
^ Judge Lamberth bifurcated the case along those lines. After a trial on Phase One - reform of the system - Judge Lamberth ruled on December 21, 1999 that the secretaries of Interior and Treasury had breached their trust obligations to the Indians.
^ Judge Lamberth orders Secretary Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs McCaleb to stand trial for contempt.

Web links

[1] ONE OF Cobell V. NORTON'S unnamed plaintiffs is James Mad Dog Kennerly, a man who Should be a prosperous Montanan. One of his hereditary allotments includes as many as five working oil wells. Yet from these he a government-issued royalty check receives for roughly $ 30 a month, and he lives in a house smaller than a modern walk-in closet.

[2] Cobell filed her lawsuit in 1996 after years of kinder entreaties failed, demanding payment of all unpaid revenues from Indian leases for the past century, a tally of past revenues, and a new accounting system to deal with future revenues. According to Cobell's forensic accountants, the government owes $ 176 billion to individual Indian landowners, averaging $ 352,000 per plaintiff, making this monetarily the largest class-action lawsuit ever launched.

[3] 1915 Joint Commission of US Congress releases the Report on the Business and Accounting Methods employed in the Administration of the Office of Indian Affairs citing, “… due to the increasing value of his remaining estate, there is left an inducement to fraud, corruption, and institutional incompetence almost beyond the possibility of comprehension ”.

[4] June 5, 2001 The Senate Government Affairs Committee cites Interior's “abusing the trust of American Indians” as No. 2 in the Government's Top 10 Worst Examples of Mismanagement. The betrayal of trust includes: 1. Untold billions in income from the use of Indian-owned land, held in trust by the US but “lost” by the Interior and Treasury Departments. 2. $ 31 million in federal litigation costs. $ 625,000 in fines paid by the US government for contempt-of-court citations in 1999.

[5] Blackfeet tribe leader Eloise Cobell filed the lawsuit in 1996, several independent investigations found that the Interior Department had never kept complete records, used unknown amounts of the funds to help balance the federal budget, and let the oil and gas industry use Indian lands at bargain rates.

[6] The court originally imposed the moratorium by stipulation of the government and the plaintiffs in the 1996 Cobell class action litigation. The ban was necessary because the BIA computers were not safe from hackers entering the system and apparently creating their own accounts and moving money between Individual Indian money accounts. US District Court Judge James Robertson turned down the BIA's request. The new head of the BIA, Asst. Secretary Carl Artman, claims the BIA is severely limited in its operations and communications by this continuing ban on BIA internet usage. Artman also contests the Cobell plaintiffs claim that the case is worth $ 100 billion.

[7] DOI's Internet connection shut down for third time TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2004 The federal judge handling the Indian trust fund lawsuit ordered the Department of Interior to shut down its Internet connection on Monday, a move that plunged many of the agency's computer systems back into the dark ages. For the third time since December 2001, US District Judge Royce Lamberth blasted the department for failing to correct known security vulnerabilities. In a 29-page decision, he called Interior "incapable" of ensuring that billions of dollars of Indian money are safe from computer hackers.

[8] Because it is indisputable that the 'poor state of network security' creates an imminent risk of irreparable injury ... plaintiffs request that this court disconnect from the Internet and shut down each information technology system which houses or access individual Indian trust data to protect plaintiffs against further injury to their interests ...

[9] Washington Post A federal appeals court took the rare step of removing US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth from a long-standing legal battle involving billions in Native American oil and gas royalties, saying the judge appears to be biased against the Interior Department.

[10] Judge Lamberth bifurcated the case along those lines. After a trial on Phase One - reform of the system - Judge Lamberth ruled on December 21, 1999 that the secretaries of Interior and Treasury had breached their trust obligations to the Indians.

[11] Judge Lamberth orders Secretary Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs McCaleb to stand trial for contempt.