Somewhere they sit...a story about the Cobell case

Somewhere in Washington they sit, those three. one named Cobell who
wants to complain about her money, another named Norton who doesn't
want to be bothered with anything about them at all and Judge Roayce
Lamberth and they sit way above those people who live in remote places
with names people don't remember.

There is an old woman, who has bad eyes and uses a cane to get around.
She takes care of her grandchildren their mother is dead, she drank
herself to death years ago. Far off in boarding school they are, two
girls who are coming for Christmas on a plane from Washington. How far
is it to pick them up, a long ways from her small home, going around
asking for a ride to the big city to pick them up, they are coming
Sunday she said, will you give me ride. A woman without anything to do
said OK let's go and so they set off. The weather was poor, cold
frozen air covered the mountains, snow and ice marked the way they had
to go, travelling hours away until they found the place and waited
till nightfall for them two girls. Let's go home, she said and so
they, all four left and when they crossed the highest mountain driving
near a lake, the last stretch of ice before the road cleared, they
slid.


When hard metal hits metal in cold weather the sound is harsh,
sleeping children wake and and old women are thrown about like rag
dolls. Christmas is not coming, and when some people slide in the snow
they do not come home. How does someone deal with it, to know a loved
one has gone on. In the shadows of night on cold pavement, the old
lady found her children, and her grandparents.
Those left behind have to deal with the cost of laying one to rest in
the community graveyard. Oh, it seems that the old lady had a small
interest in some Indian allotments from her father, and received a
little money each month from her Individual Indian Money Account, IIM
it is called. Life goes on and her relations have gathered, we will
pitch in to pay for it. It is not a special box, just pressboard
covered with cloth, maybe $400 to pay for it and then you pay $600 for
the cost of embalming. Someone has a truck to carry her home one last
time so that people from home can see her. We will pitch in, people
said in a community with a name easily forgotten and yet they learned
with a stoke of a pen, that someone in Washington has said. "No one is
getting any money from IIM, turnoff the machines, no one will receive
anything in the mail for Christmas not even those who wanted put away
Christmas to cover the costs. They don't get much, maybe 12 dollars,
some 48, others 90 maybe, but they said we don't have much but will
give all we have. But no one will receive anything.


Those three in Washington, one dances for joy at turning off the
machines, I did it, they say. One looks at them and says, no one can
say I didn't do anything, I turned them off, no one will get in, see I
have done nothing. The last one, says, maybe this is not enough what
else needs to be, there must be more undone. So they argue back and
forth while those far away who live day to day find the cold winter
wind blowing, can you hear it, the sound of children crying and there
is no one to hear them. Indians, natives they call us, we have a
survived, but the wind is bitterly cold and they say that little money
in IIM isn't much but it is all we have.


(U.S. Federal District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington D.C.
acted on a motion from Mary Cobell and her lawyers to put an
immediate stop on any further activity on the computer system that
maintains the Individual Indian Money Account (IIM) system. Under the
auspices of an independent monitor appointed by the Court, a computer
hacker was able to get into the IIM system, showing it lacked
adequate security. The Cobells requested the system be shut down
along with the monitor. The Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton
ordered the immediate termination of all internet access to all
computers within the Department of the Interior without regard to
their function.


The net result is that this IIM system is the only way all Indians
across 500 plus tribes and 90 BIA agencies receive their income, the
funds are not great but the majority are meager funds they receive
from agricultural leases, mineral leases and other income from lands
they have an interest in. This is comedy of errors that is going on
between three people who have no idea the impact it is creating for
those people who have no one to speak for them' they are wards of the
U.S. Government and they are being made to deal with hardships these
three parties have no conception of. The story related here is based
on real life.)