National Archives
and Records AdministrationElectronic Records Work Group
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National Archives Fire 'Intentional'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A fire that destroyed thousands of pages of records at a National Archives storage center just outside Washington was intentionally set, investigators say.''The investigation has revealed that the fire was of suspicious origin,'' Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Baltimore division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Friday. ''There are several people they are looking at closely.''
The fire occurred Feb. 29 at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Md., which stores more than 3.7 million cubic feet of records. Archives officials initially believed that as many as 700,000 pages were damaged or destroyed. But Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the archives, said it now appears that fewer than 40,000 pages were actually destroyed.
The bulk of the records kept in the area where sprinklers went off were inactive files of deceased war veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The other records were from the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the Labor Department's hour and wage division; the U.S. Patent and Trademark office; and District of Columbia government offices.
Conservation work is under way. Wet documents are being stored in about five refrigerated trucks to prevent mold and mildew. Then they are put into drying chambers kept at more than 90 degrees, Cooper said.
''We're basically back in business,'' Cooper said. ''One major problem remains: We need to have the walls, floors and boxes professionally cleaned so that all the soot and smoke residue are removed.''
AP-NY-03-24-00 1436EST<
This is not the first suspicious library fire this year.
The records from the Bureau of Indian Affairs may have been the target here.
The bulk of the records kept in the area where sprinklers went off were inactive files of deceased war veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The other records were from the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the Labor Department's hour and wage division; the U.S. Patent and Trademark office; and District of Columbia government offices.
What could be in there that Bill would want destroyed? Because you just know his sticky fingers are in this one somewhere.
You nailed that one. Hit it right out of the park.
My thoughts exactly. The BIA has been fighting to avoid exposure of their handling of other people's money for years. The last excuse I heard for not producing documents was that someone had seen mice in the depository, and they were afraid of catching hantavirus.
Probably the rest of the Rose Law Firm billing records!
I KNEW it was a suspicious fire! It was a cover up for something!
I haven't seen what happened about the fire in a Senate office building on a friday about the same time.
BINGO! Babbitt! Who else was it...RUBIN, held in contempt...and "dismissed!!!
Is your screen name a reference to the Claire Wolfe essay of the same name?
"The last excuse I heard for not producing documents was that someone had seen mice in the depository, and they were afraid of catching hantavirus."
That particular depository was in Albuquerque. The incident gave rise to a whole new class of excuse making...
"The rats crapped on my homework..."
Bruce Babbitt did it! He's in a heap of trouble with the Injuns.
With this bunch in charge, they'll get a pass cause in reality they were trying to send smoke signals to the tribes and their lawyers that they had found the papers....make good smoke, apparently lousy arsonists!
There you go. The first person I thought of was ol' Brucie. Didn't he take the life savings of the poor Indians, stabbing them in the back and then took a bribe from the rich Indians, under the direction of the WH for campaign funds for Clinton/Gore? Sonething like that.;-o)
Nah, Bill would have carpet bombed.
I presume they wanted to destroy the records that would indicate what happened to the billion dollars missing from the Indian Trust funds.
Smoke signals.
It was a tremendous amount of money-the BIA has been mucking around for years. I bbbbet that B.B..BB..Brucie Baby and a few others NEEDED that fire to destroy some very damaging documents.
I have often wondered if any of this money made it into the deep pockets of the DNC. Ya just can't help but get the feeling that the clinton money grubbing campaign machine moved across our nation taking $$$ anywhere they could find it-legal or not.
That and more...actually 3 separate Indian scandals...it's fascinating..time is short tonight but I'll flag you on some of it sometime. One was involving Nate Landow and Bubba's $80,000 birthday party squeezed out of a poor tribe.
''The investigation has revealed that the fire was of suspicious origin,'' Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Baltimore division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Friday. ''There are several people they are looking at closely.''
Excuse me, but what the hell does a TAX AGENCY have to do with ARSON!?!?!
The F-Troop is the biggest ever-expanding federal agency that we have - if there was ever an agency that needed to be defunded, this is it.
There being apparently no end to the depths to which the Clinton Administration will go in its effort to disrupt and bankrupt our Republic, it is now incumbent upon the ruling GOP to bring these critters to justice. & it is also incumbent upon us voters for to dis-elect all GOP Congresscreatures who fail to bring the Clinton Administration to justice for their misdeeds.
Case closed.
TBF
Anything to protect this monster Clinton!
Ya'all quite being conspiracy theorists... The fire is quite simple to explain. The archives set themselves on fire. I heard of the exact same thing happening in Waco back in '93... Must'a been some of those dangerous cult archives.
CyberReb..
Wasn't there news last year about a suspicious appointment to be head of the National Archives, somebody political who didn't seem to have the requisite professional background? The investigators should concentrate on new hires who had access to this area.
.
Bump....more ammo for the removal of the slimes in office. here we should follow the idea of guilty till proven innocent. That's what they do to their citizens, and that's how they should be tried. THAT would be fitting justice...ain't NO WAY any of them can be proven innocent.
that was my instant reaction when i saw the bureau of indian affairs on the list of lost papers.
This story got one tiny paragraph on page 18 of today's St. Louis Post Dispatch, but I immediately asked myself what records was someone (in very high places) tryng to destroy.
The fire occurred Feb. 29 at the Washington National Records Center...
...other records were from the Bureau of Indian Affairs...
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 went down in late January. Was there not someone connected to the BIA trust fund mess on it?
Didn't [Babbit] take the life savings of the
poor Indians, stabbing them in the back and then took a bribe from the rich Indians, under the
direction of the WH for campaign funds for Clinton/Gore?
Clinton/Gore's Cancellation of the Chippewa Casino
Quid Pro Quo
On July14, 1995, The Clinton/Gore administration's Secretary of the Department of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, reversed a Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Director's recommendation that a proposed Wisconsin Chippewa Indian casino go forward. Various newspaper accounts reveal that considerable evidence has accumulated to support Federal Judge Barbara Crabb's belief that the Clinton/Gore White House and possible campaign contributions from opponents of the casino improperly influenced the Interior Department's decision. Key administration and Democrat National Committee (DNC) officials such as Bill Clinton, Albert Gore, Jr., Babbitt, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes and former DNC Chairman Don Fowler have been involved in some way in the decision to deny the casino application. The key areas of this possible quid pro quo are:
The Successful Lobbying Efforts Of The Opposition Tribes
The tribes opposed to the casino hired several powerful and well-connected lobbyists who put forward tremendous efforts at the highest levels to see that their views were enforced. Additionally, the tribes eventually donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrat Party. At issue is whether these lobbying efforts helped determine the Interior Department's decision to deny the application for the proposed casino.
The Lobbying Begins
Bill Clinton Gets Involved
White House Aides Warn Against Bill Clinton's Involvement
Harold Ickes Ignores Warnings
Patrick O'Connor Gets DNC Chairman Don Fowler's Help
Patrick O'Connor Involves A Friend Of Bill
Patrick O'Connor Meets With Albert Gore, Jr.'s Aides
Harold Ickes Gets On The Job
Tom Schneider Hosts A Fundraiser For Bill Clinton
Interior Kills the Casino
What Did Bruce Babbitt Say To Paul Eckstein About Killing The Casino?
Not only does the trail of lobbying efforts point to White House influence, but something Bruce Babbitt is alleged to have said to lobbyist Paul Eckstein has become a major point of contention in determining whether improper influence took place. Babbitt initially claimed that Eckstein's description of the meeting was incorrect and denied that he told Eckstein that Harold Ickes wanted a decision on the casino. However, Babbitt has changed his testimony as to what he told the lobbyist. Babbitt now claims that he mentioned Ickes' name but only to get Eckstein out of his office.
What More Did Bruce Babbitt Say?
Babbitt Repeats Denials
Reasons For Killing The Indian Casino Proposal
Interior Department Employees Recommend Approval
Government Lawyer Admits Decision Hard to Defend
Victorious Indian Tribes Pay Up
Lobbyists Trumpet Achievements
Where Is the Department of Justice?
Obstructing Justice?
Clinton/Gore Uncovered
| Truth Tests | Democrats
in the News
Fund-Raising Scandal | What
They Don't Want You to Know
Prince Albert in the Can | Democrat Farm Team
Conservative Links
Copyright © 1998, Republican National Committee Research Division
This is interesting in light of the fact that this administration is going to be out of power in 10 months. I've been pondering how they're going to cover their tracks once they're out of power (if, indeed, that occurs). We may be seeing a lot more fires in the near future.
Hmmmm. Interesting! I wonder who'll get the government contract to reclaim the stuff, or process aspects of the reclaimation!?. There was a thread yesterday(3/24/00) about a mysterious fire(s) destroying some strange bonds, don't have the link but all in all very interesting. Maybe I can find the link in my Netscape history file.
[ I KNEW it was a suspicious fire! It was a cover up for something! ]
Looks the indigeous indians of Washington D.C. are sending smoke signals with real smoke. If only we had a scout that could read the little puffs of smoke we could cut em' off at the pass. But all we have is a bugler. Damn.
Must be Craig Livingstone.
Mysterious fires in the records of the National Archives, during Bill the Ethical's last year in office? Really?
Seems the political appointment, of John Carlin as National Archivist, was in 1995. Here's a paragraph from a 1996 article:
Last year the archival community in the United States was plunged into gloom when President Clinton appointed a former dairy farmer and Governor of the State of Kansas, John Carlin, to head the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Archives. Archivists bewailed what they saw as the purely political appointment of a man with no background nor apparent interest in the work of archives. The signs are, however, that this initial pessimism was misplaced. Reports from the US suggest that Carlin is embarking upon a vigorous program of reinventing the National Archives. As a newcomer who lacks the emotional and procedural baggage of the past, Carlin is facing up to the archival challenges of the coming millennium by first of all developing a clear picture of the basic mission of archives. In his inaugural circular to staff he summed up this mission in five words: 'ensuring access to essential evidence'. If this means reinventing archival concepts, processes and priorities, so be it.
And here's the link: Ensuring Essential Evidence .
From RadioNet News for December 24, 1995:
White House Reverses On Presidential E-Mail
The Clinton administration has decided not to appeal a federal court ruling that stopped former President George Bush from controlling White House computer records and backup tapes.
Until last weekend, the Clinton administration had supported the deal that Bush cut with then-Archivist Don Wilson, made just hours before Bush left office, to give Bush "exclusive legal control" of theinformation.
In February, District Court Judge Charles Richie voided the deal, ruling that it violated the Presidential Records Act. That law was passed during the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, to prevent future presidents from destroying documents.
Following Richie's ruling, the White House said it did not want subsequent administrations reviewing its e-mail and computer documents, and indicated that it was considering an appeal.
But US Archivist John Carlin, appointed by President Clinton earlier this year, announced over the weekend that the Justice Department would not appeal the ruling that voided the agreement between Bush and Wilson.
In what many critics viewed as a quid pro quo arrangement, Wilson was named executive director of the George Bush Presidential Studies Center at Texas A&M University after agreeing to the deal with the outgoingpresident.
Carlin, a former Democratic governor of Kansas, said during his confirmation hearings last spring that he agreed with the court's decision voiding the deal. On Saturday, he put out a statement saying, "On behalf of the National Archives, I strongly support the decision of the solicitor general (not to appeal) and I am pleased that this litigation is finally behind us."
The case against the Bush deal was brought by the National Security Archive, a Washington public interest group pushing for disclosure of government records. Tom Blanton of the group said yesterday, "It took the Clinton administration three years to figure out that they ought not to be defending this action by Bush."
Blanton has edited a book that contains many of the e-mail messages, called "White House E-mail." Blanton says access to the electronic messages "vastly expands the historical record" available to presidential scholars.
Fred BarlingRadioNet Newshound (woof!)news@radionet.com
Here's the link: Expanded News Script 12/24/95 .
I knew I was remembering something about Carlin from last year. It was an executive order giving new powers to the National Archivist. Here it is:
November 19, 1999
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13142
- - - - - - -
AMENDMENT TO EXECUTIVE ORDER 12958 -- CLASSIFIED NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to extend and establish specific dates for the time within which all classified information contained in records more than 25 years old that have been determined to have historical value under title 44, United States Code, should be automatically declassified, and to establish the Information Security Oversight Office within the National Archives and Records Administration, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12958 is amended as follows:
Section 1. In the first sentence of section 3.4(a) of Executive Order 12958, the words "within five years from the date of this order" are deleted and the words "within six and one half years from the date of this order" are inserted in lieu thereof.
Sec. 2. The following new language is inserted at the end of section 3.4(a): "For records otherwise subject to this paragraph for which a review or assessment conducted by the agency and confirmed by the Information Security Oversight Office has determined that they: (1) contain information that was created by or is under the control of more than one agency, or (2) are within file series containing information that almost invariably pertains to intelligence sources or methods, all classified information in such records shall be automatically declassified, whether or not the records have been reviewed, within 8 years from the date of this order, except as provided in paragraph (b), below. For records that contain information that becomes subject to automatic declassification after the dates otherwise established in this paragraph, all classified information in such records shall be automatically declassified, whether or not the records have been reviewed on December 31 of the year that is 25 years from the origin of the information, except as provided in paragraph (b), below."
Sec. 3. Subsections (a) and (b) of section 5.2 are amended to read as follows:
"(a) The Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, under the direction of the Archivist of the United States and in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the co-chairs of the Security Policy Board, shall issue such directives as are necessary to implement this order. These directives shall be binding upon the agencies. Directives issued by the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office shall establish standards for:
(1) classification and marking principles;
(2) agency security education and training programs;
(3) agency self-inspection programs; and
(4) classification and declassification guides.
(b) The Archivist of the United States shall delegate the implementation and monitorship functions of this program to the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office."
Sec. 4. Subsection (a) and the introductory clause and item (4) of subsection (b) of section 5.3 are amended as follows:
(a) Subsection (a) shall read "(a) There is established within the National Archives and Records Administration an Information Security Oversight Office. The Archivist of the United States shall appoint the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, subject to the approval of the President."
(b) The introductory clause of subsection (b) shall read "Under the direction of the Archivist of the United States, acting in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office shall:".
(c) Item (4) of subsection (b) shall read "(4) have the authority to conduct on-site reviews of each agency's program established under this order, and to require of each agency those reports, information, and other cooperation that may be necessary to fulfill its responsibilities. If granting access to specific categories of classified information would pose an exceptional national security risk, the affected agency head or the senior agency official shall submit a written justification recommending the denial of access to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs within 60 days of the request for access. Access shall be denied pending the response,".
WILLIAM J. CLINTON THE WHITE HOUSE, November 19, 1999.
Here's the link: EXECUTIVE ORDER 13142 .
And Judge Paul Friedman (!) issued in 1998 an opinion concerning government e-mails that Archivist of the United States John Carlin seems to have welcomed:
WASHINGTON POST, Sunday, May 10, 1998; Page W04
Those Evil Weeds By Al Kamen * * * . and Don't Delete the E-Mails
Some folks think that Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry has retired the spinmeister-of-the-century trophy. But not so fast. National Archives director John Carlin and his troops are making a se-rious run for the award. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman in October declared that a Carlin regulation advis-ing government agencies that they may wipe out electronic mail and other computerized records without regard to their content was "null and void." Last month, the judge found that the Archives had continued to use the regulation and had "flagrantly violated" the court order by telling agencies they could "continue to rely upon" Carlin's voided regulation even "when [Carlin] knew there was no such authorization."Sounds like bad news? Au contraire!
Here's the Archives press release, issued the day after Friedman's most recent ruling:
"Archivist of the United States John Carlin today welcomed encouragement from a U.S. District Court for efforts of a special work group appointed by Carlin to help the federal government manage, preserve and provide access to electronic records of continuing value."
The release acknowledged that Friedman ordered Carlin to stop saying that the voided regulation "authorizes the disposition of electronic records." But it noted that the judge said nice things about the working group, and Carlin said, "We will certainly comply with this order." Wonder what the spin would've been if Friedman had cited Carlin for contempt (as he had threatened to do)? Maybe that would've been declared a clear-cut victory.
Here's the link: PROFS Case: Results of Legal Ruling .
By the way, wasn't it this Public Citizen v. Carlin case that Mark Lindsay said in the hearing last Thursday that he had discussed with lawyers in the Justice Department (or was it with Ruff and the Office of the White House Counsel)?
Does anybody know anything about the membership of this "special work group appointed by Carlin to help the federal government manage, preserve and provide access to electronic records of continuing value"?
Jeepers! Thank you so much for the heads up on this, aristeides!!! I'm not sure about the reference in testimony, but hopefully a transcript will be posted soon and we'll be able to answer that.
Do you think maybe John Carlin should be added to the Downside Legacy?
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A fire that destroyed thousands of pages of records at a National Archives storage center just outside Washington was intentionally set, investigators say. "
Heck, we all knew that the day it happened.
Anybody out there from Kansas who can tell us stuff about former Kansas governor John Carlin?
He'll be in there now! Thanks for the heads up!
I think the special work group must be this "Electronic Records Work Group":
GRS20 - Survey
National Archives
and Records Administration
Electronic Records Work Group
Electronic Records Work Group
The following is a brief characterization of the responses of Records Officers and/or designated contacts from 18 cabinet level departments, department branches, and federal agencies to the questions that follow:
This telephone survey was conducted during the period from December 8-16, 1997 for the Electronic Records Work Group [ERWG]. It should be noted that responses given by Records Officers in the central office may not reflect practices at subordinate branch or division levels within an agency or department. By way of establishing a context for the survey, respondents were informed that this assessment of baseline practices was for the ERWG and they were directed to the GRS 20 web page for updates regarding its activities and other legal developments.
The breakdown of GRS 20 implementations was described as follows:
Requested GRS 20 Exceptions?
None of the departments/agencies surveyed has requested exceptions to GRS 20 to date. One agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, was considering asking for an exception to GRS 20 Item #13 (i.e., word processing files), but it has suspended that request pending the matter of the government’s possible appeal of Public Citizen v. Carlin.
GRS 20 Record Descriptions/Disposition Instructions Understandable?
The breakdown of the overall understandability of GRS 20 items and descriptions was described at follows:
28% of those indicating confusion in interpreting description and disposition instructions were indicating personal confusion, while the other 72% were referring to the perception of end users. GRS 20 item descriptions were mentioned more frequently as being unclear than their associated disposition instructions, with items #2 (i.e., input/source records), #5 (i.e., records consisted of extracted information), #12 (i.e., downloaded and copied data), and #14 (i.e., electronic mail records) warranting specific mention.
Comment and/or Questions?
While most respondents were aware of the GRS 20 web page (see URL: http://www.nara.gov/records/grs20/), 16% were not. 28% wanted to know the composition of the Electronic Records Work Group, and asked that that information be posted to the GRS 20 web page.
Other general questions were as follows:
Other comments were as follows:
National Archives and Records Administration Home
PageNational Archives and Records Administration, Electronic Records Work Group .
I am sorry, but I can't get this @!#$thing to do a link. Go to www.heartland.org and go to Read Climate news, then scroll to an article about demanding the resignations of some of the Interior people...check it out.From February,2000.
Besides burning documents, the National Archives have recently been erasing e-mails "unintentionally":
Archives Loses 43,000 E-Mails Officials Can't Explain Summer Erasure; Backup System Failed
By George Lardner Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 6, 2000; Page A17
Officials at the National Archives, who are in charge of telling the rest of the government how to save and safeguard e-mail, are red-faced about a mishap in the computers of their own high command.
They say they "lost" at least 43,000 electronic messages last summer, wiped out without a useful trace. They were supposed to have a backup system that could have replaced the missing information, but they said it was not working properly.
"All efforts to restore these messages failed," Deputy Archivist Lewis J. Bellardo said recently in response to an inquiry from author-researcher Scott Armstrong, a longtime critic of the agency's electronic record-keeping policies.
The e-mails, which included the internal messages of 125 users in the offices of Archivist John W. Carlin, Bellardo, the headquarters of the regional archives and five staff units, were erased sometime over the June 18-21 weekend. Officials could not say just how many messages, accumulated over a four-month period, were deleted, but "based on a conservative estimate of 300 messages for each account," Bellardo said, "we calculate that at least 43,000 messages were lost."
Officials say they still do not know just what caused the deletions. They say the audit log features that might have provided a clue had been turned off because they would have hampered the system's performance.
Making things worse, according to Assistant Archivist L. Reynolds Cahoon, was the fact that adequate backup procedures were not in place. "It's really distressing to us," Cahoon said. He said "it was our understanding that backups were being made," both on a daily basis and a periodic systemwide basis, but the agency's contractor, Signal Corp. of Fairfax, had been doing neither as the Archives had specified.
Cahoon said he did not want to blame Signal because "we should have been more vigilant about what our contractor was doing," but, in any case, he said Signal has replaced the project manager and the supervisor who was responsible for the backups.
Armstrong and another longtime critic of the Archives's e-mail policies, researcher Eddie Becker, were skeptical of the official explanations, especially Bellardo's assertion that "the deletion was unintentional rather than willful or malicious."
"Did someone hit the wrong button? Spill coffee? Did the system get hit by lightning?" Becker asked. "It sounds like they don't know what happened. Most likely it was some disgruntled person. The Archives can be like the Post Office. And for them to be managing other people's records when their own records are such a disaster is ludicrous."
"This was definitely not a bolt of lightning or a power surge," Cahoon said. He said the messages could have been accidentally erased by someone trying to delete a single user's messages and hitting the wrong key. He believes this is what happened. He said backup systems have been beefed up to guard against another mishap, but he said the safest way to save important messages is to print them out.
"We don't have a lot of trust in our systems at this point," Cahoon said. "We're using software that's used all over the world, but it's not foolproof yet. It's subject to human error."
Agency spokeswoman Susan Cooper said Carlin prints out all his important or "record" messages every day, as do other top officials. "We take this very seriously," she said of the erasures, "but at the end of the day, we don't think many 'record' messages were lost."
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company
Archives Loses 43,000 E-Mails Officials Can't Explain Summer Erasure; Backup System Failed .
I hope Judicial Watch has this information!
Let's make sure they do!
Sir, yes, Sir!
FYI - Have you seen this thread!?
Excellent work sir.
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Say no more...evidence of another scandal destroyed. The other stuff was cover.
BIA is a natural but so is any records of the government of the District of Columbia. Here would be items relating to the 'business' deals of Alexis Herman, or one of Gore's big backers, think his name was Haney who built an office bldg and forced the FCC to lease it, to say nothing of Nate Landow's real estate adventures.
The fact that the Department of Labor was involved might make one lean towards Alexis Herman. How is her special prosecutor doing? Then again isn't Patents and Trademarks part of Commerce. Lots of reason's to have fires. Too many when you are dealing with the Clinton Adminstration.
In other news, White House Email Backup Zip Drives found to be irrecoverably charred and melted.
Janet Reno promises to vigorously prosecute anyone who alleges a coverup.
Excuse me, but what the hell does a TAX AGENCY have to do with ARSON!?!?!
Good catch. It looks like the BATF is becoming the Partisan Police Force of the thoroughly corrupt, utterly shameful DemonCrap National CrimeSyndicate.
The records from the Bureau of Indian Affairs may have been the target here.
My thoughts exactly when I read the feature post.
aristeides--great research, buddy!
Thanks. Here's an old thread on the Public Citizen v. Carlin decision from right after it was issued: Saving Government E-Mail .
Interesting to see what threads were like on FR back in November of '97.
A couple of years ago, in 1996 I believe, a company called Iron Mountain had several of its warehouses burn down. Iron Mountain's main business is storing and archiving various papers produced by private companies and government agencies. One warehouse in East Brunswick NJ was totally destroyed despite having the latest high-tech gadetry to prevent such fires. (After all, archiving papers is Iron Mountains primary source of revenue, so you would think they would be pretty serious about storing customer records and papers.) The destruction was so thorough that arson was suspected. I don't think much was ever found out. Does anybody remember this?
Yes, you're right. Here's a link that appears to confirm that there was arson of the Iron Mountain government document storage facility in South Brunswick, New Jersey in 1997: New Jersey Arson At Iron Mountain Archive .
Actually, the South Brunswick Iron Mountains occurred in March 1997. I checked Iron Mountains Annual Report for 1997. The report goes on to explain that three warhouses in that area were set on fire in March of 1997. The report said that arson was the likely cause of the fires. While the X-File/UFO angle is kind of fun, as referenced in the link you posted, I think the more likely scenario involves sensitive archives of a Whitewater/Chinagate/Filegate (etc.) type nature. It would be interesting to find out if Iron Mountain ever figured out who burned their facilities to the ground. I betcha they don't know.
They may not want to know who caused the fires. They may have figured out that trying to find out can only cause them trouble.
More on the Iron Mountain arson (the big fire was the third of three, somebody had been trying). In the following, note this: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, as well as, the FBI, are the lead investigators on the case (ATF is primary lead). Here's the link: Arson fire destroys Iron Mountain facility .
I agree with the BIA records being the target.
FYI the Pine Ridge standoff is still going on...
Bury the news at Wounded Knee
In the poorest county in America, you can take over the government and the media won't even notice.
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Julie Winokur
If the people of Connecticut took over the state capitol, the media would swarm into Hartford and the nation would tune in to watch. Such a move might warrant the intervention of the FBI, the Justice Department and the National Guard. But for almost two months, 100 Indians have been occupying the tribal council headquarters here and the story has barely traveled past the edge of the plains. Despite the fact that a sovereign government is under siege, there has been a virtual news blackout.
Jan. 16 a group calling itself the Grass Roots Oglala Lakota Oyate entered the Red Cloud Building and declared a takeover of tribal council headquarters. They met no resistance as they seized financial records and installed their own tokalas, or scouts, for security. They sealed off part of the building containing critical files, locked down the computers and called in the FBI to remove all financial records. That they summoned federal law enforcement was in sharp contrast to the famous Wounded Knee uprising of 1973 in which three people were killed.
This takeover, planned for nine months, was a desperate measure by a group who claim their tribal council has embezzled millions of dollars, that mismanagement of funds has forced the Oglala Sioux into the depths of poverty, and that they had no recourse but to sieze the seat of power.
Pine Ridge lies in the poorest county in America, with 75 percent unemployment and an average family income of $3,700 per year. The life expectancy for men is 48 years, 25 years below the national average. The infant mortality rate is the highest in the country. Bad health, disease, drugs and alcohol have ravaged the Oglala Sioux. Their culture has been diluted by television and their language is gradually dying out.
"Millions are being embezzled and nothing's being done," says Floyd Hand, one of the leaders of the Grass Roots movement. The group points to personal loans to councilmen as high as $126,000 in one month (despite a $500 cap), countless job placements made to council members' families and a complete disregard for the tribal constitution. The group has demanded the resignation of treasurer Wesley "Chuck" Jacobs and immediate suspension of all council members, pending a referendum vote. They are also calling for a complete overhaul of the current form of government. Hand insists that the only way to expose the truth is through a full forensic audit, and the only way to accomplish that was through a takeover.
Regardless of whether the takeover was justified, it seems to have broken years of stalemate. The occupation has forced the Bureau of Indian Affairs to intervene in what Robert Ecoffey, BIA superintendent for Pine Ridge, claims is an "internal matter," and an independent audit of the general fund is under way. Jacobs has been suspended pending a hearing. Other council members have been sent into a frenzy defending their actions, and Harold Dean Salway, tribal president, has been forced to document the spending of $30,000 in federal aid given in the wake of last year's devastating tornado.
While people on the reservation may disagree on the Grass Roots movement's methods, they agree that the tribe's funds are chronically mismanaged, that nepotism rules job placement and that a handful of people are getting rich while the rest of the tribe struggles to survive.
That's why the Grass Roots movement has attacked not only the individuals currently running the tribal council, but the entire tribal council system.
Established in 1934 through the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), it represented the federal government's attempt to create a democratic system on the reservations. Unfortunately, it disregarded many tribal customs, such as the traditional council of elders, and didn't spell out an adequate system of accountability.
The constitution and bylaws, which most tribe members have never actually seen, are vague documents that don't spell out any policies or procedures, explains Jaime Arobba, the independent accountant hired by the BIA to audit the general fund. As a result, council members have been able to make direct loans to individuals without any system of checks and balances, let alone any means of collection.
"People know there is no tracking system for loans and they won't have to be paid back," says Arobba, whose findings are due this month. He plans to recommend that the tribe set up a revolving loan program with a general manager, a committee and a formal application process. "Otherwise, the general fund runs the risk of turning into a big slush fund," he says.
Arobba, who has conducted audits for every tribe in the Midwest as well as many around the country, insists that five years ago people should have been holding meetings and electing officials who shared their concerns, rather than allowing the situation to deteriorate to its current state.
The Oglala Sioux have been mired in corruption for decades, argues Floyd Hand. "We're in the same situation today as we were 27 years ago," he says, referring to the 71-day siege of 1973. That incident was precipitated by a tribal council so corrupt that AIM (the American Indian Movement) was called in and both sides were armed to the teeth. At that time, tribal council president Dick Wilson and his GOON Squad (GOON stood for Guardians of the Oglala Nation), were so out of control that Pine Ridge had the highest per capita murder rate in the country.
Thankfully, the atmosphere today is peaceful -- but that's probably part of the reason hardly anyone outside the reservation knows what's going on at Pine Ridge. The Grass Roots movement is committed to peaceful means. When I asked one young tokala if there were any weapons inside the Red Cloud Building, he answered somewhat indignantly, "We wouldn't have any weapons here; our peace pipe is inside." His respect for tradition lies at the heart of the Grass Roots movement.
When President Clinton gave his State of the Union speech in January it was the first time the name Pine Ridge had passed the presidential lips in that context in anyone's recollection. He mentioned his visit to the reservation, one of America's most depressed areas, and proposed a tax incentive for businesses that invest in such "new markets."
It would be laughable, if it weren't so tragic, that at the very moment Clinton was pledging his commitment to help the Lakota, their tribal council was under siege and no one in the federal government seemed to give a hoot.
While Clinton talked about investment opportunities on the reservation, the tribal treasurer was only a horsehair away from a public lynching, and the tribal president was fending off impeachment proceedings.
People on the reservation love to joke about "Indian time." But by any measure, a six-week occupation is a relative eternity. "I don't see an end in sight," says Ecoffey, who hasn't set foot inside the Red Cloud Building in weeks. In the meantime, the tribal council continues to conduct business out of the basement of the Jimmy Mills Hall, while, across the street, home-cooked meals flow steadily into the tribal council's official headquarters, where the insurgents camp out in hallways and watch TV to pass the time.
Here's another link on the Iron Mountain fire in 1997: Iron Mountain Fire . I notice it was investigated by BATF.
And citizens of the United States of America PROMISE to vigorously investigate and PROSECUTE! Hear that Janet? We'll see who does the better job.
Thanks. I saw it.
Yes, you are correct, [very] good catch...
Morris Thompson was on Alaska Airlines Flight 261, returning to Alaska after vacationing in Mexico.
He retired at the beginning of this year as president and chief executive officer of Doyon Limited, Alaska's largest private landowner.
According to an AP article, he was a former Bureau of Indian Affairs commissioner.
What's especially interesting about the landholdings of Doyon Ltd. [leastways to me], it's purportedly located directly adjacent to HAARP [in Alaska].
Morning bump.
What was missing from the Indian's trust fund again? Something on the order of +-$3 Billion that cannot be accounted for? Is my memory correct or did the U.S. government get accused by the hearing judge of covering up and misstating facts in this one? Regards
Not just accused. The judge, Judge Royce Lamberth, found two cabinet officers, Rubin of Treasury and Babbitt of Interior, in contempt of court.
Bump! I missed this one when first posted.
C'mon...
Nobody wants to posit Alaska Airlines Flight 261 going down had anything to do with HAARP wanting to increase its size by acquisitioning land from Doyon Limited?
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