Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

**Note: Reference: Indian Trust: Cobell v. Norton

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 they say. One looks at them and says, no one can say I didn't turn them off, no one will get paid, see I have done nothing. The last one, says, maybe this is not enough what else needs to be 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 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 true.)