Whistleblower Faces Firing For Exposing Indian Rip-Off

Here's a sidebar to the Cobell v. Kempthorne case—the long-running lawsuit over the government's admitted mismanagement of the Individual Indian Trust (MoJo Sept/Oct 2005). An Interior Department attorney who revealed his agency's bungling of Indian properties faces the federal boot for disclosing these problems to a newspaper. According to documents released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the government is invoking an obscure criminal statute known as the Trade Secrets Act (TSA).

Robert McCarthy, responsible for overseeing management of properties of individual members of Indian tribes held in trust by Interior, has documented massive losses due to agency missteps. Yet the problems persist, costing Native Americans millions of dollars a month in lost revenues. His concerns were validated by an Inspector General report that has yet to be finally released.

So, McCarthy provided a reporter for the Palm Springs Desert Sun a copy of his Inspector General disclosure with individual names blacked out. The reporter wrote a story in April, and four months later, Regional Solicitor Daniel Shillito proposed that McCarthy be fired for violating the TSA, which prohibits the release of “confidential” financial or commercial information. PEER suggests the TSA doesn't apply since McCarthy revealed no names or any information that could be considered confidential, and since the TSA only prohibits releases which damage the economic interests of the submitter. McCarthy's disclosures were designed to benefit property holders by identifying and ending unjustified losses.

Significantly, Shillito was supposed to clean up large-scale asset mismanagement and losses identified back in 1992. McCarthy found these had never been addressed. JULIA WHITTY

Comments

U.S. Government..., Ripping off the Natives?!?!
You've gotta' be KIDDIN' Me!

OUR Government?!?!
How could such a thing even begin to be conceived within Our Gub'ment?
I'm SHOCKED!
SHOCKED, I tell you!

But seriously folks, which one of us (Indian or Non) would expect any different if the federal government was holding OUR personal property "in trust"?

Posted by: gvc on 08/29/07 at 1:08 PM Respond

Our government should not even be in Indian affairs. It is their land, what's left of it. They have been ripped off much to long. Get rid of the BIA and any control the government has over the Native American. All Americans should act to save the Native People. It is our social responsibility to save what is left of these People. What we have today is from the deaths, suffering and sacrifices the Original People have endured.

Posted by: Rick Theile on 08/29/07 at 3:06 PM Respond

I completely agree, and so should most Americans of good and reasonable conscience. The native Americans deserve far better treatment than they have gotten and are still getting.
The government should have no control over Indian affairs. The native American peoples should have total control over their lands and properties.
Moreover, all future gambling licenses should go only to Indian tribes and the revenues therefrom should be to their sole benefit. Not to benefit some sleazy Republican businessman crook or lobbyist, think Abramoff and DeLay.

Posted by: bobr900 on 08/29/07 at 8:09 PM Respond

Just another black eye along the long and ever-extending "trail of tears" of self-centered, nefarious unbridled capitalism.

Someday perhaps, Americans will wake up to the obvious fact that the Natives were the true followers of the Jesus Way, the pope is the anti-Christ and Pat Robertson is his false prophet.

So, what else is new?

Posted by: Richard Aberdeen on 08/29/07 at 8:47 PM Respond

Those who have profited [personally or corporately] from this mess should be divested of their full net worth, to be contributed to the Native people who were defrauded or harmed.

Posted by: JEFF on 09/02/07 at 7:48 AM Respond