Park Service's Web site restored

February 20, 2002

Park Service's Web site restored

Internet users can once again access information about national parks online.

The National Park Service's Web site at www.nps.gov was restored Feb. 12, according to a notice posted on the Web site.

"Everything's back," Antietam National Battlefield Superintendent John Howard said Tuesday. "We've got all our e-mail capability and our ability to pay vendors. It all came back at once."

The Web sites and e-mail for all U.S. Department of Interior branches, including four area national parks, was shut down after a U.S. District judge issued a temporary restraining order on Dec. 5 that shut down the Interior's information systems.

Park service employees could not access the Internet or e-mail addresses outside the park service until each agency demonstrated its computer system could not be hacked, National Park Service spokesman Gerry Gaumer said.

Not every Interior agency is back online, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The court order for the shutdown was issued after the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Integrated Records Management System was found to be insecure.

The court hired a company to determine if it was possible to "hack" into the bureau's computer system, set up a false account and tamper with another account in the Indian Trust Fund, bureau spokeswoman Nedra Darling had said.

- Julie E. Greene

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