Task force focuses on computer crime

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz., Feb. 28, 2008

Warning: Anyone, including elected leaders, using a Navajo government computer has waived the right to privacy.

White Collar Crime Unit investigator and prosecutor Frank Brown, who specializes in cybercrime, said Monday that a written notice should be displayed on all tribal government computers.

The notice should explicitly warn users that "reasonable expectation of privacy is gone" once they turn on the computer.

In other words, Brown said, any user is "subject to a periodic audit. You are warned."

Ella Wilson, White Collar Crime director, agreed.

Wilson said tribal investigators have ramped up meetings with federal and state agencies that prosecute cybercrime - the use of computers for illegal or unauthorized purposes - and met with the Ethics and Rules Office in Albuquerque last week on the issue.

Brown said they are attacking the problem as a task force, which he wholeheartedly supports because it involves everyone.

Wilson said "everyone" includes anyone who sees a tribal employee using a Navajo government computer, laptop, cell phone, copying machine, tape recorder, or any other digital device for their personal use, especially personal gain.

The tribal government has about 7,500 computers and laptops, according to the Information Technology Department.

IT staff said they must rely on the divisions and departments to educate their employees about the rules on computer use.

All the divisions, including the president's office, have their own information technology offices, either in-house or under contract from an outside provider.

The legislative branch has its own IT department, which oversees its computers, including the laptop and desktop computers assigned to each of the 88 council delegates.

Wilson said her cybercrime unit gets cases involving misuse of tribal computers "intermittently" and suggested that reporting of suspected cybercrimes should be handled similar to those involving abuse of tribal vehicles.

In order to act, Fleet Management needs people who witness the abuse to step forward, Wilson said. It maintains a hotline for people to report tribey abuse.

Wilson said she understands that employees are hesitant to report the misuse of computer and other digital equipment by higher-ups because they fear retaliation.

But the Navajo Nation has a law that protects whistleblowers, she said. Title 2, section 1984 of the Navajo Nation Code prohibits employees, including executive branch personnel, from interfering in a lawful investigation.

The White Collar Crime Unit cites that law in letters to division directors, Brown emphasized.

Brown recalled that the council passed the law in 1983 after the chairman's office attempted to interfere with an investigation by the chief prosecutor's office.

The White Collar Crime Unit grew out of a special investigative unit established in the prosecutor's office in 1983 to address an increase in white-collar crime, he said.

The unit is now training others in the prosecutor's office about cybercrime and plans to train division and department directors as well as officials from other tribes, the officials said.

The unit's first cybercrime case occurred 10 years ago and involved a fish and wildlife director and former police chief who downloaded pornography onto his tribal computer.

The suspect used inscriptions and passwords to block access to the porn files, making investigation difficult.

The investigators filed a lengthy affidavit of probable cause with the Window Rock District Court to obtain a search and seizure warrant, and called on experts at Los Alamos National Laboratory to help them gather evidence from the computer, Brown said.

Eventually then Fish & Wildlife director Larry Benally Jr. was charged with using Navajo government property to download pornography.

After being served with a search warrant and placed on administrative leave, Benally broke into his office in an attempt to remove evidence, netting an additional charge of breaking and entering.

Benally eventually paid the tribal government $7,000 in restitution.

Another case involved the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the tribal treasury by a finance officer. After the White Collar Crime Unit seized the suspect's computers and diskettes, the suspect committed suicide, Brown recalled.

"So," he said slowly, "computers can get you into a lot of trouble."

Information: White Collar Crime Unit, 928-871-6520.