Former Interior CIO retiring

The Interior Department's former chief information officer, Daryl White, will retire from the federal government Aug. 15.

White has no immediate plans other than resting and traveling with his wife.

After four years as Interior's CIO, he became the Bureau of Reclamation's special assistant for technology in June.

W. Hord Tipton, previously CIO at the Bureau of Land Management, took over the departmentwide position.

Tipton has inherited responsibilities that include managing a computer system with known security flaws.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the department to disconnect from the Internet in December to protect data maintained under its multimillion-dollar Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS).

White testified in January that his office had strictly an advisory and policy function and oversaw hundreds of department systems in addition to TAAMS, which collects and maintains data on the 54 million acres of American Indian land.

Interior has held American Indian-owned lands in trust for more than 100 years, leasing the properties and processing revenue earned from farming and drilling. A group of beneficiaries filed a class-action lawsuit in 1996, claiming that poor bookkeeping has prevented landowners and their descendants from determining their account balances. They estimate as much as $10 billion in lost or missing funds.

A decision in the case is pending.