THE SIERRA CLUB SUES AND IS SUED

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

Suing under the National Wildlife Refuge
Improvement Act, signed into law by President Bill
Clinton in October 1997, the National Audubon
Society and Sierra Club head a coalition asking a
federal judge in Sacramento, California, to restrict
irrigation, row cropping, and pesticide use on farms
located within the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake
refuges south of Klamath Falls, Oregon. The refuges
host millions of birds each spring and fall, midway on
their migrations from Mexico to Canada and back.
Bluebird Systems, a computer software
company based in Carlsbad, California, has sued the
Sierra Club, alleging negligence, fraud, conspiracy,
and breach of contract. The suit claims former
Bluebird employee Dan Anderson, also sued, ran
the Sierra Club official web site from Bluebird computers
for more than two years without authorization.

As the site grew to include more than 2,000 pages of
text, attracting more than 1.6 million hits in 1996, the
Bluebird system crashed increasingly often, leading to
discovery of the Sierra Club site in January 1997.
Anderson was fired, while Sierra Club president Carl
Pope reportedly disclaimed knowledge of the matter.