vault backup: 2026-09-22 16:48:54

40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ The INSLAW Affair centers on [[INSLAW]], a Washington, D.C. software company own
 
 ### The 1982 Contract and the Proprietary Rights Dispute
 
-In March 1982, INSLAW signed a three-year, $10 million contract with the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones.[^2] The contract specified installation of a public-domain version of PROMIS, but INSLAW argued the delivered software incorporated proprietary enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981. These enhancements, and who owned them, became the central dispute.
+In March 1982, INSLAW signed a three-year, $10 million contract with the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] (EOUSA) to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones.[^2] The contract specified installation of a public-domain version of PROMIS, but INSLAW argued the delivered software incorporated proprietary enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981. These enhancements, and who owned them, became the central dispute.
 
 [[C. Madison Brewer]], appointed as the EOUSA's PROMIS project manager, quickly became the focal point of INSLAW's complaints. Brewer had previously served as general counsel for INSLAW's predecessor organization, the non-profit Institute for Law and Social Research. [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|Bankruptcy Judge Bason]] later found that Brewer had developed "an intense and abiding hatred" for INSLAW president Bill Hamilton and used his position "to vent his spleen," taking administrative actions designed to harm the company.[^1] At an April 19, 1982 meeting, Brewer called a Hamilton memorandum "scurrilous" and persistently opposed escrow arrangements that would have preserved INSLAW's proprietary rights pending a contractual resolution.[^2]
 
@@ -32,9 +32,9 @@ In April 1983, contracting officer [[Peter Videnieks]] negotiated Modification 1
 
 ### Bankruptcy Court Proceedings
 
-Bankruptcy Judge Bason presided over two landmark proceedings. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based partly on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who initially stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[Edward White]] to force the company into liquidation.[^1] In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," awarding approximately $6.8 million in damages.[^1]
+Bankruptcy Judge Bason presided over two landmark proceedings. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based partly on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who initially stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[William White]] to force the company into liquidation.[^1] In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," with damages later computed at about 6.8 million dollars.[^1]
 
-The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed Bason's ruling in November 1989, with Judge [[William Bryant, Jr.|William Bryant]] finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support" for the bankruptcy court's conclusions.[^1] The Court of Appeals reversed all lower court rulings in May 1991 on jurisdictional grounds, vacating Bason's findings. The Supreme Court declined to hear INSLAW's appeal.
+Senior District Judge [[William Bryant, Jr.|William Bryant]] affirmed Bason's ruling on November 22, 1989, after reviewing "all of the volumes of transcripts... the more than 1,200 pages of briefs and supporting appendices," finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support for the findings set forth by the bankruptcy court" and that "the cold record adequately supports his findings under any standard of review," while reducing the damages by 655,200 dollars.[^1][^8] The D.C. Circuit reversed on May 7, 1991, on jurisdictional grounds, holding that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and declined to disturb the findings of fraud, which "if it occurred, is inexcusable"; rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991, and the Supreme Court declined to hear INSLAW's appeal.[^8]
 
 Bason's non-reappointment in 1988, when his four-year term expired after he sought early renewal, generated additional allegations that DOJ had improperly influenced the selection committee that chose his successor. The Bua Report found no credible evidence supporting this charge.[^2]
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ A distinct body of allegations, separate from the Brian conspiracy theory, held
 
 British media proprietor [[Robert Maxwell]], who had maintained intelligence relationships with Mossad since his association with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in the early 1960s, allegedly served as the primary commercial distributor for the modified software through his Israeli company [[Degem]] and a network of international holdings. According to accounts drawing on Israeli intelligence sources, Maxwell sold PROMIS-derived software to agencies in Britain, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Jordan, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, and numerous other countries, with total sales alleged to exceed $500 million.[^5][^6] INSLAW alleged that Maxwell had contributed $600,000 from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to have INSLAW's lead counsel dismissed, preventing the company from fully litigating its proprietary claims against the U.S. government.[^1]
 
-The Bua Report found "no credible evidence" supporting any of these international distribution allegations and concluded that only public-domain versions of PROMIS had been distributed abroad.[^2] The September 1994 DOJ review by Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer reached identical conclusions.[^7]
+The House report itself never adopts the back door as a finding: it records that "the Hamiltons claim the modification of Enhanced PROMIS was an essential element of the enterprise, because the software was subsequently distributed by Dr. Brian to intelligence agencies internationally with a 'back door' software routine," and elsewhere that the modifications "possibly allowed for the creation of a 'back door,'" attributing the claim to the affidavits of Ben-Menashe and Riconosciuto; Riconosciuto's own affidavit of March 21, 1991, speaks of "modification" and "implementation," not of a back door. The Canadian thread, from the 1991 inventory error that put INSLAW and the committee on the trail of the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] to the RCMP's own [[Project Abbreviation]] of 2000, is set out on its own page. The Bua Report found "no credible evidence" supporting any of these international distribution allegations and concluded that only public-domain versions of PROMIS had been distributed abroad.[^2] The September 1994 DOJ review by Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer reached identical conclusions.[^7]
 
 ### Danny Casolaro and The Octopus
 
@@ -74,9 +74,13 @@ On August 10, 1991, Casolaro was found dead in his bathtub at the Sheraton Hotel
 
 The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report noted that Casolaro had "encountered dangerous individuals associated with organized crime and the world of covert intelligence operations" and called for further investigation into the circumstances of his death. The committee found no evidence that DOJ had influenced the local investigation.[^1] FBI task force members privately "questioned the conclusion of suicide" and recommended further investigation, but documents remain partially withheld from public release.[^4]
 
+### Hanssen and bin Laden
+
+On June 14, 2001, the Washington Times reported that "accused spy [[Robert Hanssen]] gave secret U.S. software to his Russian handlers that later went to terrorist Osama bin Laden," the software "believed to be an upgraded version of a program known as 'Promis,'" sold on, unnamed officials said, for 2 million dollars; the same sources said the FBI's [[FOIMS]] and COINS systems, which the criminal complaint against Hanssen showed he had used extensively, "are believed to be upgraded versions of the Promis software program." [[Bill Hamilton]] told the paper that government sources had told INSLAW a modified PROMIS had been the "standard on-line database software" of the intelligence agencies since the mid-1980s. On October 16, 2001, Fox News reported that Hanssen had been "tasked with helping allies like Germany and England with the installation and use of their versions of the Promis program," that "Germany stopped using Promis software just last week," that Britain had begun closing it down and Canada had investigated tampering, and that "all we can get from the U.S. government is that they are no longer using Promis software"; FBI and Justice Department spokesmen said only that the department "has discontinued use of the program." In January 2003 Hamilton asked the national commission on the September 11 attacks to consider whether the department's misappropriation of PROMIS was "linked indirectly to pre-September 11 performance problems of U.S. intelligence," and said FBI Director [[Robert Mueller]] had acknowledged to INSLAW's lawyer [[C. Boyden Gray]] in late 2001 that the bureau's system was based on "the Inslaw software," a statement reported only through Hamilton; by then the government's position was a denial that it had used PROMIS or that Hanssen had delivered it. The Justice Department inspector general's 2003 review of the Hanssen case, which examines his use of the FBI's Automated Case Support system at length, does not mention PROMIS or FOIMS.[^9]
+
 ### Court of Federal Claims and Final Resolution
 
-In May 1995, the U.S. Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the Court of Federal Claims. Hearing Officer Judge Christine Miller ruled on July 31, 1997 that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been free to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld this decision in August 1998 and notified the Senate accordingly. INSLAW received no compensation.[^1]
+In May 1995, the U.S. Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the Court of Federal Claims. Hearing Officer Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller|Christine Miller]] ruled on July 31, 1997 that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been free to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld this decision in August 1998 and notified the Senate accordingly. INSLAW received no compensation.[^1]
 
 Bill Hamilton continued to maintain that PROMIS was fraudulently stolen and distributed internationally. The full scope of the international distribution allegations, particularly those concerning Rafael Eitan, Robert Maxwell, and the embedded backdoor, has never been conclusively resolved in any formal proceeding.
 
@@ -89,3 +93,5 @@ Bill Hamilton continued to maintain that PROMIS was fraudulently stolen and dist
 [^5]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
 [^6]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press, 1999.
 [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Review of the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer, September 1994.
+[^8]: *United States v. INSLAW, Inc.,* 113 B.R. 802 (D.D.C. 1989); *In re INSLAW, Inc.,* 932 F.2d 1467 (D.C. Cir. 1991), rehearing denied July 12, 1991.
+[^9]: "Software likely in hands of terrorist," *The Washington Times,* June 14, 2001 (byline not shown in the archived copy; attributed elsewhere to Jerry Seper), archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20190328003123/https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/jun/14/20010614-023749-9383r/ ; Fox News, *Special Report with Brit Hume,* October 16, 2001, Carl Cameron segment, transcript as reproduced at Boing Boing, October 17, 2001, and in Ruppert, Michael C., "Bin Laden's Magic Carpet," *From The Wilderness,* October 26, 2001 (the spokesmen's statements appear only in the latter); "Firm says stolen software helped bin Laden plot 9/11," *The Washington Times,* January 6, 2003, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20170329002654/http://www.washingtontimes.com:80/news/2003/jan/6/20030106-083824-4351r/ ; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *A Review of the FBI's Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen,* August 2003, unclassified summary.

40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Project Abbreviation.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+category: "Intelligence Scandal"
+tags:
+  - Event
+  - ProjectAbbreviation
+  - PROMIS
+  - RCMP
+  - CSIS
+  - Canada
+  - INSLAW
+alias:
+  - PROMIS in Canada
+  - RCMP PROMIS investigation
+summary: "The RCMP's 1999-2000 national security inquiry, run by Sean McDade, into whether a trap-doored PROMIS ran in Canadian agencies, disclosed by the Toronto Star in August 2000, nine years after a CWARC inventory error had first set INSLAW and the House Judiciary Committee on the Canadian trail."
+start: 1990-11
+end: 2000-09
+location: "Ottawa"
+created: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-09-22
+---
+
+Project Abbreviation was the code name of a [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] national security investigation, conducted through 1999 and 2000 by the investigator [[Sean McDade]], whose email handle was "simorp," into whether software used by Canadian federal agencies, including the RCMP itself and the [[Canadian Security Intelligence Service|CSIS]], was a version of [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] fitted with a "trap door" giving American and Israeli intelligence access to Canadian data. The Toronto Star disclosed it on August 25, 2000; Reuters reported the same day that "Canadian police are investigating whether U.S. and Israeli spies used rigged computer software to hack into Canada's top secret intelligence files," and that the Mounties "had interviewed a number of people linked to the Promis affair." The same day the RCMP spokesman Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet told the Globe and Mail that the inquiry, under way for "several months," had produced "absolutely nothing to date to indicate national security has been compromised in any way," adding that the force had to investigate every allegation of the kind. The CSIS spokesman Dan Lambert said the service had conducted "its own in-depth review in 1991 and found that it had no copies of Promis, bootlegged or otherwise, and never had." A later report that the RCMP closed the file on September 16, 2000, with a statement that it had never held any version of the software rests on secondary accounts.[^1][^2]
+
+### The 1991 Origin
+
+The Canadian trail began with a survey. On November 5, 1990, Marc Valois of the federal Department of Communications telephoned [[Patricia Hamilton]], the Hamiltons' daughter and INSLAW's sales manager for Canada, to say that INSLAW's PROMIS was "currently operating in agencies and departments of the Federal Government of Canada" at "more than 900 locations," and in January 1991 the Canadian Workplace Automation Research Centre sent INSLAW vendor questionnaires on the same premise. In Montreal on January 30, 1991, Denis LaChance of the department told her the RCMP was running the software at 900 locations; an RCMP officer at headquarters in [[Ottawa]] told her on February 1 that he knew of no PROMIS in the force and to disregard the letters. INSLAW, which swore it had never sold PROMIS to any Canadian agency, filed her affidavit in the bankruptcy court in February 1991. Chairman [[Jack Brooks]] of the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] asked the Canadian embassy for access to the officials; the embassy's Jonathan Fried, reluctant "having been burned" before, allowed interviews on March 22 or 23, 1991, only with government counsel present, not under oath, and on condition the men never became public witnesses. Valois and LaChance then said they had identified the software wrongly: the "PROMIS" in Canadian use was a project-management package of the same name sold by the Strategic Software Planning Corporation of Massimo Grimaldi, who swore he had sold a few copies to Public Works Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency in May 1986; the RCMP had not been part of the survey. On December 4, 1991, the Canadian ambassador wrote that "the RCMP and CSIS report they do not use any case management software." The committee called the letter "conclusory" and wrote in 1992 that "without direct access to RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian officials, the committee has been effectively thwarted in its attempt to support or reject the contention that INSLAW software was transferred to the Canadian Government." The Justice Department's 1994 review traced the error to "a college student working on the inventory" and concluded that "the 'PROMIS' program in use by certain Canadian agencies is not a version of INSLAW's PROMIS but rather a totally different program developed by a different company."[^3][^4]
+
+### The 2000 Investigation
+
+McDade's inquiry, authorized at the top of the force, took him secretly into the United States in February 2000, to [[Cheri Seymour]] and the Hercules, California, detective [[Sue Todd]], to the files behind Seymour's book on [[Danny Casolaro]], and to former investigators of the PROMIS and Cabazon matters, and back to a "war room" in Ottawa; the account of the investigation from his side is on his page. [[Michael Riconosciuto]]'s affidavit of March 21, 1991, had sworn that "some of the modifications that I made were specifically designed to facilitate the implementation of PROMIS within two agencies of the Government of Canada: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS)," and that "the proprietary version of PROMIS, as modified by me, was, in fact, implemented in both"; the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] had found him "totally unreliable." A second Canadian witness, the former Nesbitt Thomson broker [[John A. Belton]], told the department's 1994 reviewers that CSIS had bought 10 to 12 million dollars of PROMIS in 1984 and that [[Earl Brian]] had sold it to the Bank of Montreal for 2 million dollars in May 1987, without producing any document; they found him "unbelievable." Fourteen months after the Star's disclosure, on October 16, 2001, Fox News reported that "Canada has actually investigated potential tampering with its Promis programs" as a live example in its story on [[Robert Hanssen]] and Osama bin Laden. The Canadian government's Access to Information index lists a request for RCMP records "mentioning 'PROMIS,' 'INSLAW,' 'PROJECT ABBREVIATION,' or 'PROMIS software' and by RCMP investigator Sean McDade" from 1991 to 2001.[^1][^4][^5]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Reuters, "Canada investigating computer hacking by U.S. and Israel spies," CNN.com, August 25, 2000; Sallot, Jeff, "Mounties probe software allegations," *The Globe and Mail,* August 26, 2000.
+[^2]: The September 16, 2000, closure is reported in Ruppert, Michael C., "Bin Laden's Magic Carpet," *From The Wilderness,* October 26, 2001, citing the Toronto Star; the Star's own texts of August 25 and September 16, 2000, were not examined. Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010, for McDade's side.
+[^3]: Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, Exhibit 1, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.), archive.org item "INSLAW-Canada"; House Judiciary Committee investigative file "INSLAW - Canada (HOUSE)," memorandum of Ned M. Friece and interviews of March 23, 1991, archive.org item "INSLAW-CanadaHOUSE" (the House report gives the interview date as March 22).
+[^4]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Canada; U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, "The Alleged Distribution of Enhanced PROMIS to Canada" and the Belton interview.
+[^5]: Riconosciuto's affidavit as reproduced in U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, pp. 44-45; Fox News, *Special Report with Brit Hume,* October 16, 2001, Carl Cameron segment, transcript as reproduced at Boing Boing, October 17, 2001; Government of Canada, Open Government, Access to Information summary d596fa1b822b7eed3421bcabd4cf9fd5 (not opened).