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.