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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ The Department of Justice, established in 1870 under the Attorney General, conta
 
 ### INSLAW and PROMIS
 
-In March 1982 the Executive Office for United States Attorneys contracted with [[INSLAW]], the company of [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], to install PROMIS in the largest U.S. Attorneys' offices; within a month the department's project manager [[C. Madison Brewer]] and contracting officer [[Peter Videnieks]] were disputing INSLAW's proprietary claims, payments were withheld, and in 1985 the company entered Chapter 11. Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]] told the Office of Professional Responsibility in 1986 that INSLAW's claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court," yet the litigation continued. On September 28, 1987, Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] found that the department had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit"; the district court affirmed in 1988 and the D.C. Circuit reversed on jurisdiction in 1991. Bason was not reappointed, the transcript of his ruling having reached the selection panel's chair, Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], from the U.S. Attorney's civil chief [[Royce Lamberth]]. [[Elliot Richardson]], retained by INSLAW, called the affair "a high-tech Watergate." The [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] under [[Jack Brooks]] opened its investigation in 1989 and reported in September 1992 "strong evidence" that the department "acted willfully and fraudulently"; INSLAW alleged that [[Earl Brian]], a friend of Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], had been given the software to sell to foreign intelligence services, and a document on department letterhead dated May 14, 1985, and signed by [[William Bradford Reynolds]] was later produced as a plan to distribute a modified PROMIS in the [[Middle East]]. [[Ronald LeGrand]] of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] relayed a career department source's judgment that INSLAW "is a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice, in its breadth and depth, than Watergate." Attorney General [[William Barr]] appointed [[Nicholas J. Bua]] special counsel in 1991; his report of March 1993 found no credible evidence of wrongdoing, and Attorney General [[Janet Reno]]'s review of September 1994 concurred, after Associate Attorney General [[Webster Hubbell]] had announced a nationwide investigation of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death. The Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]], where Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller]] ruled in July 1997 that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain. The writer Gordon Thomas and [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] said that [[Rafael Eitan]] of [[LAKAM]] acquired a copy through back-channel contacts with the department in the early 1980s, and the department's own successor system, the Integrated Case Management System, employed one of PROMIS's original designers, [[Dennis W. Wright]].[^4]
+In March 1982 the Executive Office for United States Attorneys contracted with [[INSLAW]], the company of [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], to install PROMIS in the largest U.S. Attorneys' offices; within a month the department's project manager [[C. Madison Brewer]] and contracting officer [[Peter Videnieks]] were disputing INSLAW's proprietary claims, payments were withheld, and in 1985 the company entered Chapter 11. Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]] told the Office of Professional Responsibility in 1986 that INSLAW's claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court," yet the litigation continued. On September 28, 1987, Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] found that the department "took, converted, stole, Inslaw's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit"; the district court affirmed in 1988 and the D.C. Circuit reversed on jurisdiction in 1991. Bason was not reappointed, the transcript of his ruling having reached the selection panel's chair, Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], from the U.S. Attorney's civil chief [[Royce Lamberth]]. [[Elliot Richardson]], retained by INSLAW, called the affair "a high-tech Watergate." The [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] under [[Jack Brooks]] opened its investigation in 1989 and reported in September 1992 "strong evidence" that the department "acted willfully and fraudulently"; INSLAW alleged that [[Earl Brian]], a friend of Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], had been given the software to sell to foreign intelligence services, and a document on department letterhead dated May 14, 1985, and signed by [[William Bradford Reynolds]] was later produced as a plan to distribute a modified PROMIS in the [[Middle East]]. [[Ronald LeGrand]] of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] relayed a career department source's judgment that INSLAW "is a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice, in its breadth and depth, than Watergate." Attorney General [[William Barr]] appointed [[Nicholas J. Bua]] special counsel in 1991; his report of March 1993 found no credible evidence of wrongdoing, and Attorney General [[Janet Reno]]'s review of September 1994 concurred, after Associate Attorney General [[Webster Hubbell]] had announced a nationwide investigation of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death. The Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]], where Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller]] ruled in July 1997 that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain. The writer Gordon Thomas and [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] said that [[Rafael Eitan]] of [[LAKAM]] acquired a copy through back-channel contacts with the department in the early 1980s, and the department's own successor system, the Integrated Case Management System, employed one of PROMIS's original designers, [[Dennis W. Wright]].[^4]
 
 ### The CIA and Prosecution