vault backup: 2026-09-22 19:33:49

40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md

@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Bason's non-reappointment in 1988, when his four-year term expired after he soug
 
 The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) examined the INSLAW matter in 1989 and found "no proof" that [[Lowell Jensen]] and [[Edwin Meese]] had conspired to ruin INSLAW or steal its product, and "no proof of any connection between [[Earl Brian]] or [[Hadron]] and the Department with regard to the INSLAW contract." The Senate report did find, however, that DOJ official Thomas Stanton had "improperly tried to get special handling for Inslaw's bankruptcy" and criticized the Department for placing Brewer, a former INSLAW employee, in charge of the implementation contract.[^3]
 
-The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative [[Jack Brooks]], conducted a three-year investigation from 1989 to 1992. Its September 10, 1992 report (House Report 102-857) reached substantially more damaging conclusions. The committee found "strong evidence...that the Department of Justice 'acted willfully and fraudulently,' and 'took, converted and stole,' Inslaw's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery fraud and deceit.'"[^1] The report cited an admission from Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]], who told DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility investigators in 1986 that INSLAW's proprietary rights claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court on this issue" - yet DOJ continued litigating against INSLAW.[^1]
+The [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]], chaired by Representative [[Jack Brooks]], conducted a three-year investigation from 1989 to 1992. Its September 10, 1992 report (House Report 102-857) reached substantially more damaging conclusions. The committee found "strong evidence...that the Department of Justice 'acted willfully and fraudulently,' and 'took, converted and stole,' Inslaw's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery fraud and deceit.'"[^1] The report cited an admission from Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]], who told DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility investigators in 1986 that INSLAW's proprietary rights claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court on this issue" - yet DOJ continued litigating against INSLAW.[^1]
 
 The House Committee specifically examined the roles of Lowell Jensen and Edwin Meese in the affair. Jensen had developed DALITE (District Attorney's Automated Legal Information System), a competing case management software, while serving as Alameda County District Attorney; he was a member of the contract oversight committee at INSLAW's inception and later became Associate Attorney General and then Deputy Attorney General under Meese. The Committee found it "incredible that the Department, having made this determination [that INSLAW's proprietary rights claim was legitimate], would continue to pursue its litigation."[^1] Meese had served alongside Earl Brian in Governor [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan's]] California cabinet; Meese's wife purchased stock in a Brian-controlled company; Meese reportedly recused himself from PROMIS matters upon becoming Attorney General in February 1985, leaving Jensen to handle the issue.[^4]
 
@@ -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 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]
+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 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
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report noted that Casolaro had "encountered
 
 ### 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]
+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