Reply #142: Armitage - ChoicePoint/Sell of Seisint to LexisNexis/Matrix - Cheney link

[Emit]

Don't know how credible this is -- will try to verify, but is interesting with some history of ChoicePoint:

ChoicePoint is much more than a corporate safe-house or pack-station for
Dick Armitage. And it isn't historically significant because he worked there
prior to taking the State Department appointment as Powell's deputy. Just
the opposite - Armitage's place in 911 history is assured because he was a
director of ChoicePoint. ChoicePoint is the explanation of everything and
nothing, the means justifying the means, founded on the sort of motives that
turn some men, when they dwell on it, into hermits or existentialists.
ChoicePoint and 911 were inseperable, "joined at the hip." It is no
exagerration to say that ChoicePoint has determined the country's
leadership, sacrificed thousands of innocent lives, moved the country into a
police state and paved the road to war.

AN AGGRESSIVE TAKEOVER

~snip~

Rozar started-up CDB Infotek "as an insurance investigations business. He
foresaw a growing marketplace for computerized databases that would automate
the process for investigators. Equifax's Insurance Services Group bought a
majority stake in the business in 1996, with Rozar staying on as president
and chief executive. "The company was later spun off as part of ChoicePoint
Inc., a publicly traded company. He resigned when he sold his remaining
interest this year."1

It was reported that Rozar "engineered the sale of 70% of the business two
years ago for more than $32 million, and sold his remaining interest this
year for an undisclosed amount." (Unfortunately, he only lived long enough
to spend a little of it - a $100,000 contribution to the Republican Party.)

Two years later, ChoicePoint purchased Database Technologies (DBT). This
company, based in Boca Raton, was founded by Hank Asher. The FBI had accused
Asher of hob-nobbing with drug peddlers from the Bahamas. The Bureau went so
far as to cancel its CBT data management contract for this very reason... That
was a hint that something might not be quite right at ChoicePoint. It
wasn't CDBInfotek anymore - ChoicePoint was an Orwellian octopoid in the
works.

Cont'd: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:2iMM4ofwshgJ:thewebfairy.com/911/constantine/part11.htm+choicepoint+cia+contracts&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9


2nd article same link:

July 16, 2004 Friday Broward Metro Edition

HEADLINE: BOCA'S SEISINT SOLD IN $775 MILLION DEAL
BYLINE: Ian Katz Business Writer

As founder and a major shareholder of Seisint Inc., a Boca Raton company that makes a counter-terrorism computer program, Asher will make about $250 million from the sale of Seisint to LexisNexis, a subsidiary of information services giant Reed Elsevier Group. Started in 1998, Seisint now has more than 300 employees, most of them in the Boca Raton office. The company also has offices in London and in Reston, Va.

The $775 million deal, announced Wednesday, culminates a remarkable comeback for Asher, a onetime cocaine smuggler who now dedicates much of his time and money to cancer research.

~snip~

A Seisint database tool called Matrix has grabbed the attention of the Bush administration. Matrix, which Asher showed off to Vice President Dick Cheney and the heads of the FBI and Homeland Security during a visit to the White House last year, can quickly analyze data on millions of people. ... "The tools and technologies that were developed by Seisint because of 9-11 should prove to be invaluable to Lexis and to national security," Asher said.

~snip~

Another Seisint product, Accurint, gives online access of public records to help government agencies and businesses with due diligence, identity and pre-employment screening.

~snip!

"I believe it was a fair price to us, but an extraordinary deal for Lexis," Asher said. "When they open Seisint's products up to their distribution, I believe they will immediately more than double the current sales of Seisint and more than triple the profits. This makes Seisint the deal of the century for Lexis."

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:2iMM4ofwshgJ:thewebfairy.com/911/constantine/part11.htm+choicepoint+cia+contracts&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9

O'Harrow's account of that Asher meeting with Cheney -- Asher was accompanied by JEB BUSH!

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A12


One day in January 2003, an entrepreneur from Florida named Hank Asher walked into the Roosevelt Room of the White House to demonstrate a counterterrorism tool he invented after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Soon to be called Matrix, it was a computer program capable of examining records of billions of people in seconds.

Accompanied by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the state's top police official, Asher showed his creation to Vice President Cheney, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Tom Ridge, who was about to be sworn in as secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security, according to people at the meeting.

The demonstration startled everyone in the room who had not seen it before. Almost as quickly as questions could be asked, the system generated long reports on a projection screen: names, addresses, driver license photos, links to associates, even ethnicity. At one point, an Asher associate recalled, Ridge turned toward Cheney and nudged him with an elbow, apparently to underscore his amazement at the power of what they were seeing. A few months later, Ridge approved an $8 million "cooperative agreement" from his department to help states link to the computer system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43608-2004May20.html


Edited to add another layer in the history of ChoicePoint:

Ex-NYSE Official Kenneth Langone Sued
Friday December 3, 3:37 am ET
By Coralie Carlson, Associated Press Writer
Former NYSE Official Kenneth Langone Sued for $1.8 Billion


MIAMI (AP) -- Former New York Stock Exchange official Kenneth Langone and others are being sued for $1.8 billion by a businessman who claims the Home Depot co-founder bad-mouthed him and his database company to potential buyers when the company was for sale earlier this year.
Hank Asher, of Boca Raton, also claims that Langone, an investment banker tied to former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso's controversial $187.5 million pay package, tried to shut him out of the data management industry.

~snip~

Seisint was sold in October for $775 million to Reed Elsevier PLC, which owns Lexis-Nexis. But that price was down from previous offers of about $1 billion, said James Carroll, Asher's attorney... Langone, a board member of potential Seisint bidder ChoicePoint, called other potential bidders and "maliciously defamed and disparaged Seisint and Asher," according to the lawsuit. Langone told the bidders that "the books were cooked" and that "Seisint was run by 'bad people,'" in hopes of driving down the price of the company, the lawsuit claims.

~snip~

Langone chaired the NYSE's compensation committee from 1999 to 2003 when Grasso was awarded a $187.5 million pay package that was roundly criticized as excessive. New York's attorney general sued Langone and Grasso in May, claiming they misled the NYSE board of directors about Grasso's pay package and, in some cases, bullied board members into approving it.

Langone is on the boards of ChoicePoint, General Electric Co., Home Depot Inc., Yum! Brands Inc. and Unifi Inc.

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:Lu6QIB4hX5YJ:biz.yahoo.com/ap/041203/langone_lawsuit_2.html+Kenneth+Langone+ChoicePoint&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1