Reply #11: PROMIS -- Prosecuters Management Information System (had a feeling this was involved)

[nashville_brook]

...anyone intrigued by DATA MINING and illegal spying on US citizens, should read up on the history of PROMIS, INSLAW and Danny Casolaro...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_Management_Information_System

(background)
In March 1982, Inslaw won a competitive contract from the U.S. Justice Department to install, in the 22 largest U.S. Attorneys Offices, a version of PROMIS to which the government already had a license. In April 1983, however, the Justice Department modified Inslaw's three-year PROMIS Implementation Contract to obtain delivery of a new version of PROMIS for which the government had never obtained a license. Under the modification, the government promised to pay license fees for the new version if it decided to substitute it for the version specified in the original contract.

In May 1983, the month after Inslaw delivered the new version to the government, the government began to find fault with some of Inslaw's services and negotiated billing rates and unilaterally to withhold each month increasing amounts of the payments due Inslaw for implementation services. The Justice Department agent responsible for making payments was a former employee who had been fired from Inslaw. At the same time, the government decided to substitute the new version of PROMIS for the version originally specified in the contract but refused to pay Inslaw for it, claiming that Inslaw had failed to prove to the government's satisfaction that Inslaw had developed the version with private, non-government funds and that the new version was not otherwise required to be delivered to the government under the contract.

By February 1985, the government had withheld payment of almost $1.8 million for Inslaw's implementation services, plus millions of dollars in PROMIS license fees, and Inslaw filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In the late 1980s, two different federal courts issued fully litigated findings of fact that the April 1983 contract modification constituted a government fraud against Inslaw whereby the government "took, converted, stole" PROMIS from Inslaw "through trickery, fraud, and deceit," and then attempted "unlawfully and without justification" to force Inslaw out of business so it would be unable to seek restitution through the courts and be forced to sell it's assets in bankruptcy liquidation.

Three months after the initial verdict was issued, George F. Bason, Jr., the federal bankruptcy judge presiding over the original case, was denied reappointment to the bench by the Justice Department ending a 14-year tenure. One of only four, out of 136, not reappointed. His replacement, S. Martin Teel, had been the attorney who unsuccessfully argued the INSLAW case before Judge Bason on the Justice Department's behalf.



http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw_pr.html

(this article lays out the STEALING of PROMIS by the US Govt.)

The INSLAW Octopus

Software piracy, conspiracy, cover-up, stonewalling, covert action: Just another decade at the Department of Justice

By Richard L. Fricker


The House Judiciary Committee lists these crimes as among the possible violations perpetrated by "high-level Justice officials and private individuals":

>> Conspiracy to commit an offense >> Fraud >> Wire fraud >> Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies and committees >> Tampering with a witness >> Retaliation against a witness >> Perjury >> Interference with commerce by threats or violence >> Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) violations >> Transportation of stolen goods, securities, moneys >> Receiving stolen goods

Bill Hamilton, Inslaw & PROMIS

Who:
Bill Hamilton and his wife, Nancy Hamilton, start Inslaw to nurture PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information Systems).

Why #1:
The DOJ, aware that its case management system is in dire need of automation, funds Inslaw and PROMIS. After creating a public-domain version, Inslaw makes significant enhancements to PROMIS and, aware that the US market for legal automation is worth $3 billion, goes private in the early '80s.

Why #2:
Designed as case-management software for federal prosecutors, PROMIS has the ability to combine disparate databases, and to track people by their involvement with the legal system. Hamilton and others now claim that the DOJ has modified PROMIS to monitor intelligence operations, agents and targets, instead of legal cases.

By late November, 1992 the nation had turned its attention from the election-weary capital to Little Rock, Ark., where a new generation of leaders conferred about the future. But in a small Washington D.C. office, Bill Hamilton, president and founder of Inslaw Inc., and Dean Merrill, a former Inslaw vice president, were still very much concerned about the past.


http://oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/stories/2726093/
(this is a lengthy, 3-part investigation recently published)
Promisgate: World's longest spy scandal still glossed over / Part I
ukDavid Dastych – The so called PROMIS affair would never have happened if the software invented by an American computer specialist, Mr. William A. Hamilton, had been a technical failure.

But this case management and data mining software, developed in the early 1980s by a small Washington D.C. company, Inslaw Inc., had proven itself to be a perfect intelligence tool. Originally made for the Department of Justice to help the country’s prosecutor offices in their case management, it drew the attention of corrupt officials and of Israeli Intelligence. Stolen by ruse from its owner, Inslaw Inc., the software was hacked and provided with a "trap door", a sort of a Trojan Horse hacker’s trick, that enabled the retrieval of information from the foreign intelligence services and banks it had been sold to on behalf of Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Without the knowledge of the software’s owner, and in violation of copyright laws, the PROMIS software was sold to over 40 countries and used in an unprecedented "sting operation", which yielded huge financial and intelligence benefits to the United States and Israel.

In February 1985, Inslaw Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because the Justice Department had withheld payments totaling almost $1.8 million U.S. due Inslaw Inc. under a PROMIS Implementation Contract for U.S. Attorneys Offices. The PROMIS affair, broken by investigative journalists, two federal courts, and a congressional investigation and published in thousands of media stories and in several books, has never been resolved.

But "blowback" from the U.S. Government's theft of PROMIS in 1982 soon turned into a series of painful losses for U.S. national security, into criminal financial benefits for corrupt officials, and into intelligence "scoops" for the secret services of adversaries. "It’s far worse than Watergate"--commented former U.S. Attorney General and Inslaw counsel Elliot Richardson.