Inslaw

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Infobox Company

Inslaw Inc. is a small Washington-based information technology company.

In mid-1970s, it developed Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS) for the United States Department of Justice. The principal owners, William A. Hamilton and his wife Nancy, later alleged that the DOJ modified its contract with their company to obtain an enhanced version of PROMIS, but refused to pay for it once delivered. This allegation of Copyright infringement of software|software piracy led to three trials in different United States federal courts|federal courts, and to United States Congress|congressional hearings.

Contents

Origins

Department of Justice

Inslaw, once called the Institute for Law and Social Research, was a nonprofit business created by William A. Hamilton in mid-1970s. Inslaw's original software product PROMIS was a database designed to handle papers and documents generated by law enforcement agencies and courts.[1] It was funded almost entirely by government funds; and therefore was completely within the public domain. The Government had licenses to use this early version, but not to modify it or to distribute it outside the federal government. On the other hand, Inslaw as the developer (or author) of PROMIS owned the rights to subsequent versions. In 1981 after President Jimmy Carter terminated the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, the company became known as Inslaw Inc., a for-profit corporation created to commercially market their software product(s).

The newly created corporation made several significant improvements to the original software. The resulting product came to be known as Inslaw's Enhanced PROMIS.

Enhanced PROMIS contract and allegations of theft

In March 1982 the Department of Justice awarded Inslaw Inc. a $9.6 million, three-year contract to implement a pilot program in twenty-two United States Attorneys' Offices.

While the Old PROMIS could have gone a long way toward correcting the Department's longstanding need for a standardized case-management system, the contract between Inslaw and Justice quickly became embroiled for over two decades in bitter controversy.[2] The conflict centered on the question of whether Inslaw held proprietary ownership of its privately-funded Enhanced PROMIS or if the disputed software was entirely within the public-domain.

In April 1983 the DOJ modified Inslaw's three-year Implementation Contract to obtain delivery of the new Enhanced PROMIS for which the DOJ then waived its need to secure a proper license. Under the modification agreement if the DOJ decided to substitute the Enhanced PROMIS for the Old PROMIS, the DOJ agreed to pay Inslaw Inc. all license fees.

Edwin Meese
Edwin Meese

The following month, the government began to find fault with some of Inslaw's services, and with negotiated billing rates. The government then began to withhold unilaterally each month increasing amounts of payments due Inslaw for implementation services.[3] The Justice Department agent responsible for making payments was a former Inslaw employee, C. Madison Brewer. According to published reports, "Brewer was aided in his new DOJ job by Peter Videnieks.[4] Videnieks was fresh from the Customs Service where he oversaw contracts between that agency and Hadron Inc., a company controlled by [Ed] Meese[5] (Early in his career, Ed Meese worked under Jensen at the Alameda County District Attorney's office. Jensen was later appointed to Meese's Justice Department during the Reagan presidency.) and Reagan-crony Earl Brian. Once a member of California Governor Ronald Reagan's Cabinet, Earl Brian in 1980-90s owned United Press International and Financial News Network. He was later convicted in 1996 on ten of thirteen counts for bank fraud, lying to auditors and conspiring to cover up financial problems at UPI and FNN. He was then sentenced to prison. During the Inslaw Affair, it was alleged that Earl Brian received PROMIS from Peter Videnieks. It was further alleged that Brian then contracted a man named Michael Riconosciuto to install a Trojan horse into the database in order to enhance U.S. intelligence operations around the globe.[6][7] Hadron, a closely held government systems consulting firm, was to figure prominently in the forthcoming scandal."

At the same time that the government withheld payments, the government decided to substitute the Enhanced PROMIS for the Old PROMIS originally specified in the contract, claiming that Inslaw had failed to prove to the government's satisfaction that Inslaw had developed the enhanced version with private, non-government funds and that the enhanced version was not otherwise required to be delivered to the government under the contract. Enhanced PROMIS was eventually installed in a total of ninety-four federal prosecutors' offices following the April 1983 modification agreement.

By February 1985 the government had withheld payment of almost $1.8 million for Inslaw's implementation services, plus millions of dollars in Old PROMIS license fees. Inslaw filed for Chapter 11[8] bankruptcy protection.[9]

Elliot Richardson
Elliot Richardson
In his court cases, William Hamilton was represented by several attorneys, one of whom was lawyer Elliot Richardson, formerly the U.S. Attorney General under President Nixon.

Federal investigations

Two different federal bankruptcy courts made fully litigated findings of fact in the late 1980s ruling that the Justice Department "took, converted, and stole"[10] the PROMIS installed in U.S. Attorneys' Offices "through trickery, fraud, and deceit,"[11] and then attempted "unlawfully and without justification"[12] to force Inslaw out of business so that it would be unable to seek restitution through the courts.

Three months after the initial verdict, George F. Bason, Jr., the federal judge presiding over the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, was denied reappointment to the bench by the Justice Department, ending a fourteen-year tenure.[13] His replacement, S. Martin Teel, had been the attorney who unsuccessfully argued the Inslaw case before Judge Bason on the Justice Department's behalf.[14]

Leigh Ratiner (of Dickstein, Shapiro and Morin, which was the 10th largest firm in Washington at the time) was the lawyer who obtained a favorable ruling for Inslaw Inc.. He was fired in October 1986, reportedly after the Mossad arranged a payment of $600,000 to his former firm, which was used as a separation settlement.[15] In September 1991, the House Judiciary Committee issued the result of a three-year investigation. House Report 102-857: INSLAW: Investigative Report confirmed the Justice Department's theft of PROMIS. The report was issued after the Justice Department convinced the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on a jurisdictional technicality to set aside the decisions of the first two federal bankruptcy courts. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals chose not to address the merits of the lower courts rulings.[16] The House Committee also reported investigative leads indicating that friends of the Reagan White House had been allowed to sell and to distribute Enhanced PROMIS both domestically and overseas for their personal financial gain and in support of the intelligence and foreign policy objectives of the United States.[17][18] The Democractic Majority called upon the Attorney General to compensate Inslaw immediately for the harm that the Government had "egregiously" inflicted on Inslaw. The Republican Minority dissented. The Committee was divided along party lines 21—13. The Government ignored the recommendations.

Inslaw Affair divides into two separate issues

On November 13, 1991, Attorney General William Barr appointed a retired federal judge Nicholas J. Bua as Special Counsel to advise him on the allegations that high-ranking officials had acted improperly for personal gain to bankrupt Inslaw.[19] By June 1993 the Bua Report was released, clearing Justice officials of any impropriety. Inslaw's attorney, Elliot Richardson wrote Inslaw's rebuttal with evidence suggesting Bua's report was riddled with errors and falsehoods.

In May 1995 the U.S. Senate asked the U.S. Court of Federal Claims[20] to determine if the United States owed Inslaw Inc. compensation for the Government's use of PROMIS. On July 31, 1997, writing on behalf of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Judge Christine Miller ruled in favor of the DOJ.[21][22][23]

On the other hand, according to William A. Hamilton, the Government flatly denied during all court proceedings what it later admitted, i.e. that agencies such as the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies used PROMIS to keep track of their classified information.

Later developments

In early 1999 the British journalist and author, Gordon Thomas, published an authorized history of the Israeli Mossad entitled Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad. The book quotes detailed admissions by the former long-time deputy director of the Mossad about the partnership between Israeli and U.S. intelligence in selling to foreign intelligence agencies in excess of $500 million worth of licenses to a Trojan horse version of PROMIS, in order to spy on them.[24]

In 2001 the Washington Times and Fox News each quoted federal law enforcement officials familiar with debriefing former FBI Agent Robert Hanssen as claiming that the convicted spy had stolen copies of a PROMIS-derivative for his Soviet KGB handlers.
Robert Hanssen
Robert Hanssen
They further alleged that the software was used within the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies to track internal intelligence, and was used by intelligence operatives to track international interbank transactions.[25] These reports further stated that Osama bin Laden later bought copies of the same PROMIS-derivative on the Russian black market for $2 million.[26] It was believed then that al Qaeda used the software to penetrate database systems to move funds throughout the banking system, and to evade detection by U.S. law enforcement.[27]

In May 2006 a former aide in the Office of the Vice President of the United States pleaded guilty to passing top-secret classified information to plotters trying to overthrow the president of the Philippines. Leandro Aragoncillo, an FBI intelligence analyst at the time of his arrest, was believed to have operated his deception using archaic database software manipulated by the FBI in order to evade the 1995 U.S. Court of Federal Claims finding with regard to Inslaw's rights to derivative works.[28][29] Additionally,

Quote The 9-11 Commission called attention to the fact that the FBI did not install the current version of its case management software, called the ACS (Automated Case Support) system, until October 1995 and [to the fact that ACS was obsolete from the time the FBI developed it in the mid-1990s because it was based on "1980s technology". Although the 9-11 Commission offered no explanation for why the FBI used obsolete technology to develop its ACS case mnagement software in 1995, the apparent explanation is that the FBI simply renamed its 1980s technology case management software, which was called FOIMS and was based on PROMIS, and translated it in October 1995 into a different computer programming language in order to obstruct a court hearing that the U.S. Senate had ordered earlier that year. The Senate had ordered the court in May 1995 to determine whether the United States owes Inslaw compensation for the government's use of PROMIS, and the court, in turn, ordered outside software experts to compare the FBI's software with PROMIS, but the FBI modified its software and told the court that it no longer retained the unmodified first 11 years (1985 through 1995) of its own case management software.] |William A. Hamilton,"FBI's Incapacitating Cover-Up",

In 2006 there were further allegations of the misuse of PROMIS. Writing in the Canada Free Press, the former Polish CIA operative and now international journalist, David Dastych alleged that "Chinese Military Intelligence (PLA-2) organized their own hackers department, which [exploited] PROMIS [database systems] [in the] Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories to steal U.S. nuclear secrets"[30]; however, the prima facie value of that allegation was lost in a realization that the U.S. Government could not convict the suspected 2001 spy.[31]

The U.S. Government has never paid Inslaw Inc. for any of these unauthorized uses of PROMIS.

"Inslaw deserves to be compensated," wrote nationally syndicated columnist, Michelle Malkin, in The Washington Times.[32] "More importantly, the American people deserve to know the truth: Did government greed and bureaucratic hubris lead to a wholesale sellout of our national security?"[30]

Deaths allegedly related to the Inslaw case

While investigating elements of this story, journalist Danny Casolaro died in what was twice ruled a suicide. Prior to his death, Casolaro had warned friends if they were ever told he had committed suicide not to believe it, and to know he had been murdered.[33] Many have argued that his death was curious, deserving closer scrutiny; some have argued further, believing his death was a murder, committed to hide whatever Casolaro had uncovered. "I believe he was murdered," wrote former Attorney General Elliot Richardson in the New York Times, " but even if that is no more than a possibility, it is a possibility with such sinister implications as to demand a serious effort to discover the truth."[34] Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith discuss this in their book, The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro[35] Writing on behalf of a majority opinion in House Report 102-857, Committee Chairman, Jack Brooks (D-TX) wrote, "As long as the possibility exists that Danny Casolaro died as a result of his investigation into the INSLAW matter, it is imperative that further investigation be conducted."

There were a number of other suspicious deaths connected to the Inslaw case:


  • An unsolved triple homicide involving Fred Alvarez, Ralph Boger, and Patricia Castro June 30, 1981: Alvarez was a Deputy Tribal Chairman of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians.

He had become outspoken regarding corruption and shadowy U.S. government ties to the Cabazon tribe. He expressed these views to the local press before meeting his death. He and his friend, Ralph Boger, were scheduled to meet with an unknown party to present proof of many of the alleged misuses of tribal land. Their bodies, along with the body of Alvarez's housemate, Patricia Castro, were discovered the morning of this meeting. Allegedly, they had information regarding illegal arms deals, weapons manufacturing and testing, and illegal modifications made to the PROMIS software, all taking place on tribal land. The daughter of Ralph Boger continues a quest for justice and has documents on her website[36] relating to the Cabazon Indian Tribe's involvement in arms manufacture and export. There, she explains the bizarre circumstances surrounding her father's murder: The police never notified her family of the murders; the family learned from watching the local news; moreover, authorities refused to show the family Boger's body, and allegedly had him cremated without consent; lastly, the house in which the murders occurred was bulldozed within two days, and mysterious "guys in black suits" were said to have appeared at the funeral.[37]

  • The shooting death of Anson Ng (a reporter and friend of Casolaro): According to a 1991 issue of the TC Technical Consultant, "In July, Anson Ng, a reporter for the Financial Times of London was shot dead in Guatemala. He had reportedly been trying to interview an American there named Jimmy Hughes, a one- time director of security for the Cabazon Indian Reservation secret projects."[38]

Alvarez's son and Boger's daughter were able to confront Hughes in Feb. 2008 with a hidden camera. Videos of this confrontation can be seen at the daughter's website.[39]

  • The shooting death of Dennis Eisman (an attorney for Michael Riconosciuto, who was a material witness in the House Investigation 102-857): According to the same TC Technical Consultant article [40], "In April, a Philadelphia attorney named Dennis Eisman was found dead, killed by a single bullet in his chest. According to a former federal official who worked with Eisman, the attorney was found dead in the parking lot where he had been due to meet with a woman who had crucial evidence to share substantiating Riconosciuto's claims [regarding Inslaw]."
  • The poisoning death of Ian Spiro, who was supposedly a Casolaro informant and was allegedly involved in the Inslaw affair: Spiro's wife and children had been killed a few days before Spiro's body was found. In 1995, Kevin Brass reported in San Diego magazine that Spiro's brother-in-law Greg Quarton suspected the Mossad was involved in Spiro's death, while "Ex-hostage Peter Jacobsen confirmed to the media that Spiro was indeed involved in the release of hostages in the Middle East," referring to the October Surprise scandal. Brass further notes that "According to court documents filed shortly after the murders, Spiro was holding computer equipment essential . . . to prove a Justice Department conspiracy to steal sophisticated computer software."[41]
  • The mysterious death of Bill McCoy, a retired Chief Warrant Officer from the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division: McCoy had been involved in the Casolaro investigation of the PROMIS software saga. He died at home in 1997, and his body was cremated within 48 hours, despite his saying several times over the previous years that he wanted to be buried next to his wife. In less than four days all of McCoy's furniture, records and personal belongings were removed from his home by his son, a full Colonel in the Army. The house was sanitized and repainted and, "aside from the Zen garden in the back yard, there was no trace that McCoy had ever lived there."[42]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html
  2. ↑ http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/INSLAW/inslaw_hr.report
  3. ↑ http://oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/stories/2945207/
  4. ↑ Peter Videnieks was the Contract Officer who oversaw the PROMIS contract for the Department of Justice Management Division.
  5. ↑ "At the time of its inception, PROMIS was the most powerful program of its type. But a similar program, DALITE, was developed under another LEAA grant by D. Lowell Jensen, the Alameda County (Calif.) District Attorney. In the mid-1970s, the two programs vied for a lucrative Los Angeles County contract and Inslaw won out.
  6. ↑ http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives/
  7. ↑ http://web.textfiles.com/politics/og102196.txt
  8. ↑ Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code
  9. ↑ http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives
  10. ↑ INSLAW Inc. v. United States, Ch 11. Case No. 85 00070, Adv. No. 86-00069, transcript of oral decision, p.9 (Bankruptcy. District of Columbia. September 28, 1987). ["took, converted and stole"]
  11. ↑ INSLAW Inc, v. United States, 83 B.R., 89 (Bankruptcy. District of Columbia. 1988), p.158. ["trickery, fraud and deceit."]
  12. ↑ INSLAW Inc. v. United States, opinion of U.S. District Court Judge William Bryant, at p. 52A. ["acted willfully and fraudulently"]
  13. ↑ Out of 136 federal judges due for reappointment, Mr. Bason became one of four not reappointed.
  14. ↑ http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=50855240&page_url=%2f%2fwww.washington-weekly.com%2fBua.rebuttal&page_last_updated=7%2f24%2f2001+4%3a09%3a58+PM&firstName=Earl&lastName=Brian
  15. ↑ The INSLAW Octopus, Wired magazine. 1993. See subsection "Who Fired Inslaw's Lawyer?" p. 8
  16. ↑ http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/8476758.html?dids=8476758&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS&fmac=&date=May+8%2C+1991&author=Potts%2C+Mark&desc=Justice+Department+Wins+Appeal+in+Inslaw+Case
  17. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DD163DF932A15753C1A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
  18. ↑ http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/conspiracies/inslaw.htm
  19. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6DF163CF934A35751C1A967958260
  20. ↑ The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has exclusive jurisdiction over copyright infringement claims against the U. S. Government.
  21. ↑ http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1997/August97/323civ.htm
  22. ↑ http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/1997/09/22/focus3.html
  23. ↑ http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/INSLAW.pdf
  24. ↑ book |title=Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad |last=Thomas |first=Gordon |authorlink=Gordon Thomas |coauthors= |year=1999 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=0-312-25284-6
  25. ↑ http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives | title =Software likely in hands of terrorist, FBI's Hanssen seen as provider | date =2001-06-14 | publisher =The Washington Times |($fee)
  26. ↑ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html
  27. ↑ http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200110/msg00237.html
  28. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/washington/05spy.html
  29. ↑ http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/dastych013106.htm
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1
  31. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05EEDE113EF936A35751C0A9679C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/E/Energy%20Department
  32. ↑ Washington Times Web Archive (Registration Required)
  33. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE2D8153AF934A2575BC0A967958260&scp=1&sq=%22Dr.%20Anthony%20Casolaro%22&st=cse
  34. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DD163DF932A15753C1A967958260&sec=&spon=&&scp=3&sq=Casolaro%20Richardson%20murdered&st=cse
  35. ↑ The Octopus was the name that Casolaro had intended to title his book.
  36. ↑ http://desertfae.com/
  37. ↑ http://desertfae.com/
  38. ↑ http://nwo.media.xs2.net/articles/promis.html
  39. ↑ http://desertfae.com/
  40. ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=45EuUKxePOoC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=The+shooting+death+of+Dennis+Eisman&source=web&ots=n8bRk0lMr_&sig=tcCwXFMa_8EAfOKDEnWFrCveHxM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
  41. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgk-rp_MRA
  42. ↑ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html

Notes

Further reading

  • The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro by Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith (Feral House, US, 2005, paperback ISBN 0-922915-91-1)
  • The Attorney General's refusal to provide congressional access to "privileged" INSLAW documents : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, second session, December 5, 1990. Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, U.S. G.P.O, 1990. Superintendent of Documents Number Y 4.J 89/1:101/114
  • PROMIS : briefing series. Washington, D.C. : Institute for Law and Social Research, 1974-1977. "[A] series of 21 Briefing Papers for PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System), this publication was prepared by the Institute for Law and Social Research (INSLAW), Washington, D.C., under a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), which has designated PROMIS as an Exemplary Project." OCLC Number 5882076

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