BEER -- chapters 10 and 23 (possible spoilers) -- PROMIS 1.2

[Thomas Eckhardt]

*PROMIS and 9/11*

Nicholas Windust continues: "'The Russian mob have been selling it to 
the rugriders, (...)'"
(BE 104)

The "rugriders" means Al Qaeda:

-- An October 16 [2001] FOX News report by correspondent Carl Cameron 
indicating that convicted spy, former FBI Agent Robert Hanssen,
had provided a highly secret computer software program called Promis to 
Russian organized crime figures - who in turn
reportedly sold it to Osama bin Laden - may signal a potential 
intelligence disaster for the United States. Admissions
by the FBI and Justice in the FOX story that they have discontinued use 
of the software are most certainly a legal disaster
for a government that has been engaged in a 16-year battle with the 
software's creator, William Hamilton, CEO of the Inslaw
Corporation. Over those 16 years, in response to lawsuits filed by 
Hamilton charging that the government had stolen the software
from Inslaw, the FBI, the CIA and the Department of Justice have denied, 
in court and under oath, ever using the software.
Bin Laden's reported possession of Promis software was clearly reported 
in a June 15, 2001 story by Washington Times reporter
Jerry Seper. That story went unnoticed by the major media. In it Seper 
wrote, "The software delivered to the Russian handlers
and later sent to bin Laden, according to sources, is believed to be an 
upgraded version of a program known as Promis - developed
in the 1980s by a Washington firm, Inslaw, Inc., to give attorneys the 
ability to keep tabs on their caseloads. It would give bin Laden
the ability to monitor U.S. efforts to track him down, federal 
law-enforcement officials say. It also gives him access to databases on
specific targets of his choosing and the ability to monitor 
electronic-banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations for 
himself
or others, according to sources."--

Michael C. Ruppert, "Bin Laden’s Magic Carpet"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/magic_carpet.html

Additional information comes from Wiki, "Inslaw:"

--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.

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. These reports
further stated that Osama bin Laden reportedly later
bought copies of the same Promis-derivative on the Russian
black market (blat) for $2 million. 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.--


*The Mossad connection*

"'(...) and more to the point, Mossad have been generously traveling
all over the world helping local agencies install it (...)'"(BE 104)

In 1983, Rafael Eitan (whom "Wired" erroneously calls "Etian") visited 
Inslaw under cover for a presentation of PROMIS.
According to "Wired", Eitan was the "chief of the Israeli defense 
force's anti-terrorism intelligence unit." According
to Wikipedia, Eitan was the chief of Lakam or Lekem. Lakam "collected 
scientific and technical intelligence abroad from both open
and covert sources, particularly for Israel's nuclear program. It was 
disbanded in 1986 following the arrest of Jonathan Pollard for
espionage on behalf of Israel." (Wiki) Rafael Eitan was Pollard's handler.

In 1960 Eitan had been in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the 
kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann.

Pollard is mentioned by Windust on p. 105 as an example of Israeli 
espionage against the US, thereby making clear that this is what worries 
him and his superiors:

"'Israel doesn't spy on us? Remember the Pollard case back in 1985?'" 
(BE 105)

--According to Federal court documents, PROMIS was stolen
from Inslaw by the Department of Justice directly after
Etian's [sic!] 1983 visit to Inslaw (a later congressional
investigation preferred to use the word
"misappropriated"). And according to sworn affidavits,
PROMIS was then given or sold at a profit to Israel and as
many as 80 other countries by Dr. Earl W. Brian, a man
with close personal and business ties to then-President
Ronald Reagan and then-Presidential counsel Edwin Meese.--

(Wired, 1993)

The most important source for Israel's use of PROMIS is British author 
Gordon Thomas, the author of "Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the 
Mossad" (1999) His sworn affidavit regarding the interviews he conducted 
with spy master Rafi Eitan for his book and the Channel 4 documentary 
"The Spy Machine" is essential reading for the Mossad's use of PROMIS 
and thus for the historical background of the role PROMIS plays in BE:

http://www.irmep.org/ila/BoydenGrayLetterSwornStatements.pdf

An excerpt of Gordon's book containing the relevant information can be 
accessed here:

http://cryptome.org/promis-mossad.htm

I will come back to Thomas later.

Ruppert summarizes the information that was available in September 2000, 
probably through Thomas' investigations:

--The Promis-managed data could be anything from financial records of 
banking institutions to compilations of various records used to track 
the movement of terrorists. That made the program a natural for Israel 
which, according to Hamilton and many other sources, was one of the 
first countries to acquire the bootlegged software from Meese and 
Company. As voluminously described by Inslaw attorney, the late Elliot 
Richardson, the Israeli Mossad under the direction of Rafi Eitan, 
allegedly modified the software yet again and sold it throughout the 
Middle East. It was Eitan, the legendary Mossad captor of Adolph
Eichmann, according to Hamilton, who had masqueraded as an Israeli 
prosecutor to enter Inslaw's DC offices years earlier and obtain a first 
hand demonstration of what the Promis could do.

Not too many Arab nations would trust a friendly Mossad agent selling 
computer programs. So the Mossad provided their modified Promis to 
flamboyant British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, a WWII Jewish 
resistance fighter who had assumed the Anglo name and British 
citizenship after the war. It was Maxwell, capable of travelling the 
world and with enormous marketing resources, who became the sales agent 
for Promis and then sold it to, among others, the Canadian government.--

(Michael C. Ruppert, "Promis")

Thomas
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l