PROMIS | How The US Government Spied On The World
Transcript
It's a spy scandal that's already rocked the White House. An intrigue that could threaten the presidency of George Bush. This story centers on incredible allegations of spying on a scale never before imagined. It involves America's Central Intelligence Agency selling computer programs to foreign nations. These programs allegedly allowed the CIA to spy on the intelligence agencies that bought it.
And one of the purchases was Australia. In the 1980s, a piece of computer software meant to help attorneys would eventually be involved in one of the biggest scandals in modern history involving the Department of Justice, intelligence agencies, and even foreign governments. To fully explain the intricate web of individuals tied to this case would be a monumental task, which is why we will try to do a broad overview in this video. But first, we need to address the core of this story. What exactly is Promise? The Prosecutor's Management Information System was a groundbreaking case management software developed by William and Nancy Hamilton in the late 1970s.
It was created as a tool to help prosecutors, courts, and law enforcement track information. Its importance lay in the fact that it was one of the first systems to link separate data sources into a unified searchable platform, making it possible to detect patterns in a system. This capability was revolutionary. Beyond its official use, Promise became infamous because of allegations that modified versions were distributed worldwide with hidden surveillance back doors, turning what began as a tool for prosecutors into a symbol of government overreach, intelligence gathering, and global espionage. In 1972, William and Nancy Hamilton founded the Institute for Law and Social Research as a nonprofit organization.
The institute focused on the development of computer software case management programs for the automation of law enforcement offices. Working under federal grants and contracts, the institute developed a software program known as the prosecutor's management information system. In 1979, the Department of Justice launched a three-year pilot program with Hamilton's company. The promised software would be installed in four US attorneys offices in St. Louis, Missouri.
This version was open- source due to its federal funding and could be installed on word processor machines as well as many computers. The pilot program was a moderate success. The LEA, the federal funding source of the software, began to shut down in early 1981. William Hamilton decided to start a new company called Insaw in January of that year. Shortly after this, Insaw begins development of an enhanced vax version of Promise.
Vax computers were 32-bit super mini computers with virtual memory and advanced multitasking, while the earlier Prime computers that first ran Promise were relatively primitive systems with more limited memory and processing power. In November 1981, the Department of Justice proposed a new contract within law. They would install the original version of Promise in 94 attorney's offices nationwide. In the contract, the Department of Justice stated that it would have unlimited control over the delivered version of the software. Hamilton responded, stating Enslaw would be making an enhanced version of the software with private funding and wanted assurances that he would be able to sell the enhanced version to the public.
Several months of negotiations take place to iron out the new contract. In March 1982, negotiations concluded and the Department of Justice signed a three-year, $10 million contract with Enslaw. At the time, most US attorneys offices were equipped with the more advanced vax computers. Yet, Insaw delivered the older Prime version of Promise, the version originally developed with federal funding. Insaw maintained that if the government wanted access to its enhanced vax version, which had been previously privately funded, they would need to pay a licensing fee.
This quickly became a point of contention. The DOJ insisted it was entitled to any iteration of Promise provided under the contract, including the enhanced version, and challenged Insaw's claim that the upgrade had been funded independently. On top of that, the Department of Justice accused Enslaw of overcharging for services and failing to deliver on its contractual obligations. One year after the contract was signed, a modification was made in April of 1983. This change was known as modification number 12.
On the surface, it was meant to align the contract with the reality that US attorneys offices were running on vax computers, not the old prime machines for which the original promise system had been built. But buried in the language was a far more consequential shift. The DOJ now required Inslaw to deliver the enhanced vax version of Promise, the very upgrade Inslaw had developed with its own funds and considered proprietary. Insaw considered this modification a betrayal of the original agreement. They believed the DOJ was using the modification to seize their privately funded software without paying licensing fees.
The Justice Department, on the other hand, insisted it was entitled to any version of Promise delivered under the contract, enhanced or not. The outcome was explosive. Payments were withheld and accusations of fraud and overcharging began to fly. In 1985, Insaw was driven into bankruptcy. The dispute with the Department of Justice exploded into a full-blown scandal.
The company argued that the DOJ had deliberately withheld payments and manipulated the contract to force them into financial collapse. Also, the government could seize control of the enhanced vax version of Promise without paying licensing fees. Bankruptcy judge George Basin initially sided with Inslaw, ruling that the DOJ had acted quote willfully and fraudulently, but the department appealed and succeeded in overturning his decision. From there, the controversy widened. Allegations surfaced that Promise had been secretly distributed to intelligence agencies and foreign governments, possibly for profit or espionage purposes, and that senior DOJ officials had protected allies connected to the software spread.
Congressional investigations in the early 1990s concluded that the DOJ had indeed misappropriated Promise, though later internal reviews denied wrongdoing. What began as a contract dispute over licensing software thus spiraled into one of the most notorious technology scandals of the era, blending bankruptcy law, government misconduct, and shadowy claims of international intrigue. The deceptive transfer of the promise software was not only facilitated by members of the government, but private actors as well. One of these was a man named Earl Brian. Earl Bryan, a Duke University graduate and Vietnam War veteran, entered politics in 1970 when Governor Ronald Reagan appointed him Secretary of Health and Welfare Services.
Brian was part of Reagan's inner circle during his years in Sacramento. In 1974, Brian left state government to pursue a US Senate seat against Alan Cranston, but his campaign ended in the primaries. With politics behind him, Brian turned to business, using a $50,000 inheritance from his father to launch his career. He became president of the high-tech firm Zonix, which in 1977 was accused by the SEC of stock fraud and price manipulation. Though Brian departed the company later that year, he was never charged with wrongdoing.
By 1979, Brian invested into Hadron Inc., a company formed by former Zonx executives. A year later, he founded Biotech Capital Corp., a venture capital firm that funneled large investments into Hadron and gave him majority control. About 2 weeks after the 1983 contract change with Insaw, Bill Hamilton receives a call from the chairman of Hadron, a man named Dominic Ley. Ley expresses his desire to buy out Inslaw in order to obtain the promise software. Hamilton refuses.
Allegedly, Ley informs Hamilton that he quote has ways of making him sell. In 1981, Brian's influence reached Washington when he was appointed chairman of a White House task force on healthc care cost reduction. By then, he controlled a web of companies and shell corporations, firmly entrenching himself in the overlapping worlds of finance, technology, and communications. One of Brian's key contacts in the administration was Edwin Me, whom he had known for years from his time working in state government. Between 1967 and 1969, Edwin Meis served as Secretary of Legal Affairs to California Governor Ronald Reagan.
The following year, he rose to executive assistant, and by 1970, he had become Reagan's chief of staff. After Reagan left office, Me shifted into business and academia, taking on the role of director at the Center for Criminal Justice and later teaching law at the University of California, San Diego in 1977. When Reagan entered the White House in 1981, he brought me with him as counselor to the president, a position that made me mis one of the most influential advisers on domestic policy. By 1984, Reagan nominated him to serve as US Attorney General. From that point forward, Misa's career was marked not only by high office, but also by controversy, as he became entangled in several scandals, most notably the Iran Contra affair and the Wed Tech defense contracting case.
Mis and Brian would not be alone in their scheme to steal and distribute the software. This story involves foreign businessmen and overseas intelligence. Rafi A Tan, a veteran Israeli intelligence officer known for capturing Nazi fugitive Adolf Ikeman in 1960 and later working with Jonathan Pard, became a key foreign recipient of Promise. He claims to have encountered Earl Brian in the 1970s when Brian was on a business trip to the Middle East. In early 1983, A10 using the alias Joseph Ben Our visited Eninsslaw's headquarters and witnessed a demonstration of the enhanced promise software.
Years later, his photograph was included in a police style lineup where witnesses confirmed he was indeed the man who had tooured the offices. Now, Rafi Etan is not the only member of Israeli intelligence connected to promise. Ari Ben Manasha, a former Israeli intelligence officer, later became a controversial figure in the unfolding promise scandal when he claimed that he had personally witnessed Earl Brian present the software to Israeli officials in Tel Aviv in 1987. According to Ben Manasha, Brian boasted that he had acquired the rights to promise and that by then the CIA, NSA, and DIA were already using it. Ben Manasha alleged that Brian finalized a sale of the program to Israel, marking the beginning of its spread abroad.
At the same time, Ben Manasha claimed a powerful British publisher with reputed ties to Israeli intelligence as another key player in this affair. Robert Maxwell, British publishing tycoon and owner of the Mirror Group, was long suspected of acting as a conduit for Israeli intelligence. Investigative accounts describe how Rafi Tan received promise on behalf of MSAD and oversaw its integration into Israel's intelligence systems. Maxwell with his global business empire and extensive political connections became the perfect frontman to market promise internationally. Together and Maxwell allegedly facilitated the sale of promise to foreign governments in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
These versions were said to contain hidden access points, enabling Israel and its allies to monitor sensitive databases abroad. Maxwell's publishing empire provided the cover and channels for the distribution while Etan ensured the software was weaponized for espionage. This partnership exemplified the covert alliances of the era. a media mogul leveraging his global reach and a MSAD spy master exploiting stolen technology to expand Israel's intelligence footprint. In the end, the promised scandal revealed itself not as a contained theft of software, but as the opening chapter of a global surveillance saga.
By the late 1980s, investigators discovered promise embedded in institutions far beyond its original scope. [music] It was discovered to be installed in Canadian police departments and the World Bank, where it managed financial data while allegedly feeding intelligence agencies hidden access. Its proliferation into police forces, banks, and governments worldwide showed how a single program could be weaponized into a Trojan horse for espionage. promise became entangled in other scandals from Iran Contra arms pipelines to the shadowy dealings of figures like Robert Maxwell and Rafa Tan and its legacy foreshadowed the digital age we live in now where software is both a tool of progress and a potential instrument of control. The promise affair stands as a warning.
In the future, the greatest scandals may not be about stolen money or weapons, but about stolen code quietly reshaping power on a global scale.