Inslaw Promis Software

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 we've been able to track down two key witnesses to those dealings witnesses who are now in fear of their lives michael holmes reports [Music] it may be the most bizarre spy story ever a story of corruption and betrayal at the highest levels of the american government a story of hostages used as pawns of the cia spying on its friends of murders made to look like suicides i think it's about time to get the whole story out his name is ari ben manashi he's a former israeli intelligence agent once it's out there's no reason to hurt me physically anymore and today he is hiding in australia in fear he says of his life so many people in the last 10 years who were working for the various governments on these issues due to cover-ups died mysteriously he claims the united states tried to spy on asia the australian security intelligence organization by selling it a computer program that contained a hidden keyhole a lock for which the cia had a master key the computer software is called promis it's designed to track millions of pieces of information on tens of thousands of people and it's alleged to have been installed in dozens of government departments and security agencies around the world it's also alleged that american intelligence made some small modifications to the program modifications that enabled it to key in a special access code and gain entry to all the information on the computer would be equivalent to going into asio or asio and reading the handwritten files of all the agents except the computer has them neatly organized and typed and instantly indexed so it's much more convenient bill hamilton owns inslaw the company that developed promise and offered it to the american government they would not have bothered to sell it to all these countries without first preparing it in such a way that it would be an easier avenue of penetration into the files of these foreign governments the whole story might never have emerged but for the fact that the american government didn't own promise it pirated the software from bill hamilton's company we were dumbfounded couldn't conceive of it hamilton's contract with the us department of justice to supply the promise software was cancelled in 1982 without any real explanation [Music] only sometime later did hamilton hear that his software was turning up all over the world i don't know how much australia paid i've been told that israel paid 5.5 million confirms that promise was sold to israel but claims the israelis unlike the australians were in on the secret the whole idea was that we would study it the americans then would sell it to our neighbors and then we could by using telephone lines get into their our neighbors computers but then our american friends just took it a step further they sold it to their allies as well including australia the list of countries which allegedly bought the promise software reads like a who's who of america's friends as well as its most bitter enemies is spying on your friends uh considered a fair thing to do in the intelligence world no it is it's always done um using a trojan horse to go inside the agency that gets a little aggressive it all sounds a bit too bizarre to be true but we've now been able to track down a key witness to a prison near seattle in washington state so you are 100 sure that promise or a derivative of promise was bought by australia to be used in our intelligence and law enforcement absolutely uh because i i spent uh several thousand man hours of programming time with a programming team uh you know developing that subset this unlikely looking character is a computer genius his name is michael reconocituto and he says he was in charge of modifying the promise program so that it could be accessed by american intelligence so whoever was holding that master key could do what basically uh break into it and spy azio says it doesn't have and has never had the promised software of course it won't go into any detail about what sort of computer programs it does have which is very handy because according to michael reconnecto the promise software was often altered and given different names before it was sold indeed reconnaissance claims he specifically modified the program for australia at the request of asio i basically had to change the communications protocol which is how that software package interacts with other software packages already resident in the computer system in a federal court hearing judge george bason ruled the justice department had used illegal and underhanded methods to bankrupt bill hamilton's in-slaw company he ordered the government to pay in slaw eight million dollars trickery fraud and deceit you use those words when describing how the justice department stole the software do you stand by those words yes i there's no question in my mind about it the evidence was overwhelming so why was the justice department so desperate to get the software from bill hamilton to answer that you have to go back to 1980. [Music] iran had seized american hostages all evidence proves that these people are spies if president carter could secure their release he'd have a big advantage in the upcoming u.s elections my thoughts and my prayers for our hostages in iran are as though they were my own sons and daughters it's now alleged that the reagan campaign made a deal with the iranians a deal to keep the hostages until after the election thus denying carter the credit for their freedom [Music] the man alleged to have helped organize this deal is a reagan political crony called earl brian and his payoff three years later on the promise software [Music] about an hour and a half outside washington dc you'll find this place earl bryan's multi-million dollar country estate if you believe michael reconnaischuto it's the house promise bought now we'd like to bring you earl bryan personally denying that claim that he's not being interviewed by anybody all we got was this letter from his lawyers threatening action if we so much as associated o'brien's name with this story he had the contacts to help make sure that certain elements in iran would not make a deal with president carter in 1980 so that president carter could not recover in the polls and that reagan would win the election hi ronald reagan do solemnly swear just five minutes after ronald reagan took the oath of office iran announced that the hostages would be released some 30 minutes ago the planes burying our prisoners left iranian airspace and are now free and the story doesn't end there in a moment the murders that have been linked to the spy scandal [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there are many shady characters in this story spies former spies people with something to hide but there are players with impeccable credentials too in part two of this investigation we meet a man whose background more than qualifies him to know a scandal when he smells one what is being said about this conspiracy points to criminal conduct much worse than anything in watergate and eliot richardson should know seventeen years ago he resigned as u.s attorney general on a matter of principle after clashing with richard nixon during the watergate scandal today richardson is legal counsel for inslaw and once again he has the white house in his sights it might be reluctant to have it emerged that the u.s government had through clandestine means planted software on foreign intelligence agencies so that the u.s would be better able as the phrase goes to read their mail the number of murders that have occurred to prevent leaks are incredible there's nearly 50 murders that can be directly ascribed to this pattern of activity the promise affair and the allegation that ronald reagan and george bush made a deal for the hostages to be kept until after the 1980 election were being investigated by journalist and author danny casalero he said he had it he had some already and he was going to west virginia to meet the source who had given him that evidence this source was now he said going to supply additional conclusive proof but danny casalero never got to reveal either his source or the hard evidence he said was going to break the scandal wide open on august the 10th his body was found in this hotel room in west virginia his wrists had been slashed and incredible 12 times danny casolaro's body was found naked in a pool of bloody water in the bathtub all his papers were gone within hours local police had declared the death a suicide you have a case of forensic artistry you know shall we say where you have professionally trained people that set up a crime scene and they make it phenomenally difficult for investigators to uh to backtrack make a murder look like a suicide his body was embalmed by monday morning by the time we found out that is against the law in west virginia his body was embalmed without family consent that certainly makes an autopsy a little more difficult tony castellaro says his brother danny pictured here at a nephew's birthday just wasn't the suicidal time he was describing for me a few weeks before he died what he was doing and some of the people involved and he said a lot of accidents had happened to people who were working on the things that he had been working on he said you know if an accident happens to me don't believe it [Music] but bad things seem to happen to people who make waves in the insular affair this year michael reconnaischuto contacted bill hamilton and signed a sworn affidavit for hamilton's lawsuit against the justice department do you believe michael reconnichuto did alter the software as he claimed yes i i do almost immediately reconnachuto was contacted by a justice department official and given a very clear message back off where else less than two weeks after that threat michael reconniciuto was arrested on drug charges my main concern right now is staying alive and protecting my family right and remember judge basin who found in favor of ins law against the justice department well a few months later judge bason's reappointment to the bench thought to be a formality was blocked by the justice department yeah his career has been destroyed would you still be a judge if you hadn't handed down the decision you did i think i would be i rendered the quote wrong decision in the case of inn's law versus department of justice your replacement in the bankruptcy court was a lawyer who argued for the justice department in this case yes does that smell is certainly an odd coincidence isn't it every time you figuratively pick up a rock in this case you find maggots under it attorney general elliot richardson who now represents innslaw says there's only one way to find the truth if there was not enough reason before to justify full-scale all-out hard-hitting and partial federal investigation the case for doing that now is overwhelming former attorney general ed meese disagrees the question is whether there's any legal basis for it and i think the people who looked into it including attorney general thornburg have indicated there is no basis for it and i would certainly have more confidence in mr thornberg's judgment as an impartial uh person on the subject than i would mr richardson who's obviously a partisan and represents one of the parties a house subcommittee led by congressman jack brooks has been investigating the ins law case for two years brooks has accused the justice department of stonewalling the committee's investigation by refusing for two years to release more than 400 documents relating to ins law faced with a subpoena attorney general dick thornberg finally produced some documents this summer but told committee investigators some were either lost or stolen even president bush is being questioned about inslav they're fairly soon i know his views on that he doesn't have to explain i know what was the last thing the justice department says it has been able to reconstruct 90 of the missing documents but a source close to the brooks committee says there's no way to tell how many documents are missing or how important they are to solving the mysterious insloc case