"The INSLAW Affair" Part 1

Transcript

hello thanks for joining us tonight the international spy scandal with an Australian connection and later we'll talk to South Africa's foreign minister Pik borter a man on a mission to improve relations between canra and ptor 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 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 it maybe 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 porns 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 Masashi 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 coverups died mysteriously he claims the United States tried to spy on AIO 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 Promise 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 AO or AO 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 by 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 promised software was canceled in 1982 without any real explanation only some time 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 Ari Ben minashi 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 uh 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 promised 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 you a fair thing to do in the intelligence world oh it is it's always done um using a trojan horse to go inside the agency that gets a little aggressive you know