The PROMIS Software Scandal

In 1974, Bill Hamilton, a former analyst at the National Security Agency, founded a company called Inslaw. Hamilton had developed sophisticated database and case management software during his time at the NSA. Inslaw commercialized that work and developed a product called PROMIS, the Prosecutor's Management Information System. PROMIS was designed to track criminal cases through the court system, allowing prosecutors to manage large caseloads efficiently across multiple jurisdictions. It was sophisticated software for its era and it worked.

In 1982, the Department of Justice signed a contract with Inslaw to install PROMIS in US Attorney's offices across the country. The contract was specific about licensing terms and payment schedules. The Justice Department subsequently stopped paying Inslaw, claimed the software had been modified enough to constitute a new product not covered by the original license, and refused to return the software when the contract dispute arose. Inslaw filed for bankruptcy in 1985 under the weight of the unpaid contract. The company sued the Justice Department.

The Inslaw case produced findings that were remarkable in their specificity. A federal bankruptcy court ruled in 1987 that the Justice Department had stolen PROMIS from Inslaw through trickery, fraud, and deceit. A federal district court affirmed that ruling in 1988. Both courts found that the Justice Department had engaged in deliberate misconduct against Inslaw.

The Justice Department appealed. The appeals court overturned the lower court rulings on jurisdictional grounds, finding that the bankruptcy court did not have authority to enter the judgment it had entered, not that the factual findings about misconduct were wrong. The case was effectively ended on procedural grounds rather than on the merits. The factual findings about theft and fraud made by the lower courts were never overturned on the substance. They were rendered legally moot by the jurisdictional ruling.

The House Judiciary Committee conducted its own investigation in 1992 and concluded that there was strong evidence of Justice Department misconduct in the Inslaw case and that the department had impeded efforts to investigate that misconduct. The committee recommended the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate. That recommendation was not acted upon.

The Inslaw story became significantly more complicated through allegations made by multiple intelligence community sources in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those sources claimed that PROMIS had not merely been stolen for domestic use. They claimed that intelligence officials connected to the Justice Department had modified the software to include a hidden surveillance function, a backdoor that would allow whoever installed the modification to monitor the database activity of any system running the compromised version, and that this modified version had been sold to foreign intelligence agencies.

The foreign sales were alleged to include intelligence agencies in Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom, Jordan, Iraq, and other countries. The appeal of such a scheme is straightforward: if you can get a foreign intelligence service to use software that reports its database activity back to you, you have real-time visibility into what that service knows and what it is doing. The PROMIS backdoor allegation, if true, describes one of the most effective intelligence collection operations ever conducted.

The backdoor allegation has not been confirmed in any declassified document. Multiple individuals with claimed intelligence community connections made the allegation in the period from 1988 to 1995. Some of those individuals had credible backgrounds. Others did not. The NSA and CIA have not confirmed or denied the allegation. The modified software, if it exists, has not been publicly identified.

Danny Casolaro was a freelance journalist who spent approximately two years investigating the PROMIS case and its connections to what he described as a broader network of corruption spanning government, intelligence agencies, and organized crime. He called this network the Octopus. He was writing a book about it and had told friends and family that he believed he was close to a major disclosure.

In August 1991, Casolaro traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia, to meet with a source he described as someone who could give him the final piece of evidence he needed. He checked into the Sheraton hotel. On August 10, 1991, he was found dead in his hotel room bathtub. His wrists had been slashed multiple times. The Virginia medical examiner ruled the death a suicide. Casolaro's notes and research materials, which he had brought with him to the meeting, were not in the room when his body was found.

Several elements of the death were unusual. The slashes on Casolaro's wrists were deep and numerous, more consistent with what forensic pathologists associate with homicide staged as suicide than with self-inflicted wounds. The hotel had allowed his room to be cleaned before investigators arrived. His briefcase, which sources said he always carried with his research materials, was empty. His notes have never been recovered.

What is confirmed in the PROMIS case: the Justice Department was found by two federal courts to have stolen PROMIS from Inslaw through deliberate misconduct. The appeals court overturned those findings on jurisdictional grounds without addressing the substance. The House Judiciary Committee found evidence of Justice Department misconduct and obstruction of investigation. A journalist investigating the broader implications of the theft was found dead under circumstances that raised serious questions about the suicide ruling, with his research materials missing.

What is alleged but not confirmed: that PROMIS was modified with a surveillance backdoor and sold to foreign intelligence agencies, that the sales were arranged by officials with connections to US intelligence services, and that the network Casolaro was investigating was sufficiently powerful and dangerous to justify silencing him. These allegations were made by multiple sources with varying degrees of credibility and have not been confirmed in any declassified record.

The confirmed elements are disturbing on their own. The Justice Department stole software from a small company, was found to have done so by federal courts, and used its institutional power to make the legal consequences go away through procedural arguments that did not address the substance of the fraud. The journalist who was investigating the larger implications of that theft died under suspicious circumstances. These facts are in the public record.

The Department of Justice stole case management software from a small company through conduct that two federal courts described as trickery, fraud, and deceit. The courts' findings were rendered moot on procedural grounds without being addressed on substance. Intelligence sources alleged the software was modified with a backdoor and sold to foreign governments. The House Judiciary Committee found evidence of misconduct and recommended an independent counsel who was never appointed. The journalist investigating the story was found dead in a hotel bathtub with his notes missing. The ruling was suicide. The full scope of what was done with PROMIS has not been established in any available public document.