From: jad@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (John DiNardo)
Subject: Part I, The Casolaro Murder --> The Feds' Theft of Inslaw Software
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: North America
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 16:19:58 GMT
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
Keywords: The cancer that is eating away at our democracy.


     The following transcript was made from a broadcast on
      September 20, 1991 by Pacifica Radio Network affiliate
          WBAI-FM Radio (99.5)
          505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl.
          New York, NY 10018        (212) 279-0707

     WBAI can afford to reveal this scandal because WBAI is 
     not under the dictatorship of big business owners and 
     sponsors who forbid these revelations in the mass media. 
     WBAI is financed with donations from listeners like me 
     who realize that you get what you pay for. For instance,
     General Electric, the owner of NBC, gets what it pays
     for in terms of public delusion.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

[Bill Hamilton is the chief executive officer of the Inslaw Corporation 
(a software company) and the developer of its PROMIS software package.]
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
BILL HAMILTON:
Danny [Casolaro] was found dead in West Virginia. He had conversations
with three confidants -- three separate conversations which I found
out about later. And he told each of these three confidants the
same thing; that he had just then returned from West Virginia where
he had met with a source and that he now knew everything that had
happened to the PROMIS software and to Inslaw, but that he had to
go back for one final meeting to pick up the last piece of evidence. 
And he was quite euphoric about his breakthrough. And he said to
each of these people that Bill and Nancy Hamilton (My wife is named
Nancy -- works here with me.) were going to be quite excited. 

One of the confidants said: "I've had fifty telephone hours 
talking to Danny." (This is someone who lives on the West Coast.)
"During the past year I've spent about fifty hours speaking to him
on the phone. Normally, he plays chess with me. Monday night, he
was like the cat who had swallowed the canary. He knew he had 
broken this thing! 

So, if he was murdered -- and I believe he clearly was -- he was 
murdered because he had found out too much. The other thing I 
should mention to you is that, in the final three or four weeks 
of his life, several different people with backgrounds in U.S. 
covert intelligence operations, who I talk to on a regular basis, 
and who Danny also talked to on a regular basis, directly told me
that they had told Danny that his life was in jeopardy because he
was having such success in breaking this corruption open. And they
told me that some specific inquiries that Danny was making could 
get him killed. And the West Virginia authorities have never shown
any interest in finding that kind of thing out from people like me
and others who knew professionally what Danny was doing. 

So, to rule a suicide without examining this kind of information,

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Can you give me some idea of those very specific things that
Danny Casolaro was inquiring about?

BILL HAMILTON:
Danny was planning to go to a particular facility in the Washington,
D.C. area, owned by the United States Government, a facility with
connections to one or more of the people who run "the Octopus".
I think you can assume it's a covert intelligence facility, from
the way that it's presented. And just going to this facility, I
was warned, could get him killed. The other thing that he was doing 
was making inquiries, over the telephone, to the Syndicate in
Los Angeles. And those inquiries had rattled the cages of some
people out there. And there was some concern that they might
respond to the rattling by killing Danny. The claim that I have
heard from some sources is that someone with mob responsibilities
(I guess you'd call it) -- some person in the mob -- is a member
of the leadership of "the Octopus." And it's someone from the 
Los Angeles mob. And Danny was onto it. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Are you familiar with any of the research that was done by the
Christic Institute in Washington, D.C. concerning the Iran-Contra
scandal?

BILL HAMILTON:
Yes. I have read it.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
To your knowledge, are there any parallels there? Are some of
those same people involved, to your knowledge?

BILL HAMILTON:
Yes. Danny's belief about who was running "the Octopus" -- about 
seven or eight people -- some of them are people who the Christic
Institute identified: Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines ....
Danny also had people like George Pender, John P. Nichols, 
E. Howard Hunt [JD: Hunt was one of the people named in Nixon's 
burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate 
office building.], the former Director of the CIA Richard Helms,
Ray Cline. Those are the people that Danny had identified as the 
people running "the Octopus."

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Anything you'd like to add to this?

BILL HAMILTON:
I think it's important that reporters try to get to the bottom 
of this because Danny was investigating corruption in the U.S.
Department of Justice itself. It makes problematical any
possibility that there could be a Federal investigation, unless
there's an independent counsel appointed. So, the press and the
Congress are really the only hopes that we have to try to prove
whether Danny was murdered or not.
                        (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

PAUL DeRIENZO:
I know that you won your suit and that there were some appeals by
the government. Has that been completed yet -- the legal proceedings?

BILL HAMILTON:
No. The government appealed from the bankruptcy court to the U.S.
District Court. The U.S. District Court, in November, 1989, 
affirmed the bankruptcy court saying that the evidence was
sufficient to support the findings (quote) "under any standard of
review." (closed quotes). Then the Justice Department appealed 
again to the United States Court of Appeals this time. And a three-
judge panel in May said, on a narrow jurisdictional ruling, that
we won the case in the wrong federal court. We should have tried
it in a different federal court. We are currently seeking 
certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court because we think that the
U.S. Court of Apppeals jurisdictional ruling was in error. But
when the U.S. Court of Appeals made its jurisdictional ruling,
it left undisturbed the findings of the bankruptcy court that
had already been upheld by the district court: that the Justice
Department stole six million dollars worth of our software through
"trickery, fraud and deceit", and then tried covertly to drive
Inslaw out of business. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Have you received any settlement on that?

BILL HAMILTON:
I've never received a penny! And the forty-two largest United
States Attorneys' offices are still running their caseloads with
software that two federal courts said was deliberately stolen 
by the U.S. Department of Justice headquarters in Washington.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
And that was Bill Hamilton, the chair of Inslaw, a software
United States Government since the early 1980's and whose case
led to another window into the workings of the secret team, 
"the Octopus", and the death of Danny Casolaro.

ROBERT KNIGHT:
This is UNDERCURRENTS. You've just heard Bill Hamilton, a man at 
the center of a pattern of deception, corruption and implications 
that are so tremendous that it's difficult to even encompass them all.

This is WBAI, New York. before continuing, it is essential that 
you call this radio station. Because now, as Bill Hamilton says,  
the issue has been joined. What can you expect from the Federal
Government if, indeed, it is involved in such a wide-ranging
conspiracy? 

Well, we know that what we're going to do is continue to pursue
this and bring you the kind of information you've been listening 
to for a solid half-hour this morning here on UNDERCURRENTS.
(212)279-3400 is the number to call. If you want to have an 
independent reportorial investigative arm, support us now and let
us know that this is important to you. 

Let me just try and delineate some of the implications of this.
A reporter gets close to the story. A reporter ends up dead.
A reporter looks into something that is so big that it involves
a global conspiracy. 

Let's just take one little aspect of that: the case-tracking
abilities of this software. You remember, during this interview
that Paul DeRienzo produced, that Bill Hamilton said that copies
of that software ended up in places like Israel, Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, and around the world. In countries ....

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Iraq, as well, in 1987. As a matter of fact, Richard Secord,
according to an Iranian arms dealer who is now in jail, made the
sales pitch. 

ROBERT KNIGHT:
Let's recall who Richard Secord is. The former commander of the
air wing in Vietnam. In it's program, Dang Pao (?), the ambiance
out of which was shipped a crippling incapacitation of heroine
into the United States. He ends up involved with Southern Air
during the Iran-Contra period, and those airplanes are used for
shipping arms out of this country, and are used, according to
various reports that you've heard here and elsewhere, for 
shipping cocaine into the United States.
                       (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
ROBERT KNIGHT:
Well, there is another kind of product that is just as powerful
and just as deadly to the indigenous community. One application --
just very broadly speaking as a former systems analyst myself --
is that tracking software can easily be modified, in terms of the
attributes of description, so that instead of federal cases in 
the United States, it can be used to track the activities and to
keep a centralized log of the repression of individuals -- of 
citizens within a country. Think about Saudi Arabia; a slave state
that did not officially change its laws regarding slavery; the
indentured servitude of migrant workers who come into that country
and become, effectively, the property of the ownership class, and
cannot leave without an exit visa. They belong to somebody else.

Imagine the applications of software like this! Imagine what 
happens to people who don't get their hands stamped at elections
in El Salvador, because not to vote for the pre-selected rightwing
candidates during the mid-1980's was considered by that U.S.-backed
military government as tantamount to treason.

Area code (212) 279-3400.

We're talking about subtle material here, but that which can have
an utterly profound effect on the state of human rights around  
the world. Something that illegally and mysteriously and -- 
through the operations of the National Security Council members, 
Robert McFarlane, the "secret team", Richard Secord, and Ed Messe,  
Ronald Reagan and cronies -- something that starts turning up 
around U.S.-linked repressive governments around the world. And
Iraq is included among them. 

279-3400, area code (212)... If we are revealing to you new 
dimensions of the operations of your government ... This is not
a federal investigation. This is an UNDERCURRENTS investigation.
This is a WBAI investigation. And we're obviously operating at 
the threshold of danger. I say that, not to aggrandize the efforts
of the death of Danny Casolaro, implying the importance that people
NOT know that this is going on. 

279-3400 ... If you want to defy, you can defy with your money.
You can defy with your tax-deductible donations to WBAI, and let
us know that we need to do this. Let us know that YOU need to 
know this. We are trying to move the consciousness of this city,
this country, and this world beyond the spy syndrome where only
Robert Gates has a need to know. We're saying that YOU have a
need to know.

I remember, as news director, reporting on how, during the 
elections in El Salvador, the Israelis WERE INVOLVED in tracking
individuals vis-a-vis voting. Were they using this software?
We're going to find out! But it's essential that you help us.

Let's look at the astonishing implications of this use of stolen  
tracking software to keep track of individuals in repressive
governments, linked with the United States around the world,
using software that was stolen from a company that refused to
roll over to Ed Meese and cronies [JD: i.e. Ronald Reagan].

PAUL DeRIENZO:
I can't wait until I can tell people, over-the-air, the address
of that facility in Washington, D.C. where anybody who goes to it
is threatened with death. Maybe we could all go down there. 
                       (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
PAUL DeRIENZO:
The next aspect of this case is the connection to BCCI, the Bank
of Credit Commerce International. It turns out that BCCI was
laundering monies that were raised through the illegal sales of
this software. You know, it's very interesting because everybody
is screaming: "Well how could BCCI be operating without the 
regulators doing anything about it when obviously there were flags
going up and there was evidence going back seven, eight years that
BCCI was involved in drug-running and in laundering of drug money,
and in various nefarious schemes?" Well, the reason that the
regulators and the Congressional hearings don't seem to want to 
touch upon is that, very possibly and probably, BCCI had direct 
ties to the Justice Department and to the regulators who were
supposed to be watching the store. In fact, the reason that BCCI
was not investigated and not prosecuted a lot earlier for its
activities was because it was providing necessary services --
a full service bank.

ROBERT KNIGHT:
279-3400, area code (212) .... We need you to say: "Go ahead.
Go further. Take us into the realms of the esoteric knowledge of 
a deadly conspiracy." We are in a position to create so many 
headaches -- to bring around so much that has gone around. We're 
going to make so much trouble! The people who do these things have
tools and techniques and dirty business beyond your imagining.

To help UNDERCURRENTS directly, contact us at 130 West 25th St.,
New York, NY 10001.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Well, what's there to say except: Is this the beginning of death
squads in America? Are journalists fair play now for people who
are afraid of the light of day shining into the events of the
world -- shining into what happens in the distant corners of this 
country, out of sight of the majority of the people who don't 
realize that their tax money and their representatives are involved
in all kinds of nefarious illegal schemings that cause so much pain
and destruction? 

It's a sad story, and one that WBAI and other progressive
journalists are going to stick to, and won't be intimidated and
scared away from because of the death of Danny Casolaro. 

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
>From our sister station in California, compliments of Pamela Burton
at the Pacifica Archives, just today we received an interview 
conducted by a colleague of mine .... His name is Ian Masters. 
And he did an interview at KPFK, Los Angeles .... 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Well, this is an interview with Michael Reconosciutto. He is in 
the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington where he was arrested
for allegedly running the largest methamphetamine laboratory in
United States history -- ever busted in United States history.
in drug manufacturing, and that he, in fact, was being punished
for appearing before the Jack Brooks Committee to give testimony
of the involvement of intelligence agencies in the Inslaw matter.
Reconosciutto is a computer expert. He claims to have been an
employee of the Wackenhut Corporation, to have worked on the
Capazon Indian Reservation and to have actually rewritten and
improved the Inslaw PROMIS software after it was stolen for export
to intelligence agencies in Iraq, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Canada, and a number of other countries -- eighty-eight countries
in all, according to Inslaw CEO Bill Hamilton.

And Reconosciutto gave this interview from jail. He has information
about things that only someone who is close to these events would
know. This is a fellow who, two or three weeks after he gave
testimony to the Brooks Commitee, was arrested on these charges ...

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
Texas Congressman Jack Brooks' Judiciary Committee has been
looking into the affair for the last two years, but only issued
subpoenas last July. Brooks is believed to have interviewed
Edwin Meese, former Attorney General under Reagan and his friends.
According to the Hamiltons -- we're going to hear from Bill Hamilton
later on -- the files of the Justice Department chief litigating
attorney on this case have disappeared. 

IAN MASTERS:
He has a background in U.S. Intelligence: you've always got to be
skeptical of that claim, but he certainly does appear to have
knowledge of government contracts and activities. He feels that
he's being framed by Earl W. Brian and Peter Veidnix. They set him
up on a drug charge because he wouldn't cooperate with them.
Veidnix apparently warned him against cooperating with the House
Judiciary Committee on the Inslaw investigation.

Now, the reason I'm going to talk, in a moment, to Reconosciutto
is that he is the individual who allegedly altered this Inslaw
software to give it this extra capability, to make it lucrative
and able to generate all this money and all these sales.
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
IAN MASTERS:
So let's now go to Michael Reconosciutto in jail in Tacoma,
Washington.

[JD: The dotted gaps below indicate some words that I must have
missed in dubbing this tape. I'll listen to the original tape and
then I'll insert those words in a follow-up to this installment.]

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
... and this package worked. OK? I mean it really and truly worked.
And when I got my first copies of it and ran it up, I was
dumbfounded. I have a statistical exercising package where I can
put computer software and/or hardware, and/or hardware/software
systems through their paces. And I can determine at which point it
will become unreliable ....
.... was going to go after information technology and bio-technology.
And here again, you have to realize that we were on the threshold
of a whole new era with bio-technology and with information 
technology. Earl Brian had some backing, and he was going to buy
out some well placed start-up companies that already had a running
start, and then he was going to pump money and talent and the 
right connections into them, and make them go.

And all of these grandiose plans were going along huckledy-buck
all through 1982. And something went wrong! OK? The first thing
that went wrong down in the Capazon was that the deputy tribal 
chairman, Fred Alvarez and a couple of his friends were murdered.
They managed to sidestep that issue, as if it had never happened.
And then my ex-associate, Paul Marosca was found murdered. I was
the one who found him. And Nichols and others tried to keep me 
away from our condominium office in San Francisco. It was
suspicious to me. And after almost fourteen days of not seeing  
Paul -- and then a day after he missed a critical meeting that
there's no way he would have missed -- that's when I went looking
for him. And Nichols tried to get me down to the desert on an
emergency basis to work on some project so that I'd be otherwise
occupied. And I said that I'd be down there as soon as I found out 
what happened to Paul. And he was really pushy and really stressed 
out. When he came across to me on this, it made me even more
suspicious. And other people that I talked to tried to dissuade me,
and it was just not normal, the amount of pressure and emphasis
they were putting on this situation. I knew in my gut there was

Paul was dead! He'd been slowly strangled to death.

IAN MASTERS:
But why? Why are they killing people who are working for them?

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
Well let me explain. Alvarez was present at all the meetings,
and he was gung-ho behind Nichols (Dr. John P. Nichols), and 
everything that was going on there. OK? We were all red-blooded
Americans, and we believed in the things that were going on!
The way things were shaping up with the Reagan Election Committee
and the things that were being orchestrated made us all concerned.
And Alvarez wrote a detailed letter to Ronald Reagan expressing 
his concern. All the details of the October Surprise hostage issue
were outlined in that letter. I mean, IN SPECIFICS. 

IAN MASTERS:
How did he have this information?

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
Well, Senator Abourezk was the tribal advisor. And we had
connections in Saudi Arabia, and we had connections in Iran. And
we were using those connections to try to get through to the
religious regime to put pressure on the group that had the hostages
-- to get them released. We were trying to resolve that question. 
You've got to understand that Bill Casey was the outside corporate
counsel for Wackenhut at that time.

IAN MASTERS:
And Wackenhut was in a joint venture with the Capazon Indians.

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
That's correct. And William Casey was their [Wackenhut's] outside 
counsel. Now, Stansfield Turner, the Carter C.I.A. Director WAS 
ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WACKENHUT! Do you know that Frank 
Carlucci [JD: former secretary of defense] is on the board of 
directors of Wackenhut? Shall I keep going?? 
You know, their favorite song at board meetings, after the "Star
Spangled Banner", is "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here".

IAN MASTERS:
But tell me how this led up to Ronald Reagan. What was the date
of this letter saying ....

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
I can't remember exactly. I'd have to go back to my notes and
stuff. But we've got copies of it and we've got copies of Ronald
Reagan's response. Have you seen any of this?

IAN MASTERS:
No. Of course not.

MICHAEL RECONOSCIUTTO:
OK. It's been spread out to reporters. And I will get a hold of ...

IAN MASTERS:
I'd like to get hold of it. But tell me now: what specifics do
you have on how this October Surprise thing was orchestrated?

OK. But let me finish. I'm building up to a point here. It's quite
complicated and I'm just about there. Robert Jason, who is the
group vice president of Wackenhut, has an interesting history.
Robert Jason was vice president of International Telegraph and
Telephone. You know -- ITT. During the Allende situation in Chile,
he was the C.I.A. station boss as well as vice president of ITT
for Chilean operations. And his deputy station boss was Dino Pianzio. 
And John Philip Nichols was working under Dino John Pianzio at 
that time. Jason goes from ITT to Wackenhut. During the Carter
Administration, Robert E. Jason is Commissioner of U.S. Customs
for the entire Carter Administration. As Commissioner of Customs,
he has some interesting projects directly out of his office. One
of them was Fat Albert, the drug interdiction surveillance balloons.
Are you familiar with that technology?

IAN MASTERS:
Yes.
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
-- the big balloons with radar and other sensors that were doing 
the aerial surveillance for drug smugglers flying in, to try to
that were vendors supporting that project were wholly owned by
Earl W. Brian. The contracting officer handling all of those
companies was Peter Veidnix, out of the BUREAU OF CUSTOMS! OK?
And this was a very large procurement. And Veidnix' job, as 
contracting officer, was to deal with industry. And he was the
point of contact for the vendors in industry to deal with the
Government agency. It was his job to communicate and fraternize
with the companies that the Government was involved with. That's
a normal part of his job description. 

Now for him to say, in affidavits, denying that he's ever heard of
Wackenhut, that he's ever heard of Earl Brian, and Earl Brian's
denying that he's ever heard of Peter Veidnix is preposterous!

IAN MASTERS:
Well, you've personally had to work with both of them. 

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: 
You see, but what I'm trying to do is establish, on an undisputed 
basis, collateral from me, or totally independent from me, the
fact that these guys do not have a basis to deny knowing each
other, or to deny knowing anything about Wackenhut. 

Here the chief operations officer from Wackenhut takes a leave of
absence to go be Commissioner of Customs. And while Commissioner
of Customs, he had routine contact -- he might as well still have
been at his post at Wackenhut. Internal memoranda suport that. OK?
Yet the guy who was Veidnix' boss, and wearing two hats, while 
running a Government agency -- which is not proper to begin with --
But for Veidnix to deny he's ever heard of Wackenhut is a bunch 
of baloney. 

Wackenhut has a working relationship with the Customs Bureau that
is second to none for a corporate entity to have with a Government
agency. These guys are not talking reality. They're hiding behind
a so-called wall of plausible deniability which, if you examine 
the facts, it is shown to be just that. 

Now, we get back to the Reservation, and we get back to this 
three-ring circus conducted by Dr. John Philip Nichols and covert
operators, and arms dealers, and drug dealers, of every stripe 
and color coming to meetings over a four-year period on this  
Reservation. That's what you had. PROMIS was just one of many acts
in this three-ring circus. And the players were involved, not just
in PROMIS, but in all the rest of it. 

So, the Hamiltons, and the scenario of them getting ripped off
while in a formal contractual relationship with a Government
agency, is only one of many stories. And I can pinpoint over a
hundred companies that received the same kind of treatment, and
were defrauded in the same way as Inslaw. And I've gotten over
fifty of them together, and we're all networking, trying to bring
this thing out into the light of day.

IAN MASTERS:
What about the idea that somehow the theft of PROMIS was a reward    
to Dr. Earl Brian for brokering the Iran hostage deal?

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO:
The ability to run with PROMIS from the inside, on a procurement
for what they did in helping the Election Committee. Part of that
was the artillery shells. Part of that was security contracts for
Wackenhut. Wackenhut has security jobs that traditionally the
United States Marine Corps did. OK? Now, it's done on open bid to
private companies, and Wackenhut consistently has gotten most of
those jobs. And all our atomic weapons research and test sites are
all guarded by Wackenhut personnel. In the Reagan Administration,
the shift went abruptly from Marine Corps and military personnel
to Wackenhut personnel. It was an UNPRECEDENTED move. And it's my
position that this was part of the reward benefit package for 
cooperation and services rendered during the election situation.
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
ANDREW PHILLIPS:
We think this is one hell of a story. Just let me read briefly 
from the VILLAGE VOICE of this week [Sept. 18, 1991]:

   "Unlike the murky October Surprise scandal with the compromised
    Congressional investigations into Iran/Contra, the facts in the
    Inslaw case are quite clear. Emerging from a low-level bankruptcy
    court, they paint a virtually indisputable case of corporate theft."
This is James Ridgeway writing in this week's VOICE,

   "an indisputable case of corporate theft, political corruption,
    and the very real possibility of international espionage. The
    issue goes straight to the White House and it involves officials
    at the highest levels of the Justice Department in what appears
    to be a deliberate campaign of intimidation, theft and corruption.
    By now, that ought to have led to a serious Congressional 
    investigation. Unlike Iran/Contra, no one in this case has pleaded
    national security as a defense, though that is likely before it 
    is over. In a sense, it is already too late for that. The facts
    are too well defined. If the opinions of two judges are correct,
    this case ought to result in criminal indictments of past and
    present Justice officials."

(212) 279-3400: That's the number here at WBAI. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Hopefully, people will keep calling through this interview --
as important as it is. 

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
We urge you just as strongly as possible to support the radio 
station that's doing the work, supporting the journalists who are
doing the work, and supporting ourselves -- each other -- as a
community -- as a listener community. That's what it's about.
We need each other. We are a listener-supported institution here
at WBAI. We are a Pacifica station, and when you subscribe to WBAI,
your dollar goes a very, very long way. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
This is Bill Hamilton, the developer of the PROMIS software, which 
was marketed by Inslaw and then stolen, according to a bankruptcy 
court judge, from Inslaw.

BILL HAMILTON:
Inslaw has software that it manufactures for case management --
case tracking and workflow management in a professional office.
One type of that software is called PROMIS and is for prosecution
management information systems in public prosecution agencies.

The U.S. Department of Justice contracted with Inslaw, in 1982,
for ten million dollars, to install a 1970's version of PROMIS,
that we had created, in the twenty largest U.S. Attorneys offices.
In 1983, the Justice Department modified the contract to replace
the 1970's version with a 1980's version. That meant that the
Justice Department would have to pay Inslaw license fees because
they had no right, under the contract, to the 1980's version.

As soon as they took delivery of the 1980's version, however, the
Justice Department reneged on the contractual promise to pay us the 
license fees, and instead, started to refuse to pay us the bills 
for the services we were performing. They withheld payments for 
two million dollars of services and drove us into Chapter Eleven 
bankruptcy. As soon as we went into Chapter Eleven bankruptcy,
the Justice Department launched a covert effort to convert Inslaw
from Chapter Eleven bankruptcy to Chapter Seven bankruptcy, which
means complete liquidation. 

We sued the Department of Justice in Federal bankruptcy court,
the Justice Department "stole" forty-four copies of the 1980's
version of PROMIS -- the proprietary version owned by Inslaw --
"through trickery, fraud and deceit", and then tried covertly to
drive Inslaw out of business so that Inslaw could not seek legal
redress in the courts.  
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
PAUL DeRIENZO
Some of these reports said that copies of the software wound up in
other places besides the Justice Department -- in other countries.

BILL HAMILTON:
We have been told, including by people who have been willing to
give us sworn affidavits which we submitted in U.S. District
Court this year (because they only came forward this year), 
that what we had been litigating was only the tip of the iceberg; 
that what they really had done with the software, in addition to
not paying us for the copies that they put into the U.S. Attorneys
offices, is they copied it and gave it to private sector friends 
of Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese, so that those friends could sell 
it to intelligence and law enforcement agencies of countries all
over the world. Our software has been illegally sold to Iraq,
Great Britain, Canada, South Korea, Japan. Supposedly, as many as 
eighty-eight countries were induced to purchase our software by
people who had no right to sell it; who were, themselves, supported
in their illegal efforts by the United States Government in the
White House.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Could you go into the story of the Hadron Corporation's coming
forward to offer to buy, or in some way, to try and get that 
software from you at an early stage in this?

BILL HAMILTON:
The contracting officer at the Justice Department, Peter Veidnix
whom, we have since learned, had a preexisting relationship with
Hadron in that, before the Justice Department hired him as the
contracting officer for the Government in the Inslaw contract, he
had been Hadron's contracting officer. He had actually been the
U.S. Customs Service contracting officer with Hadron for several
contracts that Hadron had at the U.S. Customs Service.

On April 11, 1983, Veidnix -- the guy we're talking about -- 
modified our contract, as I was describing to you, so that he
could take delivery of the 1980's version of the software.
Approximately one week later, the chairman of Hadron telephoned
me and told me that they had in his company the political contacts
with Edwin Meese and the White House that would enable Hadron to
obtain the Federal Government's case-management software business,
but that they needed to acquire title to the PROMIS software first.   
And for that reason, they were going to purchase our company. 
I told them I was not interested in selling Inslaw, and the 
chairman at the time, whose name was Dominick Liti, said: "We have
ways of making you sell."

In May of `83, Peter Veidnix -- the guy with the preexisting,
although then unknown, relationship with Hadron -- started 
withholding the payments to Inslaw until he could drive us into
Chapter Eleven bankruptcy.
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
BILL HAMILTON:
Lowell Jensen -- who was the elected District Attorney of Alameda
County, California -- his office developed a case-tracking system
called DALITE. And Jensen was quite interested in promoting that
software for use among the fifty-eight county district attorneys'
offices in California. In 1974, Inslaw defeated Jensen's proposal
for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, and
evidently, Jensen bore a grudge after that for having lost out to  
Inslaw in Los Angeles County which has the biggest district 
attorney's office in California. 

When Reagan was elected, Reagan appointed Jensen to head the
Criminal Division in Washington, in the Justice Department. And
then when Meese became Attorney General in `85, Meese elevated
Jensen to his deputy, to become Deputy Attorney General. Jensen
played a very important role -- the bankruptcy court found --
in allowing the misconduct against Inslaw to go on, and in
declining to stop it, even though he was contacted repeatedly by
lawyers on behalf of Inslaw and asked to intervene to stop the 
misconduct. He never did a thing to stop it! In our investigation,
we have been told that Jensen not only did nothing to stop the
misconduct, but that he was in charge, while heading the Criminal
Division, of orchestrating the effort to drive Inslaw out of
business, so that the Justice Department -- once Meese became
Attorney General -- could award the PROMIS software business to
Earl Brian and other friends of Reagan and Bush.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Where does Mr. Casolaro come in? He was doing his own research,
and he -- according to the newspaper accounts -- had developed a
theory which he called "the Octopus". Are you aware of what 
Mr. Casolaro was working on at the time of his death?

BILL HAMILTON:
Yes. I spoke to Danny Casolaro on almost a daily basis for the 
year that he worked on this investigation. He started August of
1990. And every day, or certainly every other day, I spoke to him.
And what Danny had concluded was that a relatively small group of
people with backgrounds in U.S. covert intelligence operations,
and with contacts high up in the political leadership of the
United States Government, were making a lot of money in a number
of scandals: BCCI, Iran/Contra, October Surprise, and Inslaw.
And they would use the craft that they learned in foreign covert
operations to help themselves to large profits through criminal
activities; and that some of the proceeds from the illegal sales
of our software were laundered through BCCI. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
of his friends and family seem to think it was, in fact, murder.
He wasn't in the mood, or the kind of person to take his own life.

......

HARRY MARTIN [of The Napa Valley Sentinel, Napa, California]:
You can see the same threads in the October Surprise. You can see
the same threads in Iran/Contra. You can see the same threads in
the looting of the Savings & Loans: the same type of people; the
same type of operations. They all seem to be inteconnected. And
Danny Casolaro's theory of an "Octopus" certainly parallels exactly
what we have been working on for some time: that that is all
interconnected. 
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Now, you say here that the reason that Casolaro was in West 
Virginia when he was found dead was to meet with gentlemen by 
the names of Videnieks and Earl Brian.

HARRY MARTIN [of The Napa Valley Sentinel, Napa, California]:
You know, Videnieks is the man who is believed to have threatened
Bill Hamilton, or tried to extort the company from him. And Earl
Brian, of course -- there are many, many affidavits out which say
he has actually been the one who is selling the software and has

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Now just to recap -- Earl Brian is the former head of Financial 
News Network, the owner of the Infotech Corporation which owned 
the Hadron Corporation, of which the CEO of Hadron at the time
called Bill Hamilton up, as president of Inslaw, and said: "We have
ways of making you sell." When Inslaw refused to sell, they found
that they were then forced into bankruptcy. 

HARRY MARTIN:
Judge Basin ruled that the Federal Government owed Bill Hamilton
about eight million dollars. And, of course, right after the judge
basically ruled that, the prosecutor for the Justice Department,
who was trying to prevent any payment going to Inslaw, replaced 
the judge on the bench. So the prosecutor in the Inslaw case, and
who was against Hamilton and for Meese, ended up -- of course, it
was Thornburg at the time -- ended up taking over the judge's job
and the judge was not reappointed.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
How did you find out that Casolaro was going to meet Videnieks 
and Brian?

HARRY MARTIN:
Several reporters have networked and found certain notes that he
had made certain calls to people. And we have some people now
who had very, very close communication with Casolaro at all times.
And, in fact, they were supplying him with some of the information.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
And so they were able to report to you who he was off to see?

HARRY MARTIN:
That's correct. We didn't take the report from one individual. We
took it from several and they all coincided. In fact, we would
like to know who was at the Hilton in West Virginia. Room 900 is
one of the phone numbers that was in Casolaro's files. We have a
whole list of the different phone numbers that Casolaro apparently
had called just before he died. And these came from the various
sources who were giving that information to Casolaro. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
And did he ever meet with Videnieks and Brian on that trip to 
West Virginia?

HARRY MARTIN:
No. He did not. Now, I understand that Michael Riconosciuto, who 
I indicated had given the deposition to the Brooks Committee,  
had an attorney in Philadelphia. And the attorney was verifying 
Riconosciuto's information on the Inslaw case. He was to meet with
a person, and he was found shot to death in his car. And they 
considered that a suicide as well.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Right. There have been a number of .....

HARRY MARTIN:
It just goes on and on and on to various people. And, of course,
we had the gentleman from the Financial Times in London who was 
trying to find Johnny Hughes -- who was the bagman to the
whole tie-in. And, of course, he was found shot. And they said 
that was suicide as well.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Right. That was in Guatemala.

HARRY MARTIN:
Right. And, of course, we have talked with the people who helped
Johnny Hughes get out of the Cabazon Indian tribe reservation at
the time that the murders had taken place. The security people
had talked to us long ago on this. We did a whole series on the
Cabazon before any of this was known. And now they're getting a
lot more focus and it's becoming very interesting.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
What's the conection between Wackenhut and the Cabazon Indians?
What is Wackenhut?

HARRY MARTIN:
Wackenhut is your RoboCop of the future. It has almost four 
hundred thousand employees. It has taken over the prisons in 
places like San Antonio and Terminal Island, and they are making 
a bid now to take over fire departments and police departments. 
You'll find it's almost like a private army. If you saw the movie: 
RoboCop, the corporation that was running that police department -- 
this is exactly what Wackenhut is becoming. In other words, it's
taking over the functions of law enforcement on contract base. And 
they were formed by former FBI people. And some of the top CIA people 
went into that organization when they retired from their system.
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
HARRY MARTIN [of the Napa Sentinel, Napa California]:
Wackenhut was using the Cabazon Indian tribe because they felt 
that the Indian nation was independent, and therefore, they could
manufacture and do whatever they needed to do at that base without
violating any U.S. laws.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Where is that located -- the Cabazon Reservation?

HARRY MARTIN:
It's in Indio [California], near Palm Springs.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
And is it a large tract?

HARRY MARTIN:
It's not a huge thing, but they have been able to convert it into
gambling casinos and manufacturing plants and everything else. 
And of course, there has been a major upheaval among the Indians,  
trying to take back their tribe. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
How did Wackenhut get into this situation, in control of this tribe?

HARRY MARTIN:
Basically, Dr. Nichols -- who was associated with the assassination 
of Allende [JD: the assassination of the democratically elected
President of Chile, circa 1976] and the attempted assassinations
of Castro -- came in and said, "We're going to make money for you",
built the casinos up and then brought Wackenhut in. And he has
subsequently been sent to jail for attempted murders. The California
Department of Justice has a file on him that shows Mafia ties and
C.I.A. ties and everything else. It's EXTREMELY complex.
I mean, it's hard to do [understand] in a few minutes when we've
been doing it for a year.

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
This is WBAI in New York. We're in a membership drive. We're 
on a line to California with Harry Martin of the Napa Sentinel. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
It's just so amazing -- this story -- because it really started
with a blurb in the New York Times that said a reporter looking
into a case was found dead. And now we're talking about people
who were involved in the so-called "Secret Team", the "Octopus",
almost like a secret government within a government in the United
States. And Mr. Nichols was one of those people who was mentioned
earlier by Bill Hamilton as a leading member of the "Octopus".
So you're saying that Mr. Nichols is the head of Wackenhut, or 
he's connected with Wackenhut?

HARRY MARTIN:
No. Basically, he was put in charge -- in other words, like 
chairman of the board, or something like that -- of the Cabazon
Indians. But he has worked closely with them [Wackenhut] and his
ties have been with them for years. And, as I say, you'll find in
he was instrumental in the assassination of Allende in Chile. So,
in other words, he has been a worker in the company for a long time.

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
Just listening to this presentation, you're giving -- in such a 
matter-of-fact tone of voice -- the most incredible information
which you say you've been covering now for many months. And, I
suppose, we've been seeing little bits and pieces of ....

HARRY MARTIN:
You have to understand, I've lived with this for a long time and 
perhaps to me it's just commonplace. Now, for instance, the 
San Francisco Chronicle, just last week, began a series on the
Cabazon Indians. And it's been a long time before they've done
anything about it. And then they began to bring in all those 
areas: the Wackenhut [story], the manufacturing of the biochemical
warfare agents, and so forth. So, they finally caught onto it.
.....
I guess, on the East Coast, you're not hearing that much about it.
But Bill Hamilton has been fighting this. His attorney, Elliot
Richardson [JD: the former Attorney General of the United States],
is very well known. And the courts ruled way back -- Judge Bason
ruled that this whole thing was deceitful, theft. Not only that,
but his opinion was originally upheld by another court. And now,
it has been overturned. And how they overturned it wasn't to say
that he was wrong in the decision that it was theft. What they
ruled was that he didn't have the jurisdiction to make such a 
ruling. And Thornburgh has NOT cooperated AT ALL with the Brooks
Committee. When Sam Nunn was doing his own committee [hearings] 
on Inslaw in the Senate, there was no cooperation to the point 
that they ended up having to, basically, drop the hearings.  
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
HARRY MARTIN:
But one of the Senate investigators is on record as saying that
he was told by members of the Justice Department that Inslaw
[affair] is so dirty and so deep that it is much bigger and more
explosive than Watergate.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
I see, from my investigations over the years -- I understand the
type of organization that Wackenhut is. I've covered them in 
writing before and read stuff about them, and I know their
connections to the C.I.A. It's interesting reading your article
here about some of the capabilities of PROMIS, the software that
was stolen from Inslaw. And that there's an updated version in 
the works that would allow the deduction of future or potential
actions of a person being traced.

HARRY MARTIN:
It's really frightening to think what the computer age is going
to do to individuality.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Can you tell us a little bit about what this software does? It's
worth a lot of money, on one hand. But, on the other hand, it
seems that this software has a tremendous amount of power.

HARRY MARTIN:
It has power because, again, it was designed by Bill to trace and
track everything. Consider the number of court cases and the
number of witnesses, and the number of people in the witness
protection program, and the number of criminals that exist in the
United States. This was to be a nationwide system that could track
all that. I mean, that's tremendous information. It's tremendous
power. And it's quite an innovation. And, of course, it has been
used by the Israelis and some of the others for tracking military.
Now, we ran into a strange case ourselves. Back in the early `80's
I was the publisher of several defense publications. And the 
Israelis came to us with a program to market to the different
defense companies in the United States. It dealt with the complete
military structure, and who's who and what's what. I mean, it even
got down almost to the number of shoelaces: how many handguns --
everything. And the Israelis said that they couldn't market it.
Later on, what we found out was the reason that they couldn't
technically market it -- besides that it was Mossad information --
but it also dealt, probably, with the Inslaw software which they
should not have had. You know, they didn't have the license to it.
I found those military reports and I notified Bill Hamilton. I
found them in a box in storage. I had forgotten all about them,
and the letters that went with them. The fact is, if you see 
those reports, it tells you EVERY SINGLE ITEM of any military
organization. I'm talking about: every vehicle, every handgun,
every rifle. It gets into numbers and details. And that's what
this software has this tremendous power to do. 

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
do you put on this kind of software?

HARRY MARTIN:
Inslaw had a ten million dollar contract just to do the Justice
Department. Mind you now, we're talking about intelligence 
agencies throughout the United States and many countries, and 
we're talking about even the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. So, if
it's ten million dollars just for the U.S. Justice Department,
what is it to military intelligence and to all these other
organizations around the world? It's got to be mind-boggling. But
remember -- it wasn't because of the particular dollar value of
Inslaw as much as the "Eagle" project to replace all computers in
the whole Justice System. But it required the Inslaw software 
program in it. That's where the value was -- in setting up all
that hardware. And they needed to get the Inslaw in order to get
the contract fulfilled. 
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
PAUL DeRIENZO:
It's my understanding that there are a number of companies -- that
were built up along the lines of the Wackenhut security group --
that, in fact, owe their beginnings to intelligence personnel who
were purged in the `70's after the revelations of the involvement
in Chile and with the involvement in the assassination attempts in
Cuba, and the Bay of Pigs, etc. etc.; and that the Brooks Intelligence
Committee led to a certain amount of light being shined on these 
activities, and a number of these people were retired early, and
they went into the private security field. 

Also, these people, who went into the private security field, made
an alliance with a number of wealthy rightwing individuals who
collected private personal files, tracking liberals and potential
trouble-makers to the numbers of thousands and tens of thousands
of names. As a matter of fact, I did a story a few years ago on a
case where the Los Angeles Police Department was told that they 
had to get rid of these files that they had been keeping from the
60's and 70's on radicals or whatever; liberals, really -- judges,
etc. They lied and said they had destroyed this material, and
then it was discovered in one of their officers' storage facility.
And it was then discovered soon afterward that the contents of the 
files had been sent to an agency of the John Birch Society that
specifically followed and created its own database on individuals.

So, you can believe that there are out there private organizations,
that are well funded, that keep track of people whom they feel that
the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have been scared away from following.

HARRY MARTIN:
Yes. For instance, Riconosciuto was shown, by a Congressional      
committee, a list from Wackenhut which is a complete (I don't know
if you want to call it a hit list) dossier on various newspaper
reporters throughout the country; for instance, on a newspaper
reporter in Seattle who was successful in blocking two nuclear
power plants from being built. And this is a complete dossier on
all these reporters, as well. So they were tracking those things.
And maybe this is where Danny and some of those names got on 
that list. I have not gotten a copy of the list yet. It is in
Congressman Miller's [of California?] office from what I understand.

We're trying to get the list because I think that would be a 
pretty shocking revelation for the national media to carry. As you
know, sometimes the national media will not carry anything until
someone like Danny Casolaro, a reporter, goes down. Then they'll
write a story about it. But the main issue is lost. They're more
concerned with the death of a reporter.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
How did this list become publicized? How did it get into the 
Congressman's hands?

HARRY MARTIN:
Well, apparently it was part of an investigation. I'm not sure if
it's from the Brooks Committee. But apparently it's a list that 
was compiled on the behavior of different journalists. ....        
Basically, it has [identifies] people who have not gone along
with the system of what they [the trackers] believe the system
should be.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
But it seems that on the bottom of it, after all the complexity
is stripped away, it's the same old story of following potential
trouble-makers and liberals, investigators, etc., ad nauseum.

ANDREW PHILLIPS:
The question I want to ask is: Do you think the American people
are ready to hear this? Because if we do hear this -- then what
the HELL are we going to do about it?
                      (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
HARRY MARTIN [of the Napa Sentinel, Napa, California]:
If you get any films -- you rent your films each night for your 
VCR -- those same themes are there. For instance, police brutality,
or RoboCop is an example of the Wackenhut Corporation as far as
the private companies taking over law enforcement duties. You get
into movies in the C.I.A. [vein] showing that they're getting away
with these things. You see, the public is constantly exposed to 
it, and they probably say: "Yeah, but what's it got to do with me?"
.....
Right now, I think, as long as the economy is fair, and there's 
food on the table, and their individual lives are not threatened,
they can accept scandal in government. That doesn't mean they like
it or want it. But it's like: "Well, I'm powerless to do anything
about it." And it's really the responsibility of the media to get
that out. I think there's been a lot of fault in the main media
for ignoring the "Inslaws" and ignoring the "October Surprises",
and for ignoring a lot of these things. They don't have to agree
with the program, but they can certainly start their own 
investigations and let their findings be revealed. 

You know, if the October Surprise didn't take place -- fine. Then
these major media should come out and say: "The evidence doesn't
show it. Or, here's what we proved, and we found this guy to be
here instead of there." But they totally ignore it because the   
corporate board room is controlling the major media now, saying:
"We don't want to bother with it!" And it's a shame. 

PAUL DeRIENZO:
Mr. Martin -- one final question. When the law enforcement officials 
seemed to start -- whether in the Justice Department or the C.I.A.
or the F.B.I. or at local levels -- start taking positions, 
political positions in support of certain factions that they feel
comfortable with, politically; what does that mean for American
democracy? Does our democracy ....

HARRY MARTIN:
We had a police chief here, for instance, endorsing candidates 
for the assembly, and even for district attorney. Now, the district
attorney's office has got to be somewhat neutral from the police
department. We fought those endorsements and got the district 
attorney thrown out of office. But basically, it means that when
partisan politics creeps into the law enforcement field, then we
are going to have some real problems because it means that the
politicians are going to be able to dictate more and more, and
they'll be beholding, also, to the support of the police
departments, and therefore, they'll be less ready to correct bad
situations like in Los Angeles with the King case. It's not good!
It taints the system.

PAUL DeRIENZO:
This whole day's programming really started with a desire to look
into a newspaper clip about a reporter who was killed, and it
turned into one of the more interesting and deep stories that I've
encountered in recent years. At least not since WBAI was involved
in uncovering the Iran-Contra drug connection in which we discovered
that cocaine was being shipped back [to the U.S.A.] in the same 
planes that were carrying arms down to the Contras. And you 
brought up the question of the Cabazon Indians and their being 
taken advantage of by these people who are now manufacturing what
-- chemical warfare [agents]?

HARRY MARTIN:
Chemical warfare [agents] are being manufactured there [on the  
Cabazon Indian reservation] to be sent down to the Contras. So it
means that that war down there was not just bullets.
                      (to be continued)

*******************************************************************************
Let's hope, for the welfare of our people and for America's future 
generations, that we will demonstrate one tiny bit of the courage 
of Danny Casolaro by demanding that our Congressworms inaugurate
a Congressional investigation into this slimy affair.


This story ought to be brought to the attention of the American
people. Save the installments of this ongoing series. Mail them to
conscientious people in your Congressional district whom you might
know. Or find them in the Yellow Pages of your telephone directory
under "clergy", "senior citizens" and "associations". Urge them to
demand that their Congresspersons launch an investigation into    
this slimy affair.

    John DiNardo
<end reposted material>
-Steve Crocker
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.bush