MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard who SAid Too Much; Part 4

The most important modifications of PROMIS were made in 1983-1984. Riconcuito added telecommunications access to the program. He improved the program at Ido, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. The DOJ then added a ed a “back door” that could be used to access information on the program wherever it was being used. Eventually PROMIS was used by many foreign governments and their intelligence agencies as well as by financial institutions around the world. Michael said some of the profits were used to reward intelligence operatives and that the rest of the money was used for operations not funded by Congress. Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian Jew and Mossad operative, also confirmed Riconosciuto’s story about the theft of Inslaw’s PROMIS, and he, too, ended up in federal prison.

Harry R. Kumnick was one of the people involved in making modifications to the program. Kumnick wrote his sister in Idaho that the new version was so powerful that enormous harm could be done if the wrong people got control of it. He later disappeared. His business partner now says he never heard of him. It will never be ascertained what he was referring to, but it is known that Federal Emergency Management Administration acquired PROMIS and modified it into MAINCORE, a system for keeping track of dissidents in the US so that they can be rounded up in a period of emergency. MAINCORE is housed in Cupleper, Virginia

Much later, Congressman Jack Brooks investigated whether Meese was trying to force Hamilton to sell to Hadron, a rival firm led by Dr. Earl W. Brian and several other ranking Republicans. Brian had lent Meese money and Mrs. Meese was an investor in the firm. Inslaw would retain the services of attorney Elliot Richardson, who pursued the matter for ten years. A serious blow to his efforts occurred when the Justice Department was robbed on April 27, 1991. The bandits trucked away many filing cabinets with information on the Inslaw case. . He won twice, only to be eventually overruled on a technicality. The case would cost one judge his job and get one Justice Department whistle blower his job. IBM subsequently bought Inslaw.

The Justice Department PROMIS facility was allegedly used by Oliver North to track people he claimed to be potential terrorists. Earlier, CIA director Bill Casey had sought an executive order giving the CIA power to spy on American citizens within the United States. The proposal caused an uproar and was dropped. The desire of conservatives to keep track of what other citizens are thinking and doing has a long history. Attorney General--later Chief Justice- Richard Rehnquist told a Senate committee that the government had the "right to collect whatever information it want on anybody."Bill Casey; CIA; In August, 1971, Richard Nixon was considering a plan to wire houses, boats, and other facilities on America. He decided it was unnecessary because the existing surveillance system was pretty efficient. The Justice Department claimed that the FBI did not use the software, but , later, Director William Sessions has refused to give that guarantee. At a 6,100 square foot command center on the 6th floor of Department of Justice headquarters was created for the use of PROMIS