[Cicero]

Promis is one of the most outrageously tin-foil-hat paranoia dreams of the decade. Yet seemingly it may be true. Why on earth US intelligence would steal someone's software to use for top-secret activities just defies explanation. But the story just won't go away.

[eno_]

I could readily believe someone stole it in order to get a government contract or something like that, but why would spy agencies that spend billions steal software that took at most a few million to write? Corruption I believe. Bin Laden "using" Promis to "monitor" U.S. LEAs? That's tinfoil.

Maybe - and that's a big maybe - AQ could have hacked in to a Promis database. But that's about as far as credulity stretches.

[aristeides]

If the story was just paranoid nonsense, I don't think Boyden Gray (Bush-41's White House counsel) would be representing Hamilton and Inslaw.

And I've checked out on line that the bankruptcy judge ruled for Inslaw and then failed to be reappointed to a new term. For a bankruptcy judge not to be reappointed (although possible under the law) is, as far as I know, without parallel.

[LayoutGuru2]

PROMIS exists, download a copy here:

http://www.csrd.uiuc.edu/promis/home.html

/smirk/