Free Republic

A former FBI agent convicted of espionage for Russia and serving a life sentence in a Colorado Supermax prison has died at the age of 79. The bureau confirmed Monday that Robert Hanssen was found unresponsive in his supermax federal prison cell at the ADX in Florence, Colorado around 6.55am. A cause of death has not yet been released, but officials say there is no threat to the public. Hannsen became notorious in the United States when he was arrested in 2001 and pleaded guilty to selling highly classified materials to the Soviet Union and later Russia for more than...

The so called PROMIS affair would never have happened if the software invented by an American computer specialist, Mr. William A. Hamilton, had been a technical failure. But this case management and data mining software, developed in the early 1980s by a small Washington D.C. company, Inslaw Inc., had proven itself to be a perfect intelligence tool. Originally made for the Department of Justice to help the country’s prosecutor offices in their case management, it drew the attention of corrupt officials and of Israeli Intelligence. Stolen by ruse from its owner, Inslaw Inc., the software was hacked and provided with...

...But this case management and data mining software, developed in the early 1980s by a small Washington D.C. company, Inslaw Inc., had proven itself to be a perfect intelligence tool... Stolen by ruse from its owner, Inslaw Inc., the software was hacked and provided with a "trap door", ... a Trojan Horse hacker’s trick, that enabled the retrieval of information from the foreign intelligence services and banks it had been sold to on behalf of Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Without the knowledge of the software’s owner, and in violation of copyright laws, the PROMIS software was sold to over 40...

Bill Clinton's Dead Body Count 1. JAMES McDOUGAL - Bank Embezzlement crook, Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner. Died 3-8-98 of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement, serving 3-yr sentence for bank fraud. He was going to be a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation and died while the reporters who were covering him were away covering a sudden, new standoff in Waco, (which, when he died,suddenly went away.) Jim McDougal suffered a heart attack that was brought on by the diuretics forced on him. They took him out of solitary as he collapsed, then left him alone in the...

DID SADDAM HUSSEIN and Osama bin Laden have access to a U.S. computer tracking program that enabled them to monitor our intelligence-gathering efforts and financial transactions? If so, who is responsible for allowing the program to fall into their hands? And who else among America's enemies might have access to the tracking system? It's an explosive spy software scandal that no one in official Washington wants to investigate. This complex, tangled story began two decades ago, when a tiny private company called Inslaw Inc. developed a software package to help U.S. attorneys' offices in large urban districts keep tabs on...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 — JetBlue Airways acknowledged publicly today that it had provided a Pentagon contractor with information on more than one million of its passengers as part of a program to track down terrorists and other "high risk" passengers. That data, which was turned over in violation of the airline's own privacy policies, was then used to identify the passengers' Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations. JetBlue, a three-year-old discount airline, sent an e-mail message to passengers this week, conceding that it had made a mistake in providing the records last year to Torch Concepts, an Army...

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the Little Rock native and former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, has resigned as managing director of merchant banking for the Stephens Group Inc. of Little Rock effective Friday, a company spokesman confirmed. "He told several of us that his first assignment would be to Kuwait City for CNN," Stephens spokesman Frank Thomas said. "It was a very amicable parting, very comfortable." Clark couldn't be reached for comment Friday morning. He joined Stephens in July 2000, the same month he retired from the Army. He serves on the boards of directors of Acxiom...

<p>The head of a computer firm wants the independent commission named to investigate September 11 intelligence failures to review accusations that his software-tracking program, which he says the Justice Department stole, was diverted to Osama bin Laden.</p> <p>William H. Hamilton, president of Inslaw Inc., said the commission — headed by former New Jersey Gov. David H. Kean — should focus on the validity of published reports saying bin Laden penetrated classified computer files before the attacks to evade detection and monitor the activities of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.</p>

Software likely in hands of terrorist By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES Accused spy Robert P. Hanssen gave secret U.S. software to his Russian handlers that later went to terrorist Osama bin Laden, allowing him to monitor U.S. efforts to track him down, federal law enforcement officials said. The sophisticated software gives bin Laden access to databases on specific targets of his choosing and the ability to monitor electronic banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations for himself or others, according to the sources. Believed to be an upgraded version of a program known as "Promis" developed in the 1980s by a...

<p>The head of a computer firm wants the independent commission named to investigate September 11 intelligence failures to review accusations that his software-tracking program, which he says the Justice Department stole, was diverted to Osama bin Laden.</p> <p>William H. Hamilton, president of Inslaw Inc., said the commission — headed by former New Jersey Gov. David H. Kean — should focus on the validity of published reports saying bin Laden penetrated classified computer files before the attacks to evade detection and monitor the activities of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.</p>

The weekly Spanish-language newspaper for the D.C. area, Washington Hispanic, does not think anyone is listening in, apparantly.Here is an starkly frank comment by an Admissions Officer at the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) discussing openly (in Spanish) in this week's edition how presumed illegal aliens can get around regulations to study at the taxpayer-funded college.Again, it should be noted that NOVA is a state-run institution, funded by tax dollars. State and federal legislators may want to follow up to see if Miss Mariella Abanto's comments reflect official school policy...and how widespread this is throughout the U.S.A. SCROLL DOWN FOR...