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 New York prosecutors didn’t take action after reading a newspaper article about a game-changing piece of evidence. Compare the 2007 non-prosecution agreement with the new indictment. Both address sex trafficking of children. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been sitting on mountains of evidence confirming Epstein’s abuse of young girls for more than 10 years. ... What did the Justice Department have on Epstein? The answers can be found in a 2008 lawsuit in which two of Epstein’s alleged victims in Doe v. U.S. sued the United States for violating their rights under the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act....

<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>

...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...

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...

In June 2001, Jerry Seper of The Washington Times reported that former FBI agent and convicted spy Robert Hanssen sold an enhanced version of PROMIS for $2 million to Russian crime figures, who in turn are suspected of selling a black-market version of it to Osama bin Laden.More recently, the International Currency Review, a London-based financial newsletter, reportedly obtained Iraqi intelligence documents alleging that PROMIS came into Saddam Hussein's possession under the Bush I administration. The publication's editor says the documents were owned by Hussein's half-brother, Barzan al Takriti.

FTW, December 6, 2001 -- On October 9th, FTW broke a story on insider trading connected to the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center that sparked worldwide controversy. In that story we reported how the Israeli Herzliyya Institute for Counterterrorism had documented that unknown individuals -- with accurate foreknowledge of the attacks -- had purchased an obvious and unusually large number of "put" options on United and American Airlines shortly before the attacks. Additional companies hit hard by the insider trading included Axa Re(insurance) and Munich Re as well as American investment giants Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. Put ...

<p>BOSTON — Federal agents late Thursday night raided a Quincy, Mass., company that provides critical software to major U.S. agencies and is suspected of having ties to Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists.</p> <p>Ptech Inc.'s clients include the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, Energy Department, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Naval air systems, the U.S. Air Force, NATO, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Department of Energy and the agency that handles nuclear weapons security, according to its Web site.</p>

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...

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...

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...

From Matt Drudge:  RIDDLE AS SPY-CATCHER QUITS: America's top spy-catcher, Paul Redmond, has suddenly resigned in the middle of his secret investigation into how Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden allegedly obtained [Promis] US computer software... Developing...Redmond's Bad Day On The Hill... 

America's top spy-catcher, Paul Redmond, has suddenly resigned in the middle of his secret investigation into how Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden allegedly obtained [Promis] US computer software... Developing...