Date: Mon, 19 Feb 96 23:09 EST From: Leading Edge <Liberty-req@liberty.net> To: current@Freebsd.org Subject: X Y Z Message-ID: <2078917053.SAA696578@liberty.net>
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RECAP OF AND UPDATE ON THE NORMAN THESIS
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For those who are tuning in late, here is "our story thus far":
Back around March 4th, 1995, Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the
Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts came out with a story
about a company called Systematics and alleged high-tech spying
being done on foreign banks. (This was covered in CN 4.22 and, so
far as I can tell, Skolnick's phone message, Hotline News at 312-
731-1100, was first to break the story.)
Here is how Skolnick's story appeared in Conspiracy Nation:
A telephone company in Arkansas is called ALLTEL. They have
a subsidiary called Systematics which is a proprietary
espionage operation of the National Security Agency [NSA].
Developed was a highly refined version of the Inslaw
software called PROMIS. Originally designed to keep track of
the caseloads of federal prosecutors, it was adapted to be
used by spy agencies to track people worldwide, by
satellite. The software has a "trapdoor" built into it. So,
the NSA arranged to sell it or give it to supposedly
friendly or other spy agencies: France, Sweden, Israel, and
others. The "trapdoor" was a sort of "Trojan Horse",
enabling U.S. espionage to spy on other spy shops.
Systematics [allegedly] adapted it to be used through low-
orbit satellites, to spy on the computers of central
banks...
Perhaps a better word than "trapdoor" would be "backdoor". The
software sold or given to the unsuspecting banks is said to have
had a hidden "door" through which prying eyes could enter
unannounced. This is worth emphasizing, because some have said it
would be impossible for a hacker or group of hackers to get into,
for example, a Swiss bank. What these critics are neglecting to
factor in is this "backdoor" through which electronic burglars
possessing the "key" could easily enter. This last has not, to my
knowledge, been refuted.
The late White House aide Vince Foster is said to have had about
$2.73 million stashed away in a Swiss bank account. CIA hackers,
perhaps taking advantage of a "backdoor" in the bank's software,
are said to have stumbled across not only Foster's hidden account
but also hidden accounts belonging to members of Congress and
other high government officials. This, it seems, is where these
"public servants" were hiding bribe money they had illegally
received.
But apparently it was feared that breaking such a huge scandal
publicly would cause Grandpa and Grandma USA to fall out of their
rocking chairs. Yet something had to be done. These
congresspersons and others could not be allowed to get away with
their crookedness. While the CIA hackers, known as the "Fifth
Column", are said to have cleaned out the accounts of the
offenders, still it was obvious that some punishment was in
order. Then too, you can't just leave these bribe-takers in
office -- what's to stop them from accepting more bribes?
So it is reported by several independent sources that these
bribe-takers are being told to leave their jobs, or else have
their alleged rotteness revealed. As former *Forbes* senior
editor James R. Norman put it in the December 1995 issue of Media
Bypass magazine (1-800-4-Bypass):
There has been an unusually large number of veteran
congressmen and senators announcing their resignations,
retirements or switching parties... The official
explanation: It's no fun now that the Republicans control
Congress.
But sources claim the real reason is that some of these
departees have been quietly confronted with evidence that
they took bribes or payoffs through Swiss or other offshore
bank accounts. Rumor has it that about 30 current members of
the House and Senate have been identified as having such
foreign slush-fund accounts...
Richard L. Franklin, writing in his monthly newsletter,
"Franklin's Focus" (Focus Press, 1820 Palisades Drive, Appleton,
WI 54915), confirms the charges. He reports that he has checked
with several of his sources and that, "as they say in the trade,
the story now has legs." According to Franklin, a so-called
"Angel of Death" is visiting the various congressional
representatives and informing them that they have just 24 hours
to announce their retirement.
It is beyond dispute that a record number of Senators and
Representatives are suddenly announcing their respective
retirements from public office. What is more, the Norman article
which appeared in the December 1995 Media Bypass is on record as
predicting many of these retirements *before* they actually
occurred. If Jim Norman's name was Jean Dixon or Irene Hughes, he
would be everywhere on the talk shows by now, hailed for his
amazing "psychic" abilities. Yet we hear nary a word of this
remarkable story in our "free" press. To me, the very fact that
this story is not being allowed into the public dialogue -- that,
in itself, says something. Aren't the networks at least hungry
for ratings? Why won't they draw in viewers with these intriguing
and widely-believed allegations? Why too aren't members of
Congress furiously demanding the opportunity to defend their
impugned "honor"? The silence is deafening.
Reporting on the phenomena of the disappearing Congress critters,
the Washington Times, National Weekly Edition (Jan. 8-14, 1996)
declares that "Congress is going through a shakeout." There have
been, says the Times, 49 announced retirements or resignations
since the November 1994 elections. And, it adds, a dozen of them
have bowed out just recently, since Thanksgiving. Well, Times,
here are two more names to add to your "trickle that has grown
into a stream" of retirements: Associated Press reports ("Clinger
to Retire", Jan. 15, 1996) that Rep. William Clinger "said Monday
he will leave Congress after serving 18 years." The AP story
adds, as if it is an afterthought, that Rep. Pat Williams,
Montana Democrat, announced retirement plans on Saturday, Jan.
13th. Clinger says, "It's probably time for me to move on." Says
Williams, "he's homesick." The AP article also notes that the
high number of congressional retirements is the "most in a
century."
So that's the story thus far. Now, thanks to an east coast source
whom I will call "Mr. Mercedes", I have received an audio tape of
Jim Norman's recent appearance on New York radio station WBAI,
marked on the cassette as having been January 10, 1996.
Says Mr. Norman: "This country is in a *major* political crisis."
According to the ex-*Forbes* senior editor, it is "unfolding
right before our eyes."
"For many years," he says, "[Vince Foster] had been a behind-the-
scenes go-between between the NSA, the National Security Agency,
and a company in Arkansas called Systematics -- a bank and data
processing company now owned or controlled by a telephone
conglomerate called ALLTEL... He may have had access to very
high-level code, encryption [and] other kind of computer
intelligence systems."
According to Norman, "More important than that: when [Foster]
arrived in the White House he -- according to sworn testimony by
his executive assistant, Deborah Gorham(sp?) -- somehow or other,
he came to have possession of at least two, inch-thick ring
binders from the NSA, from the White House offices, which my
sources tell me would have been *extremely* sensitive code
materials -- probably the codes, and more important than that,
the protocols, by which the President authenticates himself when
he calls up the Pentagon and says, 'Let's go nuke somebody.'"
"Plus the fact," adds the controversial but respected journalist,
"that we have documented evidence of Foster making periodic, one-
day trips to Geneva. Over every 6 or 8 months he had been making
a one-day trip to Geneva. And multiple sources have confirmed
that he had at least one, if not several, Swiss bank accounts."
Mr. Norman charges that Vince Foster, *and* *Hillary* *Clinton*,
were both under surveillance for espionage at the time of
Foster's so-called "suicide". Norman wonders, "Where would Foster
have gotten access to these very sensitive documents [e.g. the
ring binders with the authentication codes] within the White
House?"
This last rings true when it is recalled that Foster and Mrs.
Clinton had been widely reported as being lovers.
According to Mr. Norman, *significant* national security issues
are lurking beneath the surface of the otherwise dropsical
Whitewater hearings. "Vince Foster, as problematic as his death
is, it's small potatoes compared to what we discovered... In
fact, former intelligence people who have been involved in
computer surveillance of foreign accounts have found *hundreds*
of Swiss, [Grand] Cayman [and] other off-shore bank accounts,
coded bank accounts, maintained on behalf of high-level U.S.
political figures. Both parties. *Many* members of Congress.
Elected officials. Appointed officials. Military officers.
Intelligence community big-shots. Wall-streeters. Bankers."
"There's a massive scandal here, about to blow up. And, in fact,
we're already starting to see it."
Here are further excerpts from the program:
JAMES NORMAN:
[Hillary] had actually been an attorney of record for Systematics
which at the time was owned by the Arkansas billionaire Jackson
Stephens, who tried to take over a Washington bank holding
company on behalf of the BCCI [Bank of Credit and Commerce
International] crowd and install Systematics as the data
processing manager of that entire operation. Which is extremely
curious, because BCCI itself was essentially a huge money-
laundering, arms-finance and drug-finance/drug-money laundering
operation.
In the process of going through all this, I actually came across
what turned out to be a Swiss bank account number: it was a 10-
digit, encrypted series of letters... When I turned it over to
some of the intelligence sources who I'd been using on this
story, they ran it through their system. And, actually a couple
of months later, when I asked them, "Gee. Is it possible [that]
Cap Weinberger might have money in these accounts?" They said,
"Well, yeah. Don't you know? That account number you gave us was
Cap's!" In fact, they mentioned that a relative of Howard
Metzenbaum, former Senator from Ohio, was another co-signatory to
that account; that Weinberger had multiple accounts -- not
implausible to me at all.
I mean, here was Weinberger, Secretary of Defense throughout the
Reagan era, during which we had one of the biggest defense build-
ups in history. We also participated in the massive illicit
arming of Iraq with high-technology weapons systems capabilities,
plus the armaments themselves. It was an environment *fertile*
for kickbacks. Payola. Corruption. And, in fact, Weinberger was
eventually indicted by Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh for
lying to Congress, for failing to turn over his diaries. He was
pardoned by George Bush just as Bush was leaving office. And so
he never had to stand trial -- which was probably a merciful
reprieve for Colin Powell, who was Weinberger's chief assistant
at that time, chief advisor.
Weinberger had basically elevated Powell to a high-level advisory
position, and Powell would have been effecting a lot of the
orders that Weinberger was giving him -- about moving arms here,
and drugs there.
And in fact... Weinberger's name has come up in connection with a
Costa Rican legislative investigation, a two-volume report down
there that identifies Weinberger, as well as Ollie North, our
former Ambassador to Costa Rica, and various others as being
personas non grata for helping facilitate a massive drug and arms
operation which helped corrupt that country's society. If those
people set foot down there again, they're getting arrested.
So suddenly it starts to make a lot of sense. And when you think
in terms of Swiss bank accounts and massive amounts of money --
kickbacks -- it explains a lot of stuff that's going on right
now.
What we're looking at here is massive, endemic, high-level
corruption of the federal government. Bipartisan. Democrats and
Republicans. It's been going on for years -- particularly since
the early 1980s. The dollars involved have grown exponentially...
I believe from arms and drugs trading. There is *huge* amounts of
money sloshing around here. And it has corrupted the government
in a fundamental way. The government cannot police itself. The
normal enforcement mechanisms have been compromised: the Justice
Department. The IRS. Customs. The intelligence community.
And what has happened is that there *are* a lot of good people in
our government who have watched this happen, have been powerless
to stop it -- their protests would go nowhere. There's been *no*
effective investigation by anybody of this stuff. And finally,
what had happened was, a small handful of guys -- they call
themselves the Fifth Column. Retired intelligence people. One is
a former CIA contractor. Another is a former National Security
Agency person. I know they're assisted by a variety of other
people of the intelligence community -- they were able to acquire
their own used Cray supercomputer from Clark Air Force Base. It's
apparently an air-cooled and generator-driven machine that can
actually be packed into the back of I think what *looks* like a
refrigerated semi-trailer truck with a satellite uplink. And
they've got this thing rollin' around the country so it doesn't
get nailed.
And so for the last 5 years, they have been downloading,
systematically, tapping into foreign bank databases and pulling
down reams and reams of account data.
[James Norman goes on to describe how this Fifth Column allegedly
raided the secret bank accounts of corrupt government officials,
transferring the money into U.S. government accounts.] For two
years they've been raiding these accounts. Now they're into Phase
II.... Phase I: "Take the marbles." Phase II: "Get them out of
government."
Now, how do you do that? How do you get these people *out* of
government in the most time-efficient and cost-efficient manner?
.. Apparently they've been hand-delivering brown manila
envelopes to people in Congress with actual copies of the
transaction records of these Swiss and other off-shore accounts.
The people get about a day to read these things, and then they
get a call from one of *these* guys who I have referred to as the
"Angel of Death". And then the elected official gets a choice:
.. You can either announce your retirement immediately, or you
can face immediate prosecution for tax evasion and various other
crimes -- the minimum penalty for which, if you are convicted, is
10 years in prison.
Now when a congressman goes to prison, you lose your federal
pension benefits. And the pensions on these people are
significant. (For instance, Pat Schroeder, congresswoman from
Colorado: relatively young, she's been there a long time... She's
got, over her expected lifetime, more than 4 million bucks coming
to her.) Now I think the implication here is that if you just
shut up, go away, get out of the line of fire -- *maybe* you'll
get lucky and get to keep your pension down the road. There's no
guarantee that you won't be prosecuted.
But what's happened so far: all of these people have taken the
retirement option.
And what you have seen: an unprecedented, record number of
retirements of *powerful* people from Congress. These are not
"back benchers"! Since the end of the last election, until now,
more than 50 Senators and Congressmen have announced their
retirement. In fact, there were two more in just the last couple
of days: a 30-year Republican from Indiana, and a two-term
Democrat from Arkansas.
The excuses they give? *Utterly* *bogus*, frankly. "Oh, we can't
stand the nasty politics." "Oh, I want to spend more time with my
family." "Oh, it's just time to go." It strains credulity. It
just does not make sense -- until you realize there's something
*else* going on here.
CALLER #2:
..How is it exactly -- I remember when I heard this story first
and I was talking to somebody about it and they said, "Well how
can they possibly get into these bank accounts?"
DR. MICHIO KAKU [Host]:
O.K. Mr. Norman, how *do* you get into another person's bank
account?
JAMES NORMAN:
Let me begin by saying that bank computer systems are nowhere
near as secure as the banks would like you to believe... Granted,
there are many security features built into bank communications
and software systems. But in most large software systems there
are what you call "service entrances" or "back doors" by which
software maintenance people would get in routinely to fix "bugs"
and so forth. If you take that concept, and then consider the
idea that our intelligence agencies, which have an extremely
high-priority collection of financial information, would somehow
or other see to it that they have perhaps their own "back doors"
plugged into these various bank data systems...
*That's* how I got onto the story, actually, was the
proliferation of a customized version of what was called the
PROMIS software. This was, it was designed for tracking legal
cases, originally, [then] customized for use in tracking wire
transfers, sold and promulgated around most of the world's
banking system, had "back doors" in it that would allow -- if you
knew where the "back door" was, it would allow you to basically
dial into a computer system and not leave an audit trail: go in,
snoop around, pull down information, and then leave.
DR. MICHIO KAKU:
I think the key thing, at least from my point of view, is that
we're not dealing with high school "hackers" who, by trial and
error, and guile, try to get into somebody's bank account. We're
talking about former intelligence agents.
JAMES NORMAN:
Right. But let me point this out: a couple of months ago,
Citibank, there were published stories about how a "hacker" in
Russia, armed with no more than a personal computer, apparently
had got into Citibank accounts and was doing, essentially,
exactly the same thing. He was wire-transferring money out of
corporate accounts... to banks in Argentina and Finland -- always
in small amounts so that it would not set off the internal alarm
system... What I am told is that somehow or other, this guy got
hold of the "back door" address at Citibank and was able to use
it.
CALLER #3:
Mr. Norman, outside of WBAI, has word of this gone out?
JAMES NORMAN:
Actually, *this* *story* has become a classic case study in
"guerrilla journalism". Because I think it's too hot for any
mainstream media to deal with. I mean, it's just loaded with too
many problems: first of all, it deals with a lot of background,
"deep throat" kind of sources; the attribution, the documents are
kind of non-existent at this point -- although I think they'll
eventually come out. And you're dealing with a lot of big names
and nobody really wants to rock the boat in a big-deal
publication.
Media Bypass, this little magazine in Indiana, *they* came to me
and asked me if they could run the story, because they had heard
that Forbes [magazine] wouldn't run it; that the Wall Street
Journal and New York Times and everybody else I'd talked to about
it was scared of it. *They* [Media Bypass] managed to corroborate
a key element of it themselves. One of their investigative
reporters knew a guy who used to train IRS agents, who was
talking with one of his former students who was assigned to
surveil Vince Foster at the time he died. And the guy actually
read him some of the surveillance report, off the computer
screen, over the telephone.
And it's not that big of a secret, apparently, within the
intelligence community. There was a *massive* counter-
intelligence effort going on regarding Foster. It apparently
began just after the '92 election, but before the inauguration in
January '93. And for about the 6 months until he died, Foster was
under pretty intense surveillance.
There's a French intelligence newsletter which has also
corroborated the fact that Foster was under counter-intelligence
surveillance at the time he died. There's, Sarah McClendon has
written about it. (She's an old "war horse" Washington
correspondent.)
But the story is just *too*... It's like the media cannot deal
with this. And ultimately I think the media will be on trial as
much as the government for not dealing with this story. Instead,
we've got Media Bypass, we've got talk radio... And the Internet
has actually become a rather successful outlet for this stuff.
And in fact, it's amazing: it has brought a whole bunch of other
people out of the woodwork, talking about this, including a lot
of very literate computer people, financial people.
And I know, particularly, a former Wharton finance professor,
Orlin Grabbe, who has posted a series of his own rather revealing
exposes' on this stuff. [CN -- Archived at ftp.shout.net
pub/users/bigred/og] He, after leaving Wharton, started his own
software company, making software for pricing derivatives. And
the intelligence community came to *him*! And said, "Hey. Can we
use your company to help spy on brokerage houses and banks too?
We want some way to insinuate our people into these computer
rooms." That's what sent *him* up the wall. He said, "Holy
smokes, we're dealin' with the Surveillance State here." And I
think he became a renegade ever since.
Particularly, I think he's also angry about the government's
tirade here on money laundering: it's used, basically, as a tax
raising measure. I mean, they want to go after every little guy
for any kind of cash transaction. But we have, you know, what is
so outrageous about this is, you have a two-tier system: you have
rampant money laundering, drug dealing and kickbacks for the
privileged elite; and you have the government's boot on the neck
of everybody else.
So there's significant grass-roots rage brewing over all this
stuff, and it's gonna find an outlet somehow or other -- even if
it's just WBAI, you and me!
DR. MICHIO KAKU:
O.K. Well, let's hope it gets beyond WBAI.
CALLER #5:
It's obvious that Iran-Contra never stopped. But my question is,
driving along the interstate I noticed that "Next Six Exits, the
NSA." *Who* are the people at the top of the NSA? Who runs the
NSA? Who are they, where do they come from, and how far-reaching
is their power?
JAMES NORMAN:
That's a good question. You call up Washington and they say,
"NSA? 'No Such Agency.'" That's their nickname.
It's a *huge* bureaucracy. It's based at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Their budget is bigger than the CIA and the FBI combined. Their
job was originally signal surveillance.
CALLER #5:
Do we know who the people are, though?
JAMES NORMAN:
When you look it up... I tried to find out, actually, "Who runs
the NSA?" They have a list in this two-inch-thick book on federal
offices I've got. *They* merit about a two-inch thing that only
has about six names associated with it. And I forget the top
guy's name there. I think he's an Admiral who's on assignment to
the NSA.
CALLER #5:
But aren't G.E. and Westinghouse and all the networks part of it?
JAMES NORMAN:
Well... Of course the government contracts out vast amounts of
work to other countries. But the NSA, for sure, they do a lot of
their work through "cut-outs" -- front companies. In fact, that's
what this Systematics was -- which is now called ALLTEL
Information Systems. (The CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of which
just retired, mysteriously, at age 56, last week, and announced
plans to go spend more time with his family.) That thing is about
to blow up, because I think Systematics, in addition to helping
the NSA plant "bugged" software in foreign banks, Systematics
also functioned, I'm told (and this is corroborated by various
*good* intelligence sources), for many years they functioned as
sort of a "cyber bank" for covert funds.
CALLER #5:
What part did the major corporations play?
JAMES NORMAN:
Well... Let's put it this way: one of Inslaw's partners was AT&T.
IBM was involved in this too. Apparently IBM does *lots* of
business with the government and there's... I'm told, one of the
applications of this PROMIS software is it was customized to
track submarine sounds -- maritime sounds -- catalog the stuff,
develop files on foreign ships... IBM was a prime contractor on
that system.
[...contention for who will speak...]
CALLER #5:
Ed Meese and Nichols had actually taken away from the owner, and
that's who this [unclear] sueing.
JAMES NORMAN:
Well, Inslaw is sueing the Justice Department for damages.
CALLER #5:
'Cuz the owner was a competitor with Nichols, who was a friend of
Ed Meese. [CN -- Meese was Attorney General under President
Reagan.] When they got to power, that was the deal: to try to get
it away from him. Nichols, who worked for Wackenhut...
JAMES NORMAN:
Robert Booth Nichols, I think you're talkin' about, right?
CALLER #5:
And he was a friend of Ed Meese. And he was competing to put this
system in for tracking criminals in Los Angeles. I believe the
guy's name was "Campbell" or something like that, the one with
the Inslaw...
JAMES NORMAN:
Bill Hamilton and his wife own Inslaw...
CALLER #5:
Hamilton! *That's* it.
JAMES NORMAN:
They... What happened was, the government was desperate to get
hold of that source code so they could customize it and *re-sell*
it, with the profits going into private pockets. Like cronies of
Ed Meese. Particularly, there's a guy named Earl Brian who has
this company called Hadron... Infotechnology. He owned UPI
[United Press International] for awhile... He's actually under
indictment in L.A. right now. He was [unclear] SEC [Securities
and Exchange Commission] charges for financial manipulation.
This stuff got customized and sold all over the place. *Robert*
*Maxwell* was re-selling it, on behalf of the Israelis. Again:
the object was to get this software planted into foreign
intelligence agencies and particularly into foreign banks. It was
basically a version of this software that went into Guatemala.
Maxwell's front company sold this software to Guatemala, and
basically it was used to help assassinate 30,000 civilians down
there: catalogue 'em and find out who is an "enemy of the state"
and...
CALLER #5:
We of the WBAI audience are quite familiar with this. But I'm
much more interested in the players with the NSA who I think are
really running the country.
JAMES NORMAN:
I think you're right. I *wish* I knew who the bad guys were.
DR. MICHIO KAKU:
Let me also say, for those of you who tuned in: the NSA [National
Security Agency] is a very large organization whose budget is
reputed to be something on the order of 10 times the size of the
CIA budget. And they're, historically, involved with surveilling
the Soviet Union. The CIA was mainly interested in spies on the
ground and analyzing information. However it takes an enormous
body simply to monitor what was happening in the Soviet Union at
the height of the Cold War, and that's where the NSA was set up.
It's basically a surveillance organization.
However, many people claim that it has since taken a life of its
own and it is also part of some kind of secret government.
JAMES NORMAN:
The CIA reports directly to the President. It's a civilian
entity. The NSA reports to the Director of Central Intelligence
*through* *the* *Pentagon*. It's essentially a military function.
And, in fact, it was made up of various elements of the Army, Air
Force and Navy; their intelligence, signal gathering entities
ultimately became NSA-type entities.
NSA is also responsible for all of the government's activity in
terms of encryption. And they're the guys who are behind all the
Clipper chip and all that other kind of stuff.
There's a healthy debate goin' on about this stuff. Everybody
needs to talk about it.
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