From: "J. Orlin Grabbe" <kalliste@aci.

net>
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Webb Hubbell and Big Brother (WHODB)
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 23:52:18 -0800
Message-ID: <32EB0D32.6109@aci.net>

6
Webb Hubbell and Big Brother (WHODB)

by J. Orlin Grabbe

The role of Webb Hubbell in the
creation of the White House "Big
Brother" software system (WHODB, for
White House Office Data Base) is not
well known. Big Brother, you will
recall, is used to manage Bill
Clinton's master "Christmas card" list
by which he keeps track of White House
visitors, friends, Democratic party
donors, and political enemies.

In a nutshell: it's used to manage
the money, the votes, and the dirt.

When a copy of Big Brother was
downloaded by the Fifth Column, it was
found to contain 2045 FBI files (and
some IRS files), mostly of Republicans
but also of some Democrats. A complete
list of the FBI files were provided to
a House committee and to several
senators. Many of the individuals
whose FBI files were pulled are named
in a Clinton White House "hit list,"
conveniently recorded in Big Brother.

Much of the current information on
the funding scandals of the Democratic
National Committee came to light
because the donors, and donation
amounts, were contained in the
downloaded copy of WHODB. The presence
of Democrat donation information shows
there was never, at any time, a
separation between Clinton's personal
re-election campaign, and the fund-
raising activities of the Democratic
National Committee.

Well, the Big Brother saga
continues, and the story contains all
the essential computer-and-dagger story
ingredients. We begin with ex-CIA agent
Michael Riconosciuto, imprisoned in
Florida, who recently told the German
magazine Der Spiegel that a German
company, Software AG, was converting a
version of the PROMIS software to run
on mainframe computers.

To put this revelation in context,
recall that a GAO report had criticized
WHODB for having an inactivated audit
trail. This was understandable given
that it was running in Windows NT. The
conversion to a different computer
environment was therefore justified by
the GAO request for an audit trail.

The original White House office
record-keeping system had been set in
motion with a $20 million contract made
with Planning Research Corp. in 1992,
the last year of the Bush
administration. The contract was for
five years, ending in 1997. Notably,
however, the Clinton White House
apparently concealed the WHODB
procurement-related activities from the
GAO when GAO probed Executive Office of
the President procurement in 1993.

Planning Research Corp. had
previously produced the TEC II system
for Customs. The TEC II system was
derived from PROMIS, according to an
affidavit given to Inslaw, Inc.

Planning Research Corp. kept the
WHODB general maintenance contract for
itself, and farmed out the rest of the
work to three companies: Pulsar Data
Systems, Subsystems Tech Inc., and
Integrated Data Systems. Integrated
Data did the schematics for setting up
WHODB for its intended purposes, while
Pulsar Data Systems supplied the actual
software.

WHODB was set up to also provide
access to other data bases, such as
those of the Secret Service and FinCEN.
WHODB can log onto the FBI computer,
but the FBI system contains a block
preventing any direct White House
access to its files. To get an FBI
file, the White House must submit a
"request" in the front end of the FBI
system. A designated FBI employee then
looks at the request, and uploads the
appropriate file directly into WHODB.
(No White House request for FBI files
has been denied.) No paper records are
normally involved in this transfer. If
a White House Craig Livingstone-type
wants a hard copy of someone's FBI
file, he hits the print button and
produces one on a White House laser
printer.

What was the true role of Pulsar
Data Systems in creating WHODB? This
question arises because it is common
gossip and common knowledge that
Jackson Stephens provided Bill Clinton
with the Big Brother system. Moreover,
the software provided by Pulsar Data
Systems contained a "back door" often
found in software provided by Jackson
Stephens' software firm Systematics.
This back door is present in many
systems based on PROMIS (including, for
example, software used in Goldman
Sachs' London office). It is evident
that Systematics (now Alltel
Information Services) in some sense
provided the basic program which Pulsar
Data Systems may have modified.
Systematics has been a major supplier
of banking software, and the recipient
of numerous NSA contracts. Systematics
was represented at the Rose Law Firm by
Vince Foster, Webb Hubbell, and Hillary
Rodham Clinton.

In short, the WHODB is based on
PROMIS, and bears a definite connection
to Jackson Stephens. Thus it will come
as no surprise to find Stephens'
associates involved in the WHODB
conversion.

When alerted by Michael
Riconosciuto about PROMIS being ported
to a mainframe environment, Der Spiegel
made inquiries at the headquarters
office of Software AG in Darmstadt,
Germany. That office, in turn, passed
the question to Software AG Americas in
Reston, Virginia, who reported back
that, yes, they were involved in
rewriting PROMIS to use Software AG's
ADABAS data management system and its
NATURAL client/server application
development product.

The Reston office declined to name
the client for whom the work was being
done, but suggested inquiries be
directed to the "U.S. Secret Service".
All this lead observers to conclude
that the PROMIS system being ported was
in fact WHODB.

The Clinton White House was irate
that the information had leaked out,
and subsequently fired a Secret Service
Agent named David Butler, who worked in
Internal Affairs, holding him
responsible for the leak. (His role is
not clear, but it apparently involved
the transmission of an email message
that was considered excessively
revelatory.)

The software conversion is said to
be taking place not at Software AG's
Reston office, but rather at the Reston
office of The Analytical Sciences
Corporation (TASC). Why is not clear,
but a plausible assumption is TASC is
also involved in the conversion.

Various names have been reported
to me as having something to do with
the conversion project. These include
Harry Wexler of Boston Systematics
(whose daughter is a Forbes Senior
Editor) and David Pearson. Two other
people said to be floating about are
David Blake and Frank Grier, who are
described as "rubber ducks" for Jackson
Stephens and Bill Clinton. A source
reports that Frank Grier was recently
seen meeting with spy-handler Rafi
Eitan (the same individual who ran the
Jonathan Pollard spying operation).

Webb Hubbell has floated in and
out of the INSLAW affair for some time,
because of his association with Jackson
Stephens and Systematics. Let's back
up a bit in time.

In the 1980s when Earl Brian made
an attempt to buy out Inslaw, the money
was to be provided through the
investment banking firm of Allen & Co.
Sources indicate that half of this
money was to be provided by Robert
Maxwell, while the other half was to be
provided by Jackson Stephens via Web
Hubbell.

Later, when the Clinton
administration appointed Webb Hubbell
to the Justice Department, Hubbell was
placed in charge of issues pertaining
to the on-going litigation between the
Justice Department and Inslaw, Inc.
Hubbell authorized a source code
comparison between the PROMIS software
and the FBI's FOIMS system, one of the
systems Inslaw claimed was an illegal
appropriation of its intellectual
property.

A previous comparison had been
assigned to Dorothy Denning, Chair of
the Computer Science Department of
Georgetown University. Denning is well-
known for her support of the Clipper
Chip proposal, and her general advocacy
of GAK--government access to private
cryptographic keys. (See, for example,
Dorothy Denning, "The Future of
Cryptography," Internet Security
Review, October 1995.) Denning,
however, said such a comparison "would
be a waste of her time and the
government's money."

Because it is extremely
difficult to convert
software that runs one
application into software
that runs an entirely
different application, the
differences in just the
FOIMS and PROMIS application
domains show almost
conclusively that FOIMS was
not derived from PROMIS.
("Analysis of FOIMS and
PROMIS," by Dorothy E.
Denning, January 10, 1993.)

Webb Hubbell decided that this
conclusion (which doesn't appear to
make much sense in the first place)
needed shoring up, and brought in
Randall Davis of the MIT Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory. Davis had done
work at the Laboratory for the Clinton-
Gore campaign. He proceeded to compare
a 1978 version of FOIMS with a 1983
version of PROMIS, and wisely concluded
the former was not derived from the
latter.

That someone from the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Lab was used to
make the code comparison may, outside
the obvious political connections to
ensure the "right" conclusion from the
point of view of the Justice
Department, be coincidental. However,
a man named Barry Comnick, who once
worked at Systematics, has been
identified as having integrated some
aspects of artificial intelligence with
PROMIS. The result was called SMART--
Special Management Artificial Reasoning
Tool.

Comnick was one of dozens of
individuals that "Octopus"-researcher
Danny Casolaro was in communication
with at the time of Casolaro's death.

A contract made between Webb
Hubbell and the Indonesian Lippo Group,
after Hubbell left the Justice
Department, has been the subject of
much recent speculation as to its
purpose and dollar amount. The contract
appears to be a pay-off made to Hubbell
to ensure his silence, as it involves a
$500,000 payment to Hubbell for
unspecified "legal services." What is
not common knowledge is that Jackson
Stephens is also a party to the
contract, according to Charles Hayes
who turned a copy of the contract over
to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

January 25, 1997
Web Page: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/