Arkansas' Inslaw Spy Software Stolen By Israel Is Model For Pegasus That Tracked Kashoggi,Killed Clinton's Vince Foster?
Israel spyware used to target colleagues of murdered Mexico journalist
Middle East Monitor-Nov 28, 2018
Colleagues of Valdez are alleged to have been targeted by the Mexican government using the Israeli software to turn their phones into a
Sep 5, 2018 - According to one of Mr. Kavanaugh's sources, Mr. Foster had been ... was being blackmailed by the Israelis over a secret Swiss bank account.
Sep 24, 1996 - During the Clinton administration, allegations of politicization have ... Inslaw's principal asset is a highly sophisticated software program called PROMIS, a computer ... Following the death of Casolaro, Inslaw Attorney Elliot Richardson ... Vince Foster apparently were linked to both Iran-Contra and Inslaw
The possible motive for the murder of Hillary Clinton's friend Vince Foster and ... QUINN: Now this software, which was originally called Promis, was stolen from a .... What is, how did Hillary Clinton and the Israeli Mossad and all of this come .
https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/03/12/2018/Saudi-friend-of-Khashoggi-sues-Israeli-surveillance-company
Saudi friend of Khashoggi sues Israeli surveillance company
03 Dec 2018 - 13:59
JERUSALEM: A Saudi dissident has filed a lawsuit against an Israeli surveillance company, claiming its sophisticated spyware targeted him and helped lead to the killing of his friend, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The suit, filed in a Tel Aviv court on Sunday, follows others previously filed against the company. But because of the dissident's ties to Khashoggi and his high-profile killing Oct. 2 at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, it is likely to shine a greater spotlight on the Israeli company and the Israeli government, which licenses the export of the surveillance technology.
According to the lawsuit, Omar Abdulaziz, a sharp critic on social media of the Saudi royals and a resident of Canada where he has received asylum, said he was friends with Khashoggi and worked with him on a project meant to rein in pro-monarchy Saudi trolls.
The lawsuit says Abdulaziz received and clicked on a link sent to his phone in June 2018 that he argues exposed his mobile communications to Saudi authorities. It says Abdulaziz faced increased harassment by Saudi authorities after he clicked on the link, including against his family members in Saudi Arabia.
"The spying that was directed against (Abdulaziz) and the disclosure of the content of the conversations and messages between him and Khashoggi through the system contributed in a tangible way to the decision to assassinate Mr. Khashoggi by the assassins at the consulate," the lawsuit states, citing news reports and other sources claiming that NSO Group sold Saudi Arabia the technology in 2017 for $55 million.
Abdulaziz is demanding 600,000 shekels - about $160,000 - in damages from the company, as well as an order preventing it from selling its technology, known as "Pegasus," to Saudi Arabia.
In a written statement, NSO Group said the company's technology "enables governments and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime." It said it takes "an extremely scrupulous" approach to the sale of its products, which also undergo vetting and licensing by Israel's defense ministry.
"We do not tolerate misuse of our products. If there is suspicion of misuse, we investigate it and take the appropriate actions, including suspending or terminating a contract," it said.
NSO has been under the spotlight for months after dissidents, journalists and other opposition figures have come forward to claim the company's technology has been used by repressive governments to spy on them.
These include Mexican journalists who have already filed lawsuits against the company and an Amnesty International employee who was allegedly targeted by the software.
The new suit comes days after the human rights group said it was considering legal steps to have NSO Group's export license revoked. It said it had made an urgent request to Israel's defense ministry to have the company's export license revoked following the targeting of one of its employees. It said the request was denied.
"We thoroughly reject this inadequate response. The mountain of evidence and reports on NSO Group and the sale of its spyware to human rights-violating regimes is substantial proof that NSO has gone rogue," said Molly Malekar, programs director of Amnesty International Israel.
By continuing to approve of NSO, she added, Israel's defense ministry is practically admitting to knowingly cooperating with a company whose "software is used to commit human rights abuses."
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https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/oct/12/promis-israel/
Justice Department records confirm PROMIS scandal’s ties to Israel
Recently released memos lend credence to theory the controversial software was given to spymaster Rafi Eitan
Edited by JPat Brown
Justice Department documents recently released by the National Archivesconfirm what some Inslaw witnesses have been saying for decades: that a copy of PROMIS software was given to Israel.
Previous records and admissions acknowledged the fact that the software was given to Israel while insisting that it wasn’t delivered to Israeli Spymaster Rafi Eitan but instead went to Dr. Joseph Ben Orr. According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo, however, the man they claim they gave the software to wasn’t in the country at the time. The DOJ later asserted that the records on the two Israelis mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind only a few memos and vague memories. These facts lend a great deal of credence to the statements from Bill Hamilton and others that the phantom Israeli they met was none other than Eitan.
In 1982, two Israelis arrived in the United States and went to the DOJ. According to Bob Roeder, then administrator for the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP), the two went to the OLP as part of a prior arrangement that he was unaware of. Instructions came down from Deputy Attorney General Edward Schmults, the number two man in the DOJ, to hire them as “experts.” They were employed and given a GS-15 salary, the highest tier possible before the “executive level,” which is reserved for the civilian equivalent of military generals.
The search efforts went well beyond this, contacting multiple offices and executives and searching record systems that stretched back decades. DOJ’s bottom line was that “records must have been created re these two because they were on the DOJ payroll. But they can’t be found.”
Hamilton and others have identified Orr as being Eitan. According to Gordon Thomas, Eitan admitted the truth of this to him, per Thomas’ book and his affidavit, though the DOJ continues to deny the allegations. According to Jack Rugh (who was criticized by a federal judge for his role in the PROMIS affair) at the DOJ, he had received instructions from C. Madison “Brick” Brewer to provide a copy of PROMIS to “Dr. Ben Orr, a representative of the Government of Israel.”
The documents suggest that the instruction was issued between April 22nd, 1983 and May 6th, 1983. On the sixth, he declared that he had made a copy of the software and would provide it “to Dr. Orr before he leaves the United States for Israel on May 16th.” On May 12th, Rugh provided a package of PROMIS software and documentation to Brewer who provided it to Orr. When the DOJ interviewed Orr in 1993, however, a crucial fact was revealed: according to his passport, he was out of the country during this period.
The memo this fact was recorded in does not seem to have been provided to the House Judiciary based on the Judiciary’s public report.
Orr had reportedly visited Inslaw in February 1983, when he was still in the country, but the man identified in a photo lineup by Inslaw employees wasn’t Orr - it was Eitan. According to the account published by Wired, Orr had been “impressed with the power of PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information Systems), which had recently been updated by Inslaw to run on powerful 32-bit VAX computers from Digital Equipment Corp.” Yet he never returned and never bought the software. Instead, he received a copy directly from the Justice Department.
When the DOJ reached the real Orr in late 1993, he claimed to still have the tape and seemed to expect it would still be readable. According to one of the DOJ memos, he would be making a trip to the United States in February 1994 and was willing to bring the tape with him. This apparently never happened. A cover sheet dated March 16th instructs Neil MacNeil at the American consulate to give a letter to Orr upon receiving the tape. The attached letter happened to waive any and all claims the DOJ might have against him.
Despite attempts to deny the fact that Rafi Eitan received a copy of PROMIS and to discredit those making the claims, these documents offer the first bit of corroborating evidence from the government that the man who received the copy of PROMIS was in fact the Israeli spymaster.
Read the full release embedded below, or on Archive.org.
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Image via Ronald Reagan National Libra
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/oct/12/promis-israel/
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