November 11, 2022 • 50 mins
How did a little piece of software meant to organize files become the centerpiece of a global conspiracy? In today's episode, the guys dive deep into a twisting, troubled tale of intrigue, spycraft, and murder. They don’t want you to read our book.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Bet. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decans. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. This is deep water, folks, fellow
conspiracy realists. Earlier years ago, your faithful correspondence created a
(00:50):
video related to this topic. We've talked about it in
past episodes as well. Uh. Funny story, Matt, it could
actually be difficult for a casual YouTube browser to find
our Octopus episode about the death of journalists Danny Castelero. Yes,
but I think I got it on like the YouTube
(01:13):
front page. If you go to YouTube slash conspiracy stuff,
it's on a playlist down there, and uh, I'm gonna
make sure it's there by the time you hear this episode. Awesome. Yeah,
we've uh we meaning meaning Matt and partners of ours
are putting in some work to uh to do even
(01:35):
more cool stuff with the YouTube channel. So check that
out after you have checked out the book that we
came out with and left a and left a review
on your review platform of choice, whether that's Amazon, good Reads,
or you know your own thing. And can we just say, um, Ben,
you always say that you're the most important part of
(01:57):
the show, and we all three stand I that absolutely true.
We appreciate all of the feedback and all of the
suggestions episodes, and just for you being you know, part
of the stuff that I want you to know, family,
and uh, it would just mean the world to us
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(02:18):
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So if you want to, uh, if you want to
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(02:39):
be need to talk a crazy relative off a cognitive ledge,
this is the book for you. And if you don't
like it, give it to your enemies. That will show them. Uh.
Speaking of fellow conspiracy realist, let's give a shout out
to Connor, who played a big part in getting this
episode back in the front of our minds. We know
(03:04):
that there are a lot of attempts to bury some
of the information we're going to talk about today. We
want to bring this story again to the forefront of
publicly available discourse. This maybe the first episode in a series.
The rabbit hole just goes too deep. But we will
give you the facts and then we will share with
(03:25):
you the craziness. You can call that a promise that
is going to be one of many terrible puns in
today's show. No E Yes promise, no E P R
O M I S. It's an acronym for a kind
of case management software. I know, snooze fest, but let's
(03:46):
get into it. What is the acronym stand for? Well,
originally it was Project Management Integrated System originally cool, totally
get what that is. Yeah, But the one, the thing
we know it as and the thing we're going to
focus on, is called Prosecutors like prosecutor Prosecutors Management information System. Yeah.
(04:11):
And to understand why this was such a big deal
in the first place, Uh, you have to understand something
that is going to be gonna be so obvious to
many people who have worked in government. So the US government,
despite being the world's most dangerous military and despite having
(04:31):
tons of money to throw at any given problem, the
US government in many ways is pretty archaic. You know.
You will see everything from people still using typewriters to
uh light legacy proprietary systems and no one will change
them just because the expense is too much and people
(04:52):
already know the equipment, etcetera, etcetera. UH. And this is
this can be surprising, you know, because often US in
fiction you will see different government agencies portrayed as uh
using the latest technology, you know what I mean. Like
you watch law enforcement shows like Law and Order, s
(05:14):
VU or something, and their office looks amazing. It's so
well lit, and they've got all these great computers. Everyone's
so good looking. Everyone could be a waiter in Los Angeles.
It's amazing. But that's not the case, and it hasn't
been the case for a long long time, a lot
of times, for decades. Even now, people are dealing with
(05:40):
mountains and trolls of paperwork and data and you have
to check for one thing, and you find yourself looking
for a needle in a Haystack, you don't have good
case management. And that's where a promise came in. In
this sense, cases cases kind of a legal term that
(06:02):
it goes beyond that, and management describes everything that pertains
to a specific case. So Promise has this ability when
it comes out to give a total rundown of all
federal cases. It just hoovers them up any case where
lawyer has been involved, and you can cross check it
with defendants. You can cross check that specific lawyer, that court,
(06:26):
you can see how it all worked out, etcetera, etcetera.
It's really convenient. It's kind of automation, right, and this
is for large government entities. That's a godsend. Uh you're
hearing this now and you might be thinking, okay, yeah,
that's good. It makes people's job easier. What gives what's
the big deal? Well, uh, it get we'll get to that.
(06:48):
It gets weird. We have to introduce something that used
to be a nonprofit the creators of Promise in his law,
which is not a kind of cold slaw, which was
disapplining to me. So in slap, oh gosh, it's hard
to not even say it with that slaw. Let's just
let's try it ins law in his law was originally
(07:08):
an acronym all its own, the Institute of Law and
Social Research. And you know, in general on the show,
what do we usually notice when we have absurdly snoozy,
innocuous names. Okay, we'll leave it to you to decide,
but just from various activity, the various masquerading behind this banality. Uh,
(07:34):
it's nineteen seventy three. The scene is set and there's
this fellow named William A. Hamilton's. Uh, he's trying to
get his shot. It's a different kind of shot though. Hamilton's.
This Hamilton's founded ends law with grants and contracts from
the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. This is what ultimately lead
(07:54):
to promise with with with no E promise it sounds
like eighties man, like like a new age ban or
a new way of band or something. It does kind
of yeah, man, I mean they could even go the
extra step and call it promise with a Z. Nobody
take that idea. That's the best idea we've had this morning.
And well, in this thing that he was he was
(08:15):
creating this software or that Hamilton had an idea to create,
he was trying to bring the d o J the
Department of Justice into a new age where you could
easily find information regarding the cases you have to deal
with it, rather than, like you said, running around and
looking at files and file cabinets, because there were so
many dang file cabinets, like just rooms dedicated ballroom sized
(08:41):
rooms dedicated to files. And hey, now it's in your computer,
or it could be if you use Promise software. Yeah, exactly. This,
So this idea is brilliant, and ins Law is originally
funded as a nonprofit. It starts as nonprofit, comes from
this thing called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which would
(09:06):
provide grants and contracts for this sort of research. Promise
gets designed by Hamilton's and Company in the late nineteen
seventies and eighties, and like you said, Matt, it's bringing
things into the computer age. In spring of one, the
Reagan administration said Promise is one of our greatest assets.
(09:28):
By three, Promise has transformed fundamentally, and ins Law has
also transformed. They're no longer a nonprofit company. They have
these are all just the facts. We're not to the
crazy stuff yet. But they start fighting with the d
(09:49):
o J or they start having what corporate America calls
a healthy conversation because they because in his law made
this promise software for the government with government funding, they
can't claim ownership. They don't have proprietary rights. So when
they go private, they make a new, souped up version
(10:10):
of promise. You know, think of it like compare. I
think it's comparable to um a PS five compared to
a PS two. Right for all the gamers out there.
And the d o J does say, hey, they've got
a good claim to this because they went private and
they made their own thing. But uh medic until they
(10:33):
saw how much it would cost to like license this offer.
Probably you're probably right, and it's no, it's no wonder
like this was crazy good stuff. It's a program that
makes it made it easy to monitor defendants, lawyers, and judges.
But astute observers noticed this same kind of system, the
(10:55):
same kind of approach could help you track terrorists, drugs plers,
human traffickers, political dissidents, and anyone could use it if
they had the program. This set the stage for a
ton of court battles between ins law and the d
o J. And as we'll see, a ton of allegations.
(11:16):
It's a story a lot of people don't talk about
these days. Uh. More and more sources over the years
have alleged that Promise grew way beyond what it was
meant to do, and as it grew, it grew beyond
the law. So what's what's the reason this is on
a show that applies critical thinking to conspiracy theories. Is
(11:40):
it possible that intelligence officials, not just from the US
took this software, souped it up, weaponized it, and use
it to spy on other governments and other legitimate private institutions.
Did they build a back door to the world. Well,
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsored If
(12:02):
we don't get castle Erot, we'll be right back. Here's
where it gets crazy, Okay, So he said, the Hamilton's family,
they're they're fighting with the Department of Justice. What did
the Hamilton's say, Well, the Hamilton's family really did enter
(12:28):
into quite a brutal and nasty, very bitter confrontation over
the software. The Washington Post report at the Hamilton's believe
the government was had it out for them, was trying
to ruin their reputations, ruin their livelihood, take away everything
that they built. Um, they believe the promise was getting
wrapped up in some sort of global network of foreign
(12:50):
and domestic intelligence agencies, which we're using it to spy
on other institutions. Um. They also believe there was a
genuine spiracy happening, one that would eventually lead to the
death of the journalists that you mentioned, Ben, Danny Castelaro,
Can we pause here for a moment and just talk
(13:10):
about the potential What could a state actor use this
software for? Right, And we're talking about spying. So it's
collecting the data in this case in the United States
for the Department of Justice. That's a lot of information. Right.
That's people who are who have cases against them, that's
people who are prosecuting those cases. That's everybody involved in
(13:31):
the process. I'm assuming it's a ton of documentation on
each one of those cases, on individuals and you know,
companies and agencies, government agencies. Uh. If that software was available,
let's say in a different country, Uh, let's just throw
it out there, like Iran in this time. Right. If
Iran had this software and they were using it for
(13:54):
their own judicial system in their Department of Justice, and
then the US or somebody else had a back door
into that system, they could see everything that was happening
at the law's highest echelons in that country echelon, oh echelon.
But I mean that could be a serious weapon for
an intelligence agency or for just a country's external security services. Yeah,
(14:21):
the potential is there. There's also given that visibility, there's
also the ability to make a hefty profit in and
off the book's way. Like so another I was trying
to think of a good comparison, right, because most people
listening to this show are not high level state intelligence
(14:43):
entities nor global financial institutions. So imagine it this way. Um,
imagine you know, like a phone is a terrible example.
Imagine you have a car. You need a key for
your car, and there are only one or two come
Benese that make car keys, right, so you buy from
them so you don't have to build your own car
(15:05):
key company. And then later you find out that this
manufacturer of keys has put a little thing into your
key that lets them know every time you take your
car somewhere where it goes, what speed you're at, what
you know your latitude and longitude are. And also it
(15:26):
can remotely start the car when you're not around. Stuff
like that, and that that sounds very sci fi, but
that's essentially the allegation regarding Promise. It's a backdoor into
the world, and it's under the guise of, hey, here's
a convenient way to collect all your stuff. You know,
we'll make us breadsheet for you while we learn everything
(15:49):
you want to keep secret. And the concept here, at
least from the perspective of ins law, is that the
US government in some capacity and or maybe other governments
have created that back door, like that's what they're saying,
right And Danny Castilero, as we've established in other episodes
and videos, Danny Castilero was a journalist and writer who
(16:12):
was found dead in West Virginia. His wrist have been
slashed tend to twelve times, is officially ruled a suicide.
Many people have challenged that official conclusion because he was
working on a story that he called the Octopus and
(16:34):
check out check out our previous work on that it
is a doozy. As a matter of fact, Promise is
a doozy. The Hamilton's claimed the software was stolen and
Danny was allegedly going to meet a source about the Octopus.
By the way, can I just say ten to twelve times.
How do you explain ten to twelve slashes being self inflicted? Yeah,
(16:56):
there are a lot of questions if you look at
the circumstance, as Castolero did appear to leave a suicide note,
there was no sign of forced entry nor struggled. There
was also the presence of alcohol in the hotel room
where it was found, and police, uh police and the
medical examiners there in Martinsburg did conclude it was a suicide.
(17:19):
But people think it was close to connecting a lot
of dots about Promise and how it was seated throughout
the world, the claim that the Hamilton's have or you know,
if you believe some of the other narratives out there
are still all alleged, then they will say that this
stuff was taken by the d o J the new
(17:41):
version of Promise, and a guy named Earl Bryan, who
was an envoy to Iran under the Reagan and then
the hw Bush administration weaponized it or oversaw it being
bugged to create that backdoor. They started selling it to
(18:01):
all sorts of folks. Another person the Hamilton's and various
journalists alleged was involved with this theft is a guy
named Rafi Etat, who was at the time the director
of the Israeli intelligence agency La Him or l A
K E. M. So the ideas they distributed this stuff
(18:25):
after they took it two allies to enemies alike throughout
the world via different proxies, sometimes direct, you know, and
then sometimes not so direct. And this had what's called
sig and signals intelligence surveillance technology that US and Israeli
(18:46):
intelligence services could access in a way that didn't allow
them to be caught. You wouldn't It would be very
difficult for you to know that someone was sneaking in
through the kitchen window essentially. And we say US and
Israeli because those are the two intelligence organizations that are
most often accused of this. Again, a lot of this
(19:09):
is alleged, but we are going to talk about some
connections here, some strange connections that it was Connor that
brought them to to my eyes at least, I think
to everybody here, right, Connor Connor made me aware of
the situation regarding a lot of the Israeli intelligence information.
And it's do can we shout out? Is it okay
(19:30):
if we shout out muck rock? Oh? Yeah, of course, Yeah,
muck Rock and the excellent work by the journalist Emma
north Best. Yeah, muck Rock is a really interesting model.
We were talking about this off air. Oh yeah, it's
super cool. I I didn't know much about it. We've
looked at muck Rock articles before because it's one of
the best places to find like the government documents through
(19:52):
FOIA requests, because the website is just it's filled with them.
And this person, Emma Northwest, found so many documents regarding
the Promise software and Insulaw affair and Danny Cassolero. So
kudos to you if you're out there listening. M a
nice work. Yeah, a lot got in the trenches on
(20:13):
the foias, you know, the Freedom of Information Act request
and we looked at this, we looked at the work
of other authors and journalists and here's the primary narrative
or the private primary allegations. So this theft and this
con job is apparently done through a company that Earl
(20:35):
Brian controls company named Hadron, and another company called Systematics Inc.
Again kind of an innoguous name, suspiciously so uh, Systematics Inc.
Is run by a guy named Jackson Stevens. And there's
another company called deag him. We're not native speakers here,
(20:55):
but that's spelled d E g e M. It is
run by guy named Robert Maxwell, who was famous in
the conspiracy world for several things, for being the father
of Galaine, Maxwell, for being heavily linked to Massad and
uh spycraft excuse me, tradecraft, and also being a media mogul,
(21:19):
and for the very suspicious circumstances surrounding his untimely death.
He's got a lot going on. He's got a lot,
He's got a lot, and he is an episode of
his own. Basically, what we're doing here is we're kind
of going down a rabbit hole, but it's like a
a rabbit hole with a lot of capillary holes associated,
(21:40):
so we're walking by a lot of other rabbit holes. Yeah, yeah,
Just so that's why we're saying this might be uh
the beginning of a series, you know. As a matter
of fact, I hope no way it takes this idea.
I want to do a long form show on this.
I just might have to. I'm into it too deep
for the war is we're gonna exercise these demons? Yes, yes,
(22:04):
there we go. Let's rope them in as well. Let's
Rope in ed Lorraine. So there were other companies involved
with this theft and the illegal selling of this software. Uh.
There was a letter sent to a guy named William F. Weld,
(22:25):
who was the United States Assistant Attorney General for the
Criminal Division, and they said, look, the people who at
this letter said, look, this stuff is going wild. It's
been sold to some folks. Uh, and you might not
want these folks having these capabilities. One of the one
(22:46):
of the most notorious alleged um recipients of promise. It's
a guy named Khalid bin Muffles, who was his past
now died in two thousand nine, a Saudi Arabian billionaire
and former chairman of the National Commercial Bank. Uh. This
(23:07):
dude powerful man in the world of finance. Do we
even bring up? Uh, what's his name? Maxwell allegedly had
ties to the Soviet Union as well Business times. M Yes,
come on all of these time. Okay, okay, all right,
all right, I'm gonna confuse everybody. I do apologize. I
didn't mean to take it back to Maxwell. It's just
(23:28):
as we're all noting here, this does get really confusing,
and you may have to, you know, do that old
back fifteen seconds thing a couple of times. But don't worry.
That's okay, You're all the information is going to be
in here. M hmm. Yeah. And honestly, I think you
have to. But if if this becomes a long form
podcast just on this, you know, like if they're a
(23:49):
dozen episodes and whatever, even just eight, we could probably
do it in eight. Then it's gonna need to have
a play along at home board, you know, so we
could all map this together. I am so not kidding.
This should be done. Let's write another book first, they
(24:09):
then release the podcast, so you have both together while
you I like to play along at home things help
to do more of that. Uh So you see, al righty,
this is getting This is getting dirty, folks. And to
be completely candid, I want to be careful how I
say this. In general, it is surprising how past a
(24:32):
certain threshold right of prestige, past a certain level of
rarefied air, things like intelligence agencies and spying, and the
world of finance and private industry and the world of government,
they all start to meld together. It really is. You know,
we've used this example so many times in the past,
(24:53):
but someone's just holding up one finger or two fingers
and you can't see the rest of the frame. They
look like two separate entities, but if you draw back
you see the whole hand. Right. They're being sold as
separate things to you the public, but behind closed doors,
you'd be surprised how much of a vent diagram there is.
(25:16):
I think we all are and have been continually. So
then if this promise software does what it's purported to do, right,
have that backdoor into other countries judicial and intelligence systems.
That's one thing that's powerful, right, and that would be
a tool for an intelligence agency or you know, a
government to use and utilize. And you can see that
(25:38):
if if it can really do that, that's perfect motivation.
But another motivation that could exist here is money, right, Yeah, yeah,
Brian Earl. Brian, the story goes, was out to make
a profit from this, right, and some of this money
could also be funneled into off the book's projects, stuff
(26:00):
like the Iran Contra scandal. That's another huge allegation there. Uh.
The idea was that the n s A and other
intelligence agencies could steal other countries secrets, and if they
were the operators of this, if they were sloppy or unethical,
then they could go sell those secrets somewhere else, right,
(26:22):
do a quid pro quo intelligence trade, or just say hey,
give me some money and I'll tell you. You You know
x Y and z uh Maxwell. Robert Maxwell, according to
the allegations again sold more than maybe more than half
a billion dollars off these bootleg copies of Promise and
(26:45):
we get to now we get to the land of
like sworn Affidavit's how much do you believe these people
who are claiming firsthand knowledge of this. There's a book
by a guy named Gordon Thomas. It's called Gideon's Spies,
The Secret History of Massaud. This is an authorized history
of Massaud as well, So that's that's very important. It's
(27:06):
not made as a hit piece. The intelligence Agency Massade
signed off on the publication in two thousand and This
is where they talk about rafi Aton, his disclosures regarding
Earl Brian, regarding what went down with Promise in slaw
also release their own kind of Charlie Day conspiracy board compilation.
(27:32):
And I don't want to sound dismissive. They what they
did is they connected a ton of dots. This is
a memo that's forty five pages long, and it really
appears to corroborate some big parts of the of the
overall narrative if it's true, if it was what was
going on, there are I mean, there are just a
ton of dots and it would maybe look a bit
(27:54):
nuts if you put it all together and laid it
out in a forty five page document, which is not
great for law because they don't hate look great either way. Yeah,
I mean, let's let's talk maybe a little bit about
how the theft allegedly occurred. So there's Bill Hamilton's and
(28:14):
there's a guy named Dean Meryl who was vice president
of Inns Law for a time, and they they had
a weird um true crime moment. They were identifying some
photographs and they claimed they had been visited by a
man calling himself Dr Ben or that's the last name,
be Ben dash O r Rh. It's a last name.
(28:40):
He can't you know, anything goes when its last names,
Like when you meet a Frederick or a fred you know,
I wish to see the face mets making. So. Uh
So this guy claims to be a prosecutor from the
Nation of Israel and says, hey, I'm really impressed with promise,
(29:03):
especially this new souped up thirty two bit version you have.
But this guy doesn't buy anything that day. He never
comes back, and no one knows why at the time.
Like if you've ever worked in sales, whether you're selling
cars or computers, you know, sometimes people walk in, they
look around, and then they leave. You know, they might
(29:26):
come back, they might not. So that's what they're thinking. Uh,
until later this all lines up because they recognize a
second guy from a photograph and he looks like or
but that's not the name he's identified by when they
see this photograph. It's a ruff eaton. Remember the guy
(29:49):
in charge of this Israeli intelligence services, isn't that fun? Yeah?
He was in charge of these Reeli Defense Forces Anti
terrorism intelligence unit. Yeah, so you know, uh getting information
on terrorist activities and uh attempting to prevent those sorts
(30:09):
of activities from taking place. Right. Anti terrorism units are
all about prediction and prevention ideally, And the d o
J apparently sends him over to look at this property
that the ens law folks say they're planning to steal.
(30:30):
They think d o J factions are already planning to
do a heist on this and Utah and apparently likes
what he sees. We do know that d o J
documents record someone calling themselves Dr Ben Or leaving the
Department of Justice on May six with a copy of
(30:51):
promise on his person on a computer tape. Remember right, right,
right right no USBs. So, according to federal court documents,
promise was actually stolen uh from inslaw Um by the
Department of Justice directly after Eton's nineteen three visits to
(31:13):
inns law Um. The later Congressional investigation preferred to use
the word misappropriated. It's a fun one, um spend much anybody, uh,
And according to sworn Affid, David's promise was then given
or sold at a profit to Israel and as many
(31:34):
as eighty other countries by Dr Earl W. Bryan, a
man with very close personal ties in business too, then
President Ronald Reagan and then Presidential counsel Edwin mee Man.
(31:55):
Rabbit Holes upon rabbit holes. Well, yeah, and unless you
think we're just pulling this from random weird websites or
someone just writing about this having an opinion, this comes
from Wired, right Ben. Yeah, Yeah, this there's uh, there's
a great series of articles by the journalist Richard L. Fricker,
(32:15):
you can find well. One of the articles is the
in slaw Octopus. This is from So again, the story
doesn't get a lot of scrutiny in the public eye,
but it's important to know that there are people who
have gone into the trenches deep to figure this stuff
(32:35):
out with Foy your request with interviews, even when the
sources themselves are saying, here's what I know what happened.
I may not be able to prove it to your satisfaction.
So yeah, in New York Times is writing about this
as well. Why don't we take a quick break here
from sponsor, come back and just talk more about the
(32:57):
more recent reporting on this stuff, people who have been
looking into it, and we're back. So, as we said,
people have been connecting some troubling dots and making some
serious allegations, linking promise to everything from the Iran contrast
(33:17):
scandal to terroristic activities you name it, right up to
including Epstein activities. By the way, where did his money
come from? Right? And there's one book that got a
great right up in the New York Times called The
Eye of Washington. It's published by It was written by
(33:37):
two French investigative journalists, and they claim that Promise was
stolen and that the US Justice Department created a conspiracy.
They conspired to pull a wide scale cover up of
what happened. And they further alleged that this went past
(33:58):
you know, political lines. This went past you know, um
Reagan Republicanism, past Clinton Democrats stuff. The New York Times
put it this way. They're quoting one of the authors,
Fabrizio Calvy. Quote. According to Calvi, the real news in
his book is the revelation that the National Security Administration
(34:22):
the n s A has been seeding computers abroad with
Promise embedded smart chips smart standing for systems management automated
reasoning tools. Their code named Petrie p E t r
i E. They're capable of covertly downloading data and transmitting
it using electrical wiring as an antenna to U S
(34:45):
intelligence satellites. What hence the book's cover blurb quote, the
vastest espionage operation of this end of the century. Who
bold claim, but seemingly accurate given what we already know
just thus far. Well, I mean, think about that concept.
(35:07):
D n s A is giving these chips out, the
smart chips that can do this transmitting to a satellite
just from the chip itself. That's nuts, yeah, nuts and bananas,
and it goes, it goes further. We have to remember
this is also during the heavy days of the Cold War,
(35:28):
and you were called we earlier said that the US
and various US factions aren't always selling this openly, as
in they're not always being identified as the source. Instead,
they're going through proxies. So if you want to put
your ears on your geo political nemesis, the Soviet Union,
(35:51):
you can't come to them. And you're like, hey, guys,
this is me Johnny blue Jeans from the CIA. You
want to buy some chips? I love I love that
concept though, just like, hey, we've got chips. They're cheap
and they're smart, we have an acronym and everything. You
guys are going, this one's a spicy chip. Well yeah,
(36:12):
So so what you do is you go you get
a company, a third party company to do it that
doesn't seem to be connected to you in any way. Yep.
And that's where Robert Maxwell, who was so extra, as
we said, shows up in this story again. He is
allegedly the liaison for the US to sell a bugged
(36:33):
version of promise to the Soviet government. And according to
this this book from these authors, uh Israel knew about this,
and their knowledge about this was something that they used
to leverage the US to pressure the US two stop
(36:53):
shipping arms to Iraq before the Gulf War. They said, look,
if you if we can't get on the same page
about this Johnny Blue jeans, then we're gonna tell the
Russians that we know all about your precious back door. Uh.
The U S, as history would prove, called that bluff
(37:15):
to their detriment. Uh. And they quote people here, there's
another guy named Ari ben manashe Uh, this is um.
This guy could also be his own episode. Frequently. He
told these authors that in the Soviets did get worried
about what was going down, and they shut down all
(37:38):
of the computers and the g r U that's the
Soviets by agency at the time, for an entire week.
They said, we're bugged, you know, shut it down. What
else could you do? You know, especially if you don't
exactly know how everything works, You just know that there's
there's some holes right your cheddar cheese all of a
(38:00):
sudden looking a lot like Swiss. Sorry for the food things.
I'm Hungry Friday International Sandwich tape. By the way, it's
it's always you guys. There's a firehouse subs down the
road for me now, and I cannot wait. I'm gonna
(38:20):
do that right after this. I have a Jersey Mix
waiting for me. Wend exit the session. I know we
have to do meetings and stuff after this, but I
might just take a stroll as well. Uh, this episode
is not brought to you by quiz Nos, but oh
how we wish it was. Uh, they're just sandwiches in general.
(38:40):
Let's just get the concept of sandwiches still exist. I
don't know, I don't know, weird little little monster things
that were in the quiz Nos commercials. You can't do this.
We can't do this right now. There's this is so complicated.
I'm a sandwiches now, Okay, yeah, well just explained the
(39:03):
complicated with Just use more sandwich metaphors please, Okay, yeah, yeah,
I got you all right, So as it can. If
conspiracies are sandwiches promises a dagwood sandwich. You know what
it's like, easily a foot and a half high. It's
got a ton of ingredients and you don't know where
they all come from. Right, So you can't eat it
in one bite. You can't even take a bite. You
gotta eat it like like an elephant, you know, one
(39:25):
piece at a time. Yeah. Yeah, Or it's like one
of those pastrami samp No. No, we're sick with dagwood.
We're not bringing cats into this k A t Z.
So the thing is parts of the U. S Government
agree with these allegations. Remember, governments are rarely monolithic, even
if they appear to be. So there's a lot of
infighting in the North Korean government for instance, right, and
(39:48):
people often think of that as a monolithic thing. Uh.
The Congress of the U S has a problem with this.
House Judiciary Committee releases a report in September. They say
they have found and confirmed evidence raising quote serious concerns
that high level officials at the d o J premeditated.
(40:09):
So they executed a plan that they had thought about
two take promise from this company in Slaw and destroy
the company Inslaw. Inslaw was driven into bankruptcy by the way.
The committee said, we need to have an independent council
on this, and no one paid attention. That's it, that's
(40:31):
I mean that's the head, like why why why would
they just steal this. It's not like it's not like
the government is necessarily hurting for money, right they if
they feel there is a strong enough need, the US
government can and will make it rain. Right, whether we're
talking weapons, whether we're talking propaganda, whether we're talking about
(40:53):
cool hard cash, they will do it. But it's weird
because I'm trying to imagine that that kind of spending
being on the books, right, somebody's gonna know about that spending, uh,
in a report somewhere. If you could find a way
to generate money there was a little more off the
books for like you were talking about Aron Contra, You're
gonna do it because you need money, you need funding
(41:16):
for that kind of stuff. Right, And maybe this is
even a was viewed and this is Matt talking, this
is an opinion. Maybe it was viewed as a less
nefarious way to generate that kind of money, you know,
rather than helping traffickers or profiting from drugs that were
being trafficked. Yeah, yeah, you know, And that's that's quite
(41:39):
possible that that was one of the perspectives, right. Uh,
there could be a greater good argument as well, you know,
I can't remember which government official or high mucky muck
in some kind of global corporation said that they were
profiting off a thing that they thought was also helping
the American cause. They and they were asked, well, what
(42:02):
are you doing? Are you just trying to make a buck?
Is that your goal? Or is your goal really to
help make the world a better place? And without missing
a beat, the guy said, why can't I have both goals?
Which sounds a little greedy, but you know, we weren't
at that hearing. So yeah, there are a lot of perspectives,
a lot of rationalizations, but there are also even more questions.
(42:24):
And this is where we get toward the end of this.
So did the government let associates of government officials sell
this stuff to foreign governments and then use that software
to track dissidents right and attract money instead of legal cases.
That's what Promise was originally designed for. Wired again a
(42:47):
series of excellent articles and Wired uh they noted quote
each new set of allegations leads to new sets of possibilities,
which makes the story still more difficult to comprehend. Amen,
dude a man? So uh. The FBI eventually opens case
on ins law, the inslaw scandal, the promise affair, and
(43:10):
it's it's fifty one major case, and they do it
way after, you know, like they do in the nineties.
Just for a sense of contexts about what the FBI
considers major cases. Other things would include Osama bin Laden,
the events of September eleven two one, the big anthrax
(43:32):
scare that everybody just sort of forgot about d C
sniper Oklahoma City bombing be another one. Uh. There was
a summary sent to the FBI director in two and
they said, look, we know that in slaw did sign
a contract. They got nine point nine million dollars in
(43:55):
eighties money. Two install This stuff and all these of
an attorney offices goes back when Reagan was on all
the notes, just like mugging, and it was all the notes.
Who is a regular Michael McDonald? All right, we gotta
do it, guys. What is nine point nine million dollars
in eighties money inflation calculator time. Yes, so it's tripled.
(44:19):
A hundred dollars is now worth three hundred and seven
dollars fifty seven cents. So let's say, let's just say
three a little more. If all those eighties babies had
just saved you know, their birthday money, and there would
be there will be running the world at the very
least they're there their mint condition Masters of the Universe
(44:40):
action figures. Uh for shame. It's a lot of money,
But again for an entity as large as the US government,
that's not money that will break the bank unless it's
politically convenient to pretend like it will. So the d
O J would later go on to say, Hey, Promise
just didn't out the mustard for us. It couldn't keep
(45:02):
up with all the stuff we needed it to do. However,
that appears to be um a misappropriation of the truth.
I promise is still being was still being used, at
least by parts of the U. S Government, as recently
is seen in the New Jersey court system. It's like saying,
(45:25):
I am not going to pay for the sandwich. I
demand a refund. It was terrible. While you're eating it, right,
you're at the counter, you're eating it. You're saying it's
terrible while you finish the sandwich. Okay, well not all
of these are gonna be winners. Yeah, off the dome
with this. So uh, how how far did promise get Uh,
(45:49):
it's been in Ireland. Uh, it's been in the Netherlands.
Room uses it in their tax office. And honestly it's
not all illegal use. Promise is being legally used in
multiple countries around the world. It just gets tricky when
you ask who's using it illegally, whether to spy on people,
as the allegations go, or whether just using a bootleg copy. Uh,
(46:13):
this is only scratching the surface of all the allegations.
Maybe a quick roll call about this stuff we haven't
really gotten to, each of which could probably be their
own episodes. Well, I mean, first of all, definitely Robert Maxwell.
We mentioned him several times since Connor wrote in, and
I think it's time to just drill down and do
(46:34):
a Robert Maxwell episode. Yeah. We also need to talk
about the allegations that off the books profits from Promise
somehow made their way to partially fund the operations of
Jeffrey Epstein. Those are the allegations, right proven maybe through
maybe Uh Casilero probably need to bring Danny Castolero's story
(46:57):
back into the mix, and I think we only do.
We were talking about the strangeness of his you know,
untimely death. Noal there's something that Emma north Best found
that I think we could use as like our primary
fire for that. It was let me just look it up, guys,
I've gotta right here something that she posted on muck
(47:19):
Rock Ma titled recently released evidence shows FBI may have
investigated Danny Cassallero's death through two thousand seventeen. So then
they would have been despite the official conclusions of the autopsy,
they would have continued trying to answer some questions, well,
(47:42):
despite the statements that yeah, there's nothing to see here,
like literally, it was just we don't need to look
into this. This is a clear case of suicide. According
to them, we don't need to look into it. But
according to these documents, maybe they were. But again it's
may have investigated, so we need to look into it, agreed.
And there's even more, you know, the allegations surrounding how,
(48:05):
when and why various governments or intelligence agencies may have
weaponized promise against other nations, other institutions. What did they
do with it? You know what what happened once this
Pandora's jar was unscrewed upon the world. We want to
hear your thoughts, folks. We're gonna return to this, but
in the meantime we want to thank all our fellow
(48:27):
conspiracy realists. Take a page from Connor's book, Right to
us with your opinions, right to us, with your perspective.
We try to be easy to find online. We do.
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with
the handle conspiracy Stuff. Keeping on that YouTube space. It's
gonna be some fun stuff afoot there very soon. Um,
(48:48):
conspiracy stuff on those platforms. Facebook group, Uh, same deal,
conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, and there's also fun stuff happening. Um.
We also have a book, marr. I mean that I
have mentioned, which you can get an audio or textual
form anywhere that fine literature is sold. It's called stuff
they don't want you to know. Give it a read.
(49:09):
I think you'll enjoy it if you enjoy this show. Um.
We also have a telephone number. We do have a
telephone number. But I do want to mention one thing
on that YouTube channel. If you go over there right now,
YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff, click on the playlist
titled Drugs, Wars and Profits. You will find the Danny
Castelero video and the in slaw Fare video. It's titled
(49:32):
tentacles of the octopus. And uh, if you do want
to give us a call, we can't wait to hear
from you. We have a phone number. It's true. Uh,
those are not unfounded allegations. That phone number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. You'll
hear a voice that lets you know you're in the
right place. You'll hear a beep like soap beep, and
(49:53):
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Give yourself a moniker, a code name, a cool nickname.
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(50:14):
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(50:40):
don't want you to know is a production of I
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listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Bet. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decans. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. This is deep water, folks, fellow
conspiracy realists. Earlier years ago, your faithful correspondence created a
(00:50):
video related to this topic. We've talked about it in
past episodes as well. Uh. Funny story, Matt, it could
actually be difficult for a casual YouTube browser to find
our Octopus episode about the death of journalists Danny Castelero. Yes,
but I think I got it on like the YouTube
(01:13):
front page. If you go to YouTube slash conspiracy stuff,
it's on a playlist down there, and uh, I'm gonna
make sure it's there by the time you hear this episode. Awesome. Yeah,
we've uh we meaning meaning Matt and partners of ours
are putting in some work to uh to do even
(01:35):
more cool stuff with the YouTube channel. So check that
out after you have checked out the book that we
came out with and left a and left a review
on your review platform of choice, whether that's Amazon, good Reads,
or you know your own thing. And can we just say, um, Ben,
you always say that you're the most important part of
(01:57):
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(02:18):
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be need to talk a crazy relative off a cognitive ledge,
this is the book for you. And if you don't
like it, give it to your enemies. That will show them. Uh.
Speaking of fellow conspiracy realist, let's give a shout out
to Connor, who played a big part in getting this
episode back in the front of our minds. We know
(03:04):
that there are a lot of attempts to bury some
of the information we're going to talk about today. We
want to bring this story again to the forefront of
publicly available discourse. This maybe the first episode in a series.
The rabbit hole just goes too deep. But we will
give you the facts and then we will share with
(03:25):
you the craziness. You can call that a promise that
is going to be one of many terrible puns in
today's show. No E Yes promise, no E P R
O M I S. It's an acronym for a kind
of case management software. I know, snooze fest, but let's
(03:46):
get into it. What is the acronym stand for? Well,
originally it was Project Management Integrated System originally cool, totally
get what that is. Yeah, But the one, the thing
we know it as and the thing we're going to
focus on, is called Prosecutors like prosecutor Prosecutors Management information System. Yeah.
(04:11):
And to understand why this was such a big deal
in the first place, Uh, you have to understand something
that is going to be gonna be so obvious to
many people who have worked in government. So the US government,
despite being the world's most dangerous military and despite having
(04:31):
tons of money to throw at any given problem, the
US government in many ways is pretty archaic. You know.
You will see everything from people still using typewriters to
uh light legacy proprietary systems and no one will change
them just because the expense is too much and people
(04:52):
already know the equipment, etcetera, etcetera. UH. And this is
this can be surprising, you know, because often US in
fiction you will see different government agencies portrayed as uh
using the latest technology, you know what I mean. Like
you watch law enforcement shows like Law and Order, s
(05:14):
VU or something, and their office looks amazing. It's so
well lit, and they've got all these great computers. Everyone's
so good looking. Everyone could be a waiter in Los Angeles.
It's amazing. But that's not the case, and it hasn't
been the case for a long long time, a lot
of times, for decades. Even now, people are dealing with
(05:40):
mountains and trolls of paperwork and data and you have
to check for one thing, and you find yourself looking
for a needle in a Haystack, you don't have good
case management. And that's where a promise came in. In
this sense, cases cases kind of a legal term that
(06:02):
it goes beyond that, and management describes everything that pertains
to a specific case. So Promise has this ability when
it comes out to give a total rundown of all
federal cases. It just hoovers them up any case where
lawyer has been involved, and you can cross check it
with defendants. You can cross check that specific lawyer, that court,
(06:26):
you can see how it all worked out, etcetera, etcetera.
It's really convenient. It's kind of automation, right, and this
is for large government entities. That's a godsend. Uh you're
hearing this now and you might be thinking, okay, yeah,
that's good. It makes people's job easier. What gives what's
the big deal? Well, uh, it get we'll get to that.
(06:48):
It gets weird. We have to introduce something that used
to be a nonprofit the creators of Promise in his law,
which is not a kind of cold slaw, which was
disapplining to me. So in slap, oh gosh, it's hard
to not even say it with that slaw. Let's just
let's try it ins law in his law was originally
(07:08):
an acronym all its own, the Institute of Law and
Social Research. And you know, in general on the show,
what do we usually notice when we have absurdly snoozy,
innocuous names. Okay, we'll leave it to you to decide,
but just from various activity, the various masquerading behind this banality. Uh,
(07:34):
it's nineteen seventy three. The scene is set and there's
this fellow named William A. Hamilton's. Uh, he's trying to
get his shot. It's a different kind of shot though. Hamilton's.
This Hamilton's founded ends law with grants and contracts from
the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. This is what ultimately lead
(07:54):
to promise with with with no E promise it sounds
like eighties man, like like a new age ban or
a new way of band or something. It does kind
of yeah, man, I mean they could even go the
extra step and call it promise with a Z. Nobody
take that idea. That's the best idea we've had this morning.
And well, in this thing that he was he was
(08:15):
creating this software or that Hamilton had an idea to create,
he was trying to bring the d o J the
Department of Justice into a new age where you could
easily find information regarding the cases you have to deal
with it, rather than, like you said, running around and
looking at files and file cabinets, because there were so
many dang file cabinets, like just rooms dedicated ballroom sized
(08:41):
rooms dedicated to files. And hey, now it's in your computer,
or it could be if you use Promise software. Yeah, exactly. This,
So this idea is brilliant, and ins Law is originally
funded as a nonprofit. It starts as nonprofit, comes from
this thing called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which would
(09:06):
provide grants and contracts for this sort of research. Promise
gets designed by Hamilton's and Company in the late nineteen
seventies and eighties, and like you said, Matt, it's bringing
things into the computer age. In spring of one, the
Reagan administration said Promise is one of our greatest assets.
(09:28):
By three, Promise has transformed fundamentally, and ins Law has
also transformed. They're no longer a nonprofit company. They have
these are all just the facts. We're not to the
crazy stuff yet. But they start fighting with the d
(09:49):
o J or they start having what corporate America calls
a healthy conversation because they because in his law made
this promise software for the government with government funding, they
can't claim ownership. They don't have proprietary rights. So when
they go private, they make a new, souped up version
(10:10):
of promise. You know, think of it like compare. I
think it's comparable to um a PS five compared to
a PS two. Right for all the gamers out there.
And the d o J does say, hey, they've got
a good claim to this because they went private and
they made their own thing. But uh medic until they
(10:33):
saw how much it would cost to like license this offer.
Probably you're probably right, and it's no, it's no wonder
like this was crazy good stuff. It's a program that
makes it made it easy to monitor defendants, lawyers, and judges.
But astute observers noticed this same kind of system, the
(10:55):
same kind of approach could help you track terrorists, drugs plers,
human traffickers, political dissidents, and anyone could use it if
they had the program. This set the stage for a
ton of court battles between ins law and the d
o J. And as we'll see, a ton of allegations.
(11:16):
It's a story a lot of people don't talk about
these days. Uh. More and more sources over the years
have alleged that Promise grew way beyond what it was
meant to do, and as it grew, it grew beyond
the law. So what's what's the reason this is on
a show that applies critical thinking to conspiracy theories. Is
(11:40):
it possible that intelligence officials, not just from the US
took this software, souped it up, weaponized it, and use
it to spy on other governments and other legitimate private institutions.
Did they build a back door to the world. Well,
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsored If
(12:02):
we don't get castle Erot, we'll be right back. Here's
where it gets crazy, Okay, So he said, the Hamilton's family,
they're they're fighting with the Department of Justice. What did
the Hamilton's say, Well, the Hamilton's family really did enter
(12:28):
into quite a brutal and nasty, very bitter confrontation over
the software. The Washington Post report at the Hamilton's believe
the government was had it out for them, was trying
to ruin their reputations, ruin their livelihood, take away everything
that they built. Um, they believe the promise was getting
wrapped up in some sort of global network of foreign
(12:50):
and domestic intelligence agencies, which we're using it to spy
on other institutions. Um. They also believe there was a
genuine spiracy happening, one that would eventually lead to the
death of the journalists that you mentioned, Ben, Danny Castelaro,
Can we pause here for a moment and just talk
(13:10):
about the potential What could a state actor use this
software for? Right, And we're talking about spying. So it's
collecting the data in this case in the United States
for the Department of Justice. That's a lot of information. Right.
That's people who are who have cases against them, that's
people who are prosecuting those cases. That's everybody involved in
(13:31):
the process. I'm assuming it's a ton of documentation on
each one of those cases, on individuals and you know,
companies and agencies, government agencies. Uh. If that software was available,
let's say in a different country, Uh, let's just throw
it out there, like Iran in this time. Right. If
Iran had this software and they were using it for
(13:54):
their own judicial system in their Department of Justice, and
then the US or somebody else had a back door
into that system, they could see everything that was happening
at the law's highest echelons in that country echelon, oh echelon.
But I mean that could be a serious weapon for
an intelligence agency or for just a country's external security services. Yeah,
(14:21):
the potential is there. There's also given that visibility, there's
also the ability to make a hefty profit in and
off the book's way. Like so another I was trying
to think of a good comparison, right, because most people
listening to this show are not high level state intelligence
(14:43):
entities nor global financial institutions. So imagine it this way. Um,
imagine you know, like a phone is a terrible example.
Imagine you have a car. You need a key for
your car, and there are only one or two come
Benese that make car keys, right, so you buy from
them so you don't have to build your own car
(15:05):
key company. And then later you find out that this
manufacturer of keys has put a little thing into your
key that lets them know every time you take your
car somewhere where it goes, what speed you're at, what
you know your latitude and longitude are. And also it
(15:26):
can remotely start the car when you're not around. Stuff
like that, and that that sounds very sci fi, but
that's essentially the allegation regarding Promise. It's a backdoor into
the world, and it's under the guise of, hey, here's
a convenient way to collect all your stuff. You know,
we'll make us breadsheet for you while we learn everything
(15:49):
you want to keep secret. And the concept here, at
least from the perspective of ins law, is that the
US government in some capacity and or maybe other governments
have created that back door, like that's what they're saying,
right And Danny Castilero, as we've established in other episodes
and videos, Danny Castilero was a journalist and writer who
(16:12):
was found dead in West Virginia. His wrist have been
slashed tend to twelve times, is officially ruled a suicide.
Many people have challenged that official conclusion because he was
working on a story that he called the Octopus and
(16:34):
check out check out our previous work on that it
is a doozy. As a matter of fact, Promise is
a doozy. The Hamilton's claimed the software was stolen and
Danny was allegedly going to meet a source about the Octopus.
By the way, can I just say ten to twelve times.
How do you explain ten to twelve slashes being self inflicted? Yeah,
(16:56):
there are a lot of questions if you look at
the circumstance, as Castolero did appear to leave a suicide note,
there was no sign of forced entry nor struggled. There
was also the presence of alcohol in the hotel room
where it was found, and police, uh police and the
medical examiners there in Martinsburg did conclude it was a suicide.
(17:19):
But people think it was close to connecting a lot
of dots about Promise and how it was seated throughout
the world, the claim that the Hamilton's have or you know,
if you believe some of the other narratives out there
are still all alleged, then they will say that this
stuff was taken by the d o J the new
(17:41):
version of Promise, and a guy named Earl Bryan, who
was an envoy to Iran under the Reagan and then
the hw Bush administration weaponized it or oversaw it being
bugged to create that backdoor. They started selling it to
(18:01):
all sorts of folks. Another person the Hamilton's and various
journalists alleged was involved with this theft is a guy
named Rafi Etat, who was at the time the director
of the Israeli intelligence agency La Him or l A
K E. M. So the ideas they distributed this stuff
(18:25):
after they took it two allies to enemies alike throughout
the world via different proxies, sometimes direct, you know, and
then sometimes not so direct. And this had what's called
sig and signals intelligence surveillance technology that US and Israeli
(18:46):
intelligence services could access in a way that didn't allow
them to be caught. You wouldn't It would be very
difficult for you to know that someone was sneaking in
through the kitchen window essentially. And we say US and
Israeli because those are the two intelligence organizations that are
most often accused of this. Again, a lot of this
(19:09):
is alleged, but we are going to talk about some
connections here, some strange connections that it was Connor that
brought them to to my eyes at least, I think
to everybody here, right, Connor Connor made me aware of
the situation regarding a lot of the Israeli intelligence information.
And it's do can we shout out? Is it okay
(19:30):
if we shout out muck rock? Oh? Yeah, of course, Yeah,
muck Rock and the excellent work by the journalist Emma
north Best. Yeah, muck Rock is a really interesting model.
We were talking about this off air. Oh yeah, it's
super cool. I I didn't know much about it. We've
looked at muck Rock articles before because it's one of
the best places to find like the government documents through
(19:52):
FOIA requests, because the website is just it's filled with them.
And this person, Emma Northwest, found so many documents regarding
the Promise software and Insulaw affair and Danny Cassolero. So
kudos to you if you're out there listening. M a
nice work. Yeah, a lot got in the trenches on
(20:13):
the foias, you know, the Freedom of Information Act request
and we looked at this, we looked at the work
of other authors and journalists and here's the primary narrative
or the private primary allegations. So this theft and this
con job is apparently done through a company that Earl
(20:35):
Brian controls company named Hadron, and another company called Systematics Inc.
Again kind of an innoguous name, suspiciously so uh, Systematics Inc.
Is run by a guy named Jackson Stevens. And there's
another company called deag him. We're not native speakers here,
(20:55):
but that's spelled d E g e M. It is
run by guy named Robert Maxwell, who was famous in
the conspiracy world for several things, for being the father
of Galaine, Maxwell, for being heavily linked to Massad and
uh spycraft excuse me, tradecraft, and also being a media mogul,
(21:19):
and for the very suspicious circumstances surrounding his untimely death.
He's got a lot going on. He's got a lot,
He's got a lot, and he is an episode of
his own. Basically, what we're doing here is we're kind
of going down a rabbit hole, but it's like a
a rabbit hole with a lot of capillary holes associated,
(21:40):
so we're walking by a lot of other rabbit holes. Yeah, yeah,
Just so that's why we're saying this might be uh
the beginning of a series, you know. As a matter
of fact, I hope no way it takes this idea.
I want to do a long form show on this.
I just might have to. I'm into it too deep
for the war is we're gonna exercise these demons? Yes, yes,
(22:04):
there we go. Let's rope them in as well. Let's
Rope in ed Lorraine. So there were other companies involved
with this theft and the illegal selling of this software. Uh.
There was a letter sent to a guy named William F. Weld,
(22:25):
who was the United States Assistant Attorney General for the
Criminal Division, and they said, look, the people who at
this letter said, look, this stuff is going wild. It's
been sold to some folks. Uh, and you might not
want these folks having these capabilities. One of the one
(22:46):
of the most notorious alleged um recipients of promise. It's
a guy named Khalid bin Muffles, who was his past
now died in two thousand nine, a Saudi Arabian billionaire
and former chairman of the National Commercial Bank. Uh. This
(23:07):
dude powerful man in the world of finance. Do we
even bring up? Uh, what's his name? Maxwell allegedly had
ties to the Soviet Union as well Business times. M Yes,
come on all of these time. Okay, okay, all right,
all right, I'm gonna confuse everybody. I do apologize. I
didn't mean to take it back to Maxwell. It's just
(23:28):
as we're all noting here, this does get really confusing,
and you may have to, you know, do that old
back fifteen seconds thing a couple of times. But don't worry.
That's okay, You're all the information is going to be
in here. M hmm. Yeah. And honestly, I think you
have to. But if if this becomes a long form
podcast just on this, you know, like if they're a
(23:49):
dozen episodes and whatever, even just eight, we could probably
do it in eight. Then it's gonna need to have
a play along at home board, you know, so we
could all map this together. I am so not kidding.
This should be done. Let's write another book first, they
(24:09):
then release the podcast, so you have both together while
you I like to play along at home things help
to do more of that. Uh So you see, al righty,
this is getting This is getting dirty, folks. And to
be completely candid, I want to be careful how I
say this. In general, it is surprising how past a
(24:32):
certain threshold right of prestige, past a certain level of
rarefied air, things like intelligence agencies and spying, and the
world of finance and private industry and the world of government,
they all start to meld together. It really is. You know,
we've used this example so many times in the past,
(24:53):
but someone's just holding up one finger or two fingers
and you can't see the rest of the frame. They
look like two separate entities, but if you draw back
you see the whole hand. Right. They're being sold as
separate things to you the public, but behind closed doors,
you'd be surprised how much of a vent diagram there is.
(25:16):
I think we all are and have been continually. So
then if this promise software does what it's purported to do, right,
have that backdoor into other countries judicial and intelligence systems.
That's one thing that's powerful, right, and that would be
a tool for an intelligence agency or you know, a
government to use and utilize. And you can see that
(25:38):
if if it can really do that, that's perfect motivation.
But another motivation that could exist here is money, right, Yeah, yeah,
Brian Earl. Brian, the story goes, was out to make
a profit from this, right, and some of this money
could also be funneled into off the book's projects, stuff
(26:00):
like the Iran Contra scandal. That's another huge allegation there. Uh.
The idea was that the n s A and other
intelligence agencies could steal other countries secrets, and if they
were the operators of this, if they were sloppy or unethical,
then they could go sell those secrets somewhere else, right,
(26:22):
do a quid pro quo intelligence trade, or just say hey,
give me some money and I'll tell you. You You know
x Y and z uh Maxwell. Robert Maxwell, according to
the allegations again sold more than maybe more than half
a billion dollars off these bootleg copies of Promise and
(26:45):
we get to now we get to the land of
like sworn Affidavit's how much do you believe these people
who are claiming firsthand knowledge of this. There's a book
by a guy named Gordon Thomas. It's called Gideon's Spies,
The Secret History of Massaud. This is an authorized history
of Massaud as well, So that's that's very important. It's
(27:06):
not made as a hit piece. The intelligence Agency Massade
signed off on the publication in two thousand and This
is where they talk about rafi Aton, his disclosures regarding
Earl Brian, regarding what went down with Promise in slaw
also release their own kind of Charlie Day conspiracy board compilation.
(27:32):
And I don't want to sound dismissive. They what they
did is they connected a ton of dots. This is
a memo that's forty five pages long, and it really
appears to corroborate some big parts of the of the
overall narrative if it's true, if it was what was
going on, there are I mean, there are just a
ton of dots and it would maybe look a bit
(27:54):
nuts if you put it all together and laid it
out in a forty five page document, which is not
great for law because they don't hate look great either way. Yeah,
I mean, let's let's talk maybe a little bit about
how the theft allegedly occurred. So there's Bill Hamilton's and
(28:14):
there's a guy named Dean Meryl who was vice president
of Inns Law for a time, and they they had
a weird um true crime moment. They were identifying some
photographs and they claimed they had been visited by a
man calling himself Dr Ben or that's the last name,
be Ben dash O r Rh. It's a last name.
(28:40):
He can't you know, anything goes when its last names,
Like when you meet a Frederick or a fred you know,
I wish to see the face mets making. So. Uh
So this guy claims to be a prosecutor from the
Nation of Israel and says, hey, I'm really impressed with promise,
(29:03):
especially this new souped up thirty two bit version you have.
But this guy doesn't buy anything that day. He never
comes back, and no one knows why at the time.
Like if you've ever worked in sales, whether you're selling
cars or computers, you know, sometimes people walk in, they
look around, and then they leave. You know, they might
(29:26):
come back, they might not. So that's what they're thinking. Uh,
until later this all lines up because they recognize a
second guy from a photograph and he looks like or
but that's not the name he's identified by when they
see this photograph. It's a ruff eaton. Remember the guy
(29:49):
in charge of this Israeli intelligence services, isn't that fun? Yeah?
He was in charge of these Reeli Defense Forces Anti
terrorism intelligence unit. Yeah, so you know, uh getting information
on terrorist activities and uh attempting to prevent those sorts
(30:09):
of activities from taking place. Right. Anti terrorism units are
all about prediction and prevention ideally, And the d o
J apparently sends him over to look at this property
that the ens law folks say they're planning to steal.
(30:30):
They think d o J factions are already planning to
do a heist on this and Utah and apparently likes
what he sees. We do know that d o J
documents record someone calling themselves Dr Ben Or leaving the
Department of Justice on May six with a copy of
(30:51):
promise on his person on a computer tape. Remember right, right,
right right no USBs. So, according to federal court documents,
promise was actually stolen uh from inslaw Um by the
Department of Justice directly after Eton's nineteen three visits to
(31:13):
inns law Um. The later Congressional investigation preferred to use
the word misappropriated. It's a fun one, um spend much anybody, uh,
And according to sworn Affid, David's promise was then given
or sold at a profit to Israel and as many
(31:34):
as eighty other countries by Dr Earl W. Bryan, a
man with very close personal ties in business too, then
President Ronald Reagan and then Presidential counsel Edwin mee Man.
(31:55):
Rabbit Holes upon rabbit holes. Well, yeah, and unless you
think we're just pulling this from random weird websites or
someone just writing about this having an opinion, this comes
from Wired, right Ben. Yeah, Yeah, this there's uh, there's
a great series of articles by the journalist Richard L. Fricker,
(32:15):
you can find well. One of the articles is the
in slaw Octopus. This is from So again, the story
doesn't get a lot of scrutiny in the public eye,
but it's important to know that there are people who
have gone into the trenches deep to figure this stuff
(32:35):
out with Foy your request with interviews, even when the
sources themselves are saying, here's what I know what happened.
I may not be able to prove it to your satisfaction.
So yeah, in New York Times is writing about this
as well. Why don't we take a quick break here
from sponsor, come back and just talk more about the
(32:57):
more recent reporting on this stuff, people who have been
looking into it, and we're back. So, as we said,
people have been connecting some troubling dots and making some
serious allegations, linking promise to everything from the Iran contrast
(33:17):
scandal to terroristic activities you name it, right up to
including Epstein activities. By the way, where did his money
come from? Right? And there's one book that got a
great right up in the New York Times called The
Eye of Washington. It's published by It was written by
(33:37):
two French investigative journalists, and they claim that Promise was
stolen and that the US Justice Department created a conspiracy.
They conspired to pull a wide scale cover up of
what happened. And they further alleged that this went past
(33:58):
you know, political lines. This went past you know, um
Reagan Republicanism, past Clinton Democrats stuff. The New York Times
put it this way. They're quoting one of the authors,
Fabrizio Calvy. Quote. According to Calvi, the real news in
his book is the revelation that the National Security Administration
(34:22):
the n s A has been seeding computers abroad with
Promise embedded smart chips smart standing for systems management automated
reasoning tools. Their code named Petrie p E t r
i E. They're capable of covertly downloading data and transmitting
it using electrical wiring as an antenna to U S
(34:45):
intelligence satellites. What hence the book's cover blurb quote, the
vastest espionage operation of this end of the century. Who
bold claim, but seemingly accurate given what we already know
just thus far. Well, I mean, think about that concept.
(35:07):
D n s A is giving these chips out, the
smart chips that can do this transmitting to a satellite
just from the chip itself. That's nuts, yeah, nuts and bananas,
and it goes, it goes further. We have to remember
this is also during the heavy days of the Cold War,
(35:28):
and you were called we earlier said that the US
and various US factions aren't always selling this openly, as
in they're not always being identified as the source. Instead,
they're going through proxies. So if you want to put
your ears on your geo political nemesis, the Soviet Union,
(35:51):
you can't come to them. And you're like, hey, guys,
this is me Johnny blue Jeans from the CIA. You
want to buy some chips? I love I love that
concept though, just like, hey, we've got chips. They're cheap
and they're smart, we have an acronym and everything. You
guys are going, this one's a spicy chip. Well yeah,
(36:12):
So so what you do is you go you get
a company, a third party company to do it that
doesn't seem to be connected to you in any way. Yep.
And that's where Robert Maxwell, who was so extra, as
we said, shows up in this story again. He is
allegedly the liaison for the US to sell a bugged
(36:33):
version of promise to the Soviet government. And according to
this this book from these authors, uh Israel knew about this,
and their knowledge about this was something that they used
to leverage the US to pressure the US two stop
(36:53):
shipping arms to Iraq before the Gulf War. They said, look,
if you if we can't get on the same page
about this Johnny Blue jeans, then we're gonna tell the
Russians that we know all about your precious back door. Uh.
The U S, as history would prove, called that bluff
(37:15):
to their detriment. Uh. And they quote people here, there's
another guy named Ari ben manashe Uh, this is um.
This guy could also be his own episode. Frequently. He
told these authors that in the Soviets did get worried
about what was going down, and they shut down all
(37:38):
of the computers and the g r U that's the
Soviets by agency at the time, for an entire week.
They said, we're bugged, you know, shut it down. What
else could you do? You know, especially if you don't
exactly know how everything works, You just know that there's
there's some holes right your cheddar cheese all of a
(38:00):
sudden looking a lot like Swiss. Sorry for the food things.
I'm Hungry Friday International Sandwich tape. By the way, it's
it's always you guys. There's a firehouse subs down the
road for me now, and I cannot wait. I'm gonna
(38:20):
do that right after this. I have a Jersey Mix
waiting for me. Wend exit the session. I know we
have to do meetings and stuff after this, but I
might just take a stroll as well. Uh, this episode
is not brought to you by quiz Nos, but oh
how we wish it was. Uh, they're just sandwiches in general.
(38:40):
Let's just get the concept of sandwiches still exist. I
don't know, I don't know, weird little little monster things
that were in the quiz Nos commercials. You can't do this.
We can't do this right now. There's this is so complicated.
I'm a sandwiches now, Okay, yeah, well just explained the
(39:03):
complicated with Just use more sandwich metaphors please, Okay, yeah, yeah,
I got you all right, So as it can. If
conspiracies are sandwiches promises a dagwood sandwich. You know what
it's like, easily a foot and a half high. It's
got a ton of ingredients and you don't know where
they all come from. Right, So you can't eat it
in one bite. You can't even take a bite. You
gotta eat it like like an elephant, you know, one
(39:25):
piece at a time. Yeah. Yeah, Or it's like one
of those pastrami samp No. No, we're sick with dagwood.
We're not bringing cats into this k A t Z.
So the thing is parts of the U. S Government
agree with these allegations. Remember, governments are rarely monolithic, even
if they appear to be. So there's a lot of
infighting in the North Korean government for instance, right, and
(39:48):
people often think of that as a monolithic thing. Uh.
The Congress of the U S has a problem with this.
House Judiciary Committee releases a report in September. They say
they have found and confirmed evidence raising quote serious concerns
that high level officials at the d o J premeditated.
(40:09):
So they executed a plan that they had thought about
two take promise from this company in Slaw and destroy
the company Inslaw. Inslaw was driven into bankruptcy by the way.
The committee said, we need to have an independent council
on this, and no one paid attention. That's it, that's
(40:31):
I mean that's the head, like why why why would
they just steal this. It's not like it's not like
the government is necessarily hurting for money, right they if
they feel there is a strong enough need, the US
government can and will make it rain. Right, whether we're
talking weapons, whether we're talking propaganda, whether we're talking about
(40:53):
cool hard cash, they will do it. But it's weird
because I'm trying to imagine that that kind of spending
being on the books, right, somebody's gonna know about that spending, uh,
in a report somewhere. If you could find a way
to generate money there was a little more off the
books for like you were talking about Aron Contra, You're
gonna do it because you need money, you need funding
(41:16):
for that kind of stuff. Right, And maybe this is
even a was viewed and this is Matt talking, this
is an opinion. Maybe it was viewed as a less
nefarious way to generate that kind of money, you know,
rather than helping traffickers or profiting from drugs that were
being trafficked. Yeah, yeah, you know, And that's that's quite
(41:39):
possible that that was one of the perspectives, right. Uh,
there could be a greater good argument as well, you know,
I can't remember which government official or high mucky muck
in some kind of global corporation said that they were
profiting off a thing that they thought was also helping
the American cause. They and they were asked, well, what
(42:02):
are you doing? Are you just trying to make a buck?
Is that your goal? Or is your goal really to
help make the world a better place? And without missing
a beat, the guy said, why can't I have both goals?
Which sounds a little greedy, but you know, we weren't
at that hearing. So yeah, there are a lot of perspectives,
a lot of rationalizations, but there are also even more questions.
(42:24):
And this is where we get toward the end of this.
So did the government let associates of government officials sell
this stuff to foreign governments and then use that software
to track dissidents right and attract money instead of legal cases.
That's what Promise was originally designed for. Wired again a
(42:47):
series of excellent articles and Wired uh they noted quote
each new set of allegations leads to new sets of possibilities,
which makes the story still more difficult to comprehend. Amen,
dude a man? So uh. The FBI eventually opens case
on ins law, the inslaw scandal, the promise affair, and
(43:10):
it's it's fifty one major case, and they do it
way after, you know, like they do in the nineties.
Just for a sense of contexts about what the FBI
considers major cases. Other things would include Osama bin Laden,
the events of September eleven two one, the big anthrax
(43:32):
scare that everybody just sort of forgot about d C
sniper Oklahoma City bombing be another one. Uh. There was
a summary sent to the FBI director in two and
they said, look, we know that in slaw did sign
a contract. They got nine point nine million dollars in
(43:55):
eighties money. Two install This stuff and all these of
an attorney offices goes back when Reagan was on all
the notes, just like mugging, and it was all the notes.
Who is a regular Michael McDonald? All right, we gotta
do it, guys. What is nine point nine million dollars
in eighties money inflation calculator time. Yes, so it's tripled.
(44:19):
A hundred dollars is now worth three hundred and seven
dollars fifty seven cents. So let's say, let's just say
three a little more. If all those eighties babies had
just saved you know, their birthday money, and there would
be there will be running the world at the very
least they're there their mint condition Masters of the Universe
(44:40):
action figures. Uh for shame. It's a lot of money,
But again for an entity as large as the US government,
that's not money that will break the bank unless it's
politically convenient to pretend like it will. So the d
O J would later go on to say, Hey, Promise
just didn't out the mustard for us. It couldn't keep
(45:02):
up with all the stuff we needed it to do. However,
that appears to be um a misappropriation of the truth.
I promise is still being was still being used, at
least by parts of the U. S Government, as recently
is seen in the New Jersey court system. It's like saying,
(45:25):
I am not going to pay for the sandwich. I
demand a refund. It was terrible. While you're eating it, right,
you're at the counter, you're eating it. You're saying it's
terrible while you finish the sandwich. Okay, well not all
of these are gonna be winners. Yeah, off the dome
with this. So uh, how how far did promise get Uh,
(45:49):
it's been in Ireland. Uh, it's been in the Netherlands.
Room uses it in their tax office. And honestly it's
not all illegal use. Promise is being legally used in
multiple countries around the world. It just gets tricky when
you ask who's using it illegally, whether to spy on people,
as the allegations go, or whether just using a bootleg copy. Uh,
(46:13):
this is only scratching the surface of all the allegations.
Maybe a quick roll call about this stuff we haven't
really gotten to, each of which could probably be their
own episodes. Well, I mean, first of all, definitely Robert Maxwell.
We mentioned him several times since Connor wrote in, and
I think it's time to just drill down and do
(46:34):
a Robert Maxwell episode. Yeah. We also need to talk
about the allegations that off the books profits from Promise
somehow made their way to partially fund the operations of
Jeffrey Epstein. Those are the allegations, right proven maybe through
maybe Uh Casilero probably need to bring Danny Castolero's story
(46:57):
back into the mix, and I think we only do.
We were talking about the strangeness of his you know,
untimely death. Noal there's something that Emma north Best found
that I think we could use as like our primary
fire for that. It was let me just look it up, guys,
I've gotta right here something that she posted on muck
(47:19):
Rock Ma titled recently released evidence shows FBI may have
investigated Danny Cassallero's death through two thousand seventeen. So then
they would have been despite the official conclusions of the autopsy,
they would have continued trying to answer some questions, well,
(47:42):
despite the statements that yeah, there's nothing to see here,
like literally, it was just we don't need to look
into this. This is a clear case of suicide. According
to them, we don't need to look into it. But
according to these documents, maybe they were. But again it's
may have investigated, so we need to look into it, agreed.
And there's even more, you know, the allegations surrounding how,
(48:05):
when and why various governments or intelligence agencies may have
weaponized promise against other nations, other institutions. What did they
do with it? You know what what happened once this
Pandora's jar was unscrewed upon the world. We want to
hear your thoughts, folks. We're gonna return to this, but
in the meantime we want to thank all our fellow
(48:27):
conspiracy realists. Take a page from Connor's book, Right to
us with your opinions, right to us, with your perspective.
We try to be easy to find online. We do.
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with
the handle conspiracy Stuff. Keeping on that YouTube space. It's
gonna be some fun stuff afoot there very soon. Um,
(48:48):
conspiracy stuff on those platforms. Facebook group, Uh, same deal,
conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, and there's also fun stuff happening. Um.
We also have a book, marr. I mean that I
have mentioned, which you can get an audio or textual
form anywhere that fine literature is sold. It's called stuff
they don't want you to know. Give it a read.
(49:09):
I think you'll enjoy it if you enjoy this show. Um.
We also have a telephone number. We do have a
telephone number. But I do want to mention one thing
on that YouTube channel. If you go over there right now,
YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff, click on the playlist
titled Drugs, Wars and Profits. You will find the Danny
Castelero video and the in slaw Fare video. It's titled
(49:32):
tentacles of the octopus. And uh, if you do want
to give us a call, we can't wait to hear
from you. We have a phone number. It's true. Uh,
those are not unfounded allegations. That phone number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. You'll
hear a voice that lets you know you're in the
right place. You'll hear a beep like soap beep, and
(49:53):
then you'll have three minutes go nuts, get weird with it.
Give yourself a moniker, a code name, a cool nickname.
Tell us whether or not we can use your message
and or voice on the air, and most importantly, do
not censor yourself. If you need more than three minutes
right to us, give us all the links, take us
to the edge of the rabbit hole. We will do
(50:14):
the rest. All you have to do is drop us
a line at our good old fashioned email address where
we are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(50:40):
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