Thursday, December 1, 2011

Grabbe: Webb Hubbell and Big Brother (WHODB)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

more...>>


From: The Last Circle: Welcome to the Spookloop By Ed Encho

It was evident that when the body of freelance writer Danny Casolaro was found in a bathtub full of bloody water on August 10, 1991, his wrists deeply slashed multiple times that it was already a highly unusual "suicide'. That he was in the final stages of wrapping up his investigation of an association of mobsters, government officials and rogue intelligence figures grown out of a dirty CIA "Old Boy network"that he had dubbed The Octopus and that his body was discovered in a Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room where he had gone to pick up the final piece of evidence for his story made his death all the more suspicious. The fact that his briefcase and files (always present during his work) were missing, his body prematurely and illegally embalmed prior to the notification of his family and room 517 of the Martinsburg Sheraton professionally cleaned, making any sort of law enforcement forensic investigation prohibitive are not signs that would indicate a typical suicide. Casolaro, according to sources was not despondent but rather quite elated that his investigation was nearing completion when he had made the trip to "bring back the head of the octopus" where he was reportedly set to meet a key figure and to trade information that he had in his possession . There was a 'suicide' note found at the scene but it was short and cryptic, not what a professional writer would likely leave as his final words. There was however, another piece of paper that was found tucked inside of his discarded shoe that would prove to be far more compelling. The mystery surrounding Casolaro is still to this day unsolved and unfortunatley, largely forgotten, but through the dedicated work of others who were able to pick up the trail and to continue his research into this most important of matters there have been enough pieces of a very elaborate puzzle put together, and the picture is extremely disturbing.

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The Last Circle begins with the story of how Seymour who was at the time working as a reporter for the Mariposa Gazette came to realize that local law enforcement figures were involved in drug trafficking. The dark, snaking trail that is described runs through our hidden history and corrupted institutions like the roiling river Styx. Cheri Seymour picks up the trail with a bizarre accident during the Queen of England's 1983 visit to Yosemite National Park when a routine scouting of the Queen's motorcade route resulted in a head on collision between a local Sheriff's car and a car driven by members of the U.S. Secret Service. The accident resulted in the deaths of three Secret Service agents. The Mariposa County Sheriff's officer, Sergeant Roderick Sinclair was found to to have been under the influence of illegal drugs. Three years prior to the accident, Sinclair also had previously investigated the disappearance and presumed drowning of whistleblower deputy Ron Van Meter, a law officer who had been outraged at having discovered drug trafficking within the department. Cover-ups occurred as they typically do in such matters and Van Meter's death was attributed to a boating accident (he had borrowed the boat to arrest fellow deputies at Lake McClure), the body was not recovered at the time of the incident. Ten years after the "accident", his body was recovered, wrapped in a fish net and weighted down by several objects including a fire extinguisher.

Subsequent research revealed that Sinclair had connections and powerful ones at that. His father had been an aide to General Douglas MacArthur, the vaunted WW II leader of forces in the Pacific who became a hero to the more virulent elements of the far right after being dismissed by President Truman during the Korean War. Members of the general's staff, most prominently Charles Willoughby in the postwar period became integral in the Cold War and the "ends justify the means' ideology that would define the jihad against the Red Menace of Communism that served as blanket justification for immorality and lawlessness from which The Octopus would be birthed. With anti-Communism as a cover and with the postwar creation of the National Security State and the CIA it very quickly became possible for connected insiders to engage in great acts of criminality and atrocity in order to fund off the books operations and enrich themselves while expanding their dark reaches into the global narcotics and drug trade. The fight against Communism provided justification for alliances with former Nazi war criminals who were assisted in escaping justice by U.S. intelligence and then sent to the Eastern Bloc as well as Latin America to protect the ability of U.S. corporations and banking interests to ensure that countries would stay "business friendly' which translates into torture, coups, black ops and most importantly riches. ...







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