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THE WHITE HOUSE "BIG BROTHER" DATA BASE
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The White House "Big Brother" Data
Base & How Jackson Stephens
Precipitated a Banking Crisis
by J. Orlin Grabbe
Score another coup for Jackson Stephens'
Systematics (Alltel Information Services). It provided the
software for the White House's "Big Brother" data base
system, and now the White House is in a panic that there
may be secret methods of accessing its computer.
The existence of the White House computer
system and data base--known as WHODB, White House
Office Data Base, and containing as many as 200,000
names--was revealed by Paul Rodriguez in the *Washington
Times*. Some of the information was developed by
*Insight*'s Anthony Kimery, soon to be managing editor of
the electronic publication *SOURCES eJournal*. Kimery is
a writer whose articles in *The American Banker* and *Wired*
were among the first to report U.S. government spying on
domestic banking transactions. (Kimery was also fired
from one magazine for looking into the death of Vince
Foster.)
Now things have come full circle. The chief
government effort to spy on U.S. domestic banking
transactions was directed by the electronic spy agency, the
National Security Agency (NSA), working in connection
with the Little Rock software firm Systematics.
Systematics, half-owned by billionaire Jackson Stephens
(of Stephens Inc. fame), has been a major supplier of
software for back office clearing and wire transfers. It
was Stephens' attempt to get Systematics the job of
handling the data processing for the Washington-D.C.
bank First American that lead to the BCCI takeover of that
institution. Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster represented
Systematics in that endeavor, and later Foster became an
overseer of the NSA project with respect to Systematics.
Working together, the NSA and Jackson Stephens'
Systematics developed security holes in much of the
banking software Systematics sold. Now we face a crisis
in banking and financial institution security, according to
John Deutch, Director of the CIA. "One obstacle is that
banks and other private institutions have been reluctant to
divulge any evidence of computer intrusions for fear that it
will leak and erode the confidence of their customers.
Deutch said 'the situation is improving' but that more
cooperation was needed from major corporations, and said
the CIA remains willing to share information with such
firms about the risks they might face." (*The Washington
Post*, June 26, 1996, page A19.)
What Deutch failed to mention was that this
"banking crisis" in large part was itself created by one of
the U.S. intelligence agencies--the NSA in cahoots with
Stephens' software firm Systematics. The Citibank heist
by Russian hackers, for example, took advantage of a back
door in Citibank's Systematics software. (The Russian
hackers were apparently aided by the son of one of Jim
Leach's House Banking Committee investigators.) Have
any major banks thought of instituting lawsuits over this
deliberate breach of security on the part of a software
supplier?
John Deutch has a proposed solution for this and
other computer security problems: the creation of an
"Information Warfare Technology Center". Guess where
he wants to put the Center: in the National Security
Agency itself, naturally. That is, the government wants
money budgeted for a new bureaucracy to solve the
problem another bureaucracy spent money creating. You
have to admire the sheer chutzpah of this kind of con--one
which would also leave the NSA fox guarding the banking
chicken coop.
Meanwhile, over at the White House, senior aides
are in a panic. Is the WHODB system related to the
PROMIS software? they want to know. Is there a back
door into the system? Have files been download?
It just goes to show that given the right incentive,
even the White House will begin spouting conspiracy
theories. Perhaps Charles O. Morgan (see part 2 of my
Vince Foster series) should write the White House a
threatening letter.
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