It was an era when the revolution in electronic communications—satellite technology and microcircuitry—was changing the face of intelligence gathering: faster and more secure encryption and better imagery were coming online at increasing speed. Computers grew smaller and faster; more sophisticated sensors were able to separate thousands of conversations; photographic spectrum analysis lifted from millions of dots only the ones that were of interest; microchips made it possible to hear a whisper a hundred meters away; infrared lenses let one see in the black of night.
The fiber-optic sinews of a new society had contributed to operational intelligence: to amass and correlate data on a scale far beyond human capability offered a powerful tool in searching for a pattern and a modus operandi in terrorist actions. Work had started on the computer-driven Facial-Analysis Comparison and Elimination System (FACES) that would revolutionize the system of identifying a person from photographs. Based on forty-nine characteristics, each categorized on a 1 to 4 scale, FACES could make 15 million binary yes/no decisions in a
Still working for the NSA, Hamilton saw an opening in this ever-expanding market; he would create a software program to interface with data banks in other computer systems. Its application in intelligence work would mean that the owner of the program would be able to interdict most other systems without their users’ being aware. A patriotic man, Hamilton intended his first client for the system would be the United States government.
Just as NASA had given the country an unassailable lead in space technology, so William Hamilton was confident he would do the same for the U.S. intelligence community. Encouraged by the NSA, the inventor worked sixteen-hour days, seven days a week. Obsessive and secretive, he was the quintessential researcher; the NSA was full of them.
After three years, Hamilton was close to producing the ultimate surveillance tool—a program that could track the movements of literally untold numbers of people in any part of the world. President Reagan’s warning to terrorists, “You can run, but you can’t hide,” was about to come true.
Hamilton resigned from the NSA and purchased a small company called Inslaw. The company’s stated function was to crosscheck court actions and discover if there was common background to litigants, witnesses and their families, even their attorneys—anyone involved or becoming involved in an action. Hamilton called the system Promis. By 1981, he had developed it to the point where he could copyright the software and turn Inslaw into a small, profit-making company. The future looked promising.
The NSA protested that he had made use of the agency’s own research facilities to produce the program. Hamilton hotly rejected the allegation but offered to lease Promis to the Justice Department on a straightforward basis: each time the program was used, Inslaw would receive a fee. The proposed deal itself was unremarkable; Justice, like any government department, had hundreds of contractors providing services. Unknown to Hamilton, Justice had sent a copy of Hamilton’s program to the NSA for “evaluation.”
The reasons this was done would remain unclear. Hamilton had already demonstrated to Justice that the Promis program could do what he claimed: electronically probe into the lives of people in a way never before possible. For Justice and its investigative arm, the FBI, Promis offered a powerful tool to fight the Mafia’s money-laundering and other criminal activities. Overnight it could also revolutionize the DEA’s fight against the Colombian drug barons. To the CIA, Promis could become a weapon every bit as effective as a spy satellite. The possibilities seemed endless.
In the meantime, one of those characters the world of international wheeling and dealing regularly produces had heard about Promis. Earl Brian had been California’s secretary of health during Reagan’s time as state governor. Largely because Brian spoke Farsi, Reagan had encouraged him to put together a Medicare plan for the Iranian government. It was one of those quixotic ideas the future president of the United States loved: a version of Medicare would show Iran a positive side of America and at the same time improve the United States’ image in the region. In a memorable phrase to Brian, the governor said, “If Medicare works in California, it can work anywhere.”
