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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7 Num. 04
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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RECAP OF AND UPDATE ON THE NORMAN THESIS
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Thanks to an east coast source whom I will call "Mr. Mercedes", I
have received an audio tape of Jim Norman's recent appearance on
New York radio station WBAI, marked on the cassette as having
been January 10, 1996.
[...continued from CN 7.03...]
Here are further excerpts from the program:
CALLER #2:
...How is it exactly -- I remember when I heard this story first
and I was talking to somebody about it and they said, "Well how
can they possibly get into these bank accounts?"
DR. MICHIO KAKU [Host]:
O.K. Mr. Norman, how *do* you get into another person's bank
account?
JAMES NORMAN:
Let me begin by saying that bank computer systems are nowhere
near as secure as the banks would like you to believe... Granted,
there are many security features built into bank communications
and software systems. But in most large software systems there
are what you call "service entrances" or "back doors" by which
software maintenance people would get in routinely to fix "bugs"
and so forth. If you take that concept, and then consider the
idea that our intelligence agencies, which have an extremely
high-priority collection of financial information, would somehow
or other see to it that they have perhaps their own "back doors"
plugged into these various bank data systems...
- That's* how I got onto the story, actually, was the
proliferation of a customized version of what was called the
PROMIS software. This was, it was designed for tracking legal
cases, originally, [then] customized for use in tracking wire
transfers, sold and promulgated around most of the world's
banking system, had "back doors" in it that would allow -- if you
knew where the "back door" was, it would allow you to basically
dial into a computer system and not leave an audit trail: go in,
snoop around, pull down information, and then leave.
DR. MICHIO KAKU:
I think the key thing, at least from my point of view, is that
we're not dealing with high school "hackers" who, by trial and
error, and guile, try to get into somebody's bank account. We're
talking about former intelligence agents.
JAMES NORMAN:
Right. But let me point this out: a couple of months ago,
Citibank, there were published stories about how a "hacker" in
Russia, armed with no more than a personal computer, apparently
had got into Citibank accounts and was doing, essentially,
exactly the same thing. He was wire-transferring money out of
corporate accounts... to banks in Argentina and Finland -- always
in small amounts so that it would not set off the internal alarm
system... What I am told is that somehow or other, this guy got
hold of the "back door" address at Citibank and was able to use
it.
CALLER #3:
Mr. Norman, outside of WBAI, has word of this gone out?
JAMES NORMAN:
Actually, *this* *story* has become a classic case study in
"guerrilla journalism". Because I think it's too hot for any
mainstream media to deal with. I mean, it's just loaded with too
many problems: first of all, it deals with a lot of background,
"deep throat" kind of sources; the attribution, the documents are
kind of non-existent at this point -- although I think they'll
eventually come out. And you're dealing with a lot of big names
and nobody really wants to rock the boat in a big-deal
publication.
Media Bypass, this little magazine in Indiana, *they* came to me
and asked me if they could run the story, because they had heard
that Forbes [magazine] wouldn't run it; that the Wall Street
Journal and New York Times and everybody else I'd talked to about
it was scared of it. *They* [Media Bypass] managed to corroborate
a key element of it themselves. One of their investigative
reporters knew a guy who used to train IRS agents, who was
talking with one of his former students who was assigned to
surveil Vince Foster at the time he died. And the guy actually
read him some of the surveillance report, off the computer
screen, over the telephone.
And it's not that big of a secret, apparently, within the
intelligence community. There was a *massive* counter-
intelligence effort going on regarding Foster. It apparently
began just after the '92 election, but before the inauguration in
January '93. And for about the 6 months until he died, Foster was
under pretty intense surveillance.
There's a French intelligence newsletter which has also
corroborated the fact that Foster was under counter-intelligence
surveillance at the time he died. There's, Sarah McClendon has
written about it. (She's an old "war horse" Washington
correspondent.)
But the story is just *too*... It's like the media cannot deal
with this. And ultimately I think the media will be on trial as
much as the government for not dealing with this story. Instead,
we've got Media Bypass, we've got talk radio... And the Internet
has actually become a rather successful outlet for this stuff.
And in fact, it's amazing: it has brought a whole bunch of other
people out of the woodwork, talking about this, including a lot
of very literate computer people, financial people.
And I know, particularly, a former Wharton finance professor,
Orlin Grabbe, who has posted a series of his own rather revealing
exposes' on this stuff. [CN -- Archived at ftp.shout.net
pub/users/bigred/og] He, after leaving Wharton, started his own
software company, making software for pricing derivatives. And
the intelligence community came to *him*! And said, "Hey. Can we
use your company to help spy on brokerage houses and banks too?
We want some way to insinuate our people into these computer
rooms." That's what sent *him* up the wall. He said, "Holy
smokes, we're dealin' with the Surveillance State here." And I
think he became a renegade ever since.
Particularly, I think he's also angry about the government's
tirade here on money laundering: it's used, basically, as a tax
raising measure. I mean, they want to go after every little guy
for any kind of cash transaction. But we have, you know, what is
so outrageous about this is, you have a two-tier system: you have
rampant money laundering, drug dealing and kickbacks for the
privileged elite; and you have the government's boot on the neck
of everybody else.
So there's significant grass-roots rage brewing over all this
stuff, and it's gonna find an outlet somehow or other -- even if
it's just WBAI, you and me!
DR. MICHIO KAKU:
O.K. Well, let's hope it gets beyond WBAI.
CALLER #5:
It's obvious that Iran-Contra never stopped. But my question is,
driving along the interstate I noticed that "Next Six Exits, the
NSA." *Who* are the people at the top of the NSA? Who runs the
NSA? Who are they, where do they come from, and how far-reaching
is their power?
JAMES NORMAN:
That's a good question. You call up Washington and they say,
"NSA? 'No Such Agency.'" That's their nickname.
It's a *huge* bureaucracy. It's based at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Their budget is bigger than the CIA and the FBI combined. Their
job was originally signal surveillance.
CALLER #5:
Do we know who the people are, though?
JAMES NORMAN:
When you look it up... I tried to find out, actually, "Who runs
the NSA?" They have a list in this two-inch-thick book on federal
offices I've got. *They* merit about a two-inch thing that only
has about six names associated with it. And I forget the top
guy's name there. I think he's an Admiral who's on assignment to
the NSA.
[...to be continued...]
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