---
category: PROMIS Scandal
summary: In early 1991, INSLAW Counsel Elliot Richardson asked Murphy to review the
  plausibility of claims about the covert dissemination of PROMIS for intelligence-tracking
  applications and to give his opinion on whether the claimed intelligence uses could
  explain Richard Thornburgh's inexplicable failure t
tags:
- Person
- PROMIS
- CIA
- INSLAW
---

[Daniel Murphy](/people/daniel-murphy/) was a retired four-star Admiral who served as [Elliot Richardson](/people/elliot-richardson/)'s Military Advisor when Richardson was Secretary of Defense under [Richard Nixon](/people/richard-nixon/). He later held two of the top U.S. intelligence posts: Deputy Director of the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) under [Gerald Ford](/people/gerald-r-ford/) and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under [Jimmy Carter](/people/jimmy-carter/).[^1]

In early 1991, [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) Counsel [Elliot Richardson](/people/elliot-richardson/) asked Murphy to review the plausibility of claims about the covert dissemination of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) for intelligence-tracking applications and to give his opinion on whether the claimed intelligence uses could explain [Richard Thornburgh](/people/richard-thornburgh/)'s inexplicable failure to enforce federal criminal laws in the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) case. After reading the affidavits and the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) lawsuit against Thornburgh, Murphy told Richardson and [Bill Hamilton](/people/bill-hamilton/) that there was nothing implausible about any of the claims, including [Michael Riconosciuto](/people/michael-riconosciuto/)'s claim that he had modified [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) for U.S. intelligence on an Indian reservation in Southern [California](/places/california/). He also stated that the available evidence made it look like an [NSA](/organizations/nsa/) operation, and if it were, it would explain Thornburgh's behavior.[^1]

In 2001, Murphy told [Bill Hamilton](/people/bill-hamilton/) that an [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) summary of evidence revealed that the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/) began misappropriating [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) in 1982 for three separate intelligence projects: [NSA](/organizations/nsa/)'s deployment of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) to banks to track wire transfers, [Israeli](/places/israel/) intelligence's sale of a trap-door version of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) to foreign governments, and the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)'s deployment of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) throughout the [U.S. Government](/places/united-states/) as standard database software for intelligence gathering. Murphy told Hamilton that the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) summary eliminated any doubt about what had happened and that the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) case needed to be settled. He warned Hamilton that government officials would "regard it as their patriotic duty to look [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/)'s lawyer in the eyes and lie."[^1]

In September 2001, Murphy, who had served as Chief of Staff to Vice President [George H.W. Bush](/people/george-hw-bush/) during the first term of the [Reagan](/people/ronald-reagan/) Administration when the [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) misappropriations began, told Hamilton that he had a "hunch" that there was still another use of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) that [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) had not yet discovered, that it "involves something so seriously wrong that money alone cannot cure the problem," and that the government might never compensate [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) unless the company discovered that additional use of [PROMIS](/programs/promis/). Admiral Murphy passed away suddenly on September 21, 2001, and Hamilton was never able to obtain clarification on his hunch.[^1]

---

[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.