Inslaw: Difference between revisions

Inslaw is a now-defunct software company which enhanced a public domain software package developed by the United States government, called PROMIS, and attempted to resell it to the government. The government did not pay for the software, leading to a Congressional investigation.

According to the United States House of Representatives:

Inslaw, formerly called the Institute for Law and Social Research, was a nonprofit corporation funded almost entirely through Government grants and contracts. When President Carter terminated the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, INSLAW converted the company to a for-profit corporation in 1981 to commercially market PROMIS. The new corporation made several significant improvements to the original PROMIS software and the resulting product came to be known as INSLAW's proprietary Enhanced PROMIS. The original PROMIS was funded entirely with Government funds and was in the public domain.

In March 1982, the Justice Department awarded INSLAW, Inc., a $10 million, 3-year contract to implement the public domain version of PROMIS at 94 United States attorneys' offices across the country and U. S. Territories. While the PROMIS software could have gone a long way toward correcting the Department's longstanding need for a standardized case management system, the contract between INSLAW and Justice quickly became embroiled in bitterness and controversy which has lasted for almost a decade. The conflict centers on the question of whether INSLAW has ownership of its privately funded "Enhanced PROMIS." This software was eventually installed at numerous U.S. attorneys' offices after a 1983 modification to the contract. While Justice officials at the time recognized INSLAW's proprietary rights to any privately funded enhancements to the original public domain version of PROMIS, the Department later claimed that it had unlimited rights to all software supplied under the contract.

While investigating elements of this story, journalist Danny Casolaro died in what appears to have been a suicide. Some conspiracy writers believe the death was a murder, committed to hide whatever Casolaro had uncovered. Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith discusses the episode in their book, The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro (The Octopus was, allegedly, the name that Casolaro had intended to give his book).

• The Inslaw Affair
• The INSLAW Octopus, at Wired