US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0156/01566.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 14KB | 260 lines

$Unique_ID{USH01566}
$Pretitle{131}
$Title{The Iran-Contra Affair:  Supplemental and Additional Views
Appendix B:  The Committees' Use of Computer Technology}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hamilton, Lee H. and Inouye, Daniel K.}
$Affiliation{US Congress}
$Subject{committees
house
white
documents
report
computer
information
committee
staff
declassification}
$Volume{}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Book:        The Iran-Contra Affair:  Supplemental and Additional Views
Author:      Hamilton, Lee H. and Inouye, Daniel K.
Affiliation: US Congress
Date:        1987

Appendix B:  The Committees' Use of Computer Technology

     The quantity and breadth of material to be analyzed by the Committees
necessitated the use of computerized databases to facilitate the storage,
organization, and retrieval of information.

     The Committees' primary use of the computers, beyond word processing
tasks, was to compile a number of databases containing the materials obtained
in the investigation.  Because of the large volume of information and
documents involved and the wide range of issues addressed by the
investigation, it was essential to develop systems that would enable the
Committees to store and retrieve these materials in a prompt, efficient, and
useful manner.  Two general needs were addressed.  The first was the need to
extract from the vast amount of material available the documents or
information pertinent to a particular witness or a particular inquiry.  The
second need was to locate specific documents or information from among the
many thousands of documents and the numerous transcripts in the Committees'
files.

     The Senate Committee staff accepted responsibility for the computer
filing of documents and gave copies of its codes and documents to House
Committee staff.  The House Committee staff also operated a computerized
document retrieval system.  To facilitate filing and retrieval, each page of
each document was assigned a Senate code number prefaced by one or two letters
indicating the source of the document.

     Later, a text-oriented database product was added that allowed document
summaries to be searched.  The addition of a full-text search capability made
possible more complex queries.

Declassification

     Before any classified documents were publicly released, they were
submitted by the Committees to the White House for review by a
Declassification Committee composed of representatives from the affected
executive departments.  The declassification process worked smoothly.  There
were no major disagreements, compromises were struck where necessary, and the
Committees were generally satisfied with the outcome.  The members of the
Declassification Committee, led by Brenda Reger of the NSC staff, were a
dedicated group of professionals, who processed voluminous materials rapidly,
sometimes in just a few hours or overnight (including weekends), so that they
could be used at the hearings or included in this report.  The
Declassification Committee also expedited clearance of this Report itself on a
chapter-by-chapter basis reviewing over 2,100 pages of typescript and devoting
more than 2,000 hours to the task.  The result of this effort was public
disclosure of critical facts with due regard to considerations of national
security and U.S. foreign relations.

     The declassification procedure involved sending documents to the White
House with a request for declassification.  The Declassification Committee
reviewed the documents, redacting information that could not be declassified.
For this Report, the Declassification Committee then discussed with the
Committees' staffs ways to resolve any problems with classified information,
so that an entirely unclassified Report could be published.

     The House and Senate Committees together submitted more than 4,000
documents to the White House Declassification Committee.  A computerized
control system was developed at the Select Committees to keep track of which
documents had been declassified, which were in the process of
declassification, and which remained to be declassified.

Fund-Tracking System

     Following the "money trail" - the sources, movements, and locations of
funds involved in the investigation - necessitated the establishment of
separate specialized databases.  Two closely related files were created.  The
first identified all relevant bank accounts; the second contained the detailed
transactions.  Data were first entered into the bank account file to be used
to verify transactions.  Each account was verified to flow from a known
account to another known account.  After the bank account file was prepared,
specific transactions were entered into the second file.  All monetary amounts
were typed twice; the program monitored the entry to ensure that the two
entries were identical.  The accounting firm of Price Waterhouse provided
professional accounting services to the House Committee, and the General
Accounting Office provided similar services to the Senate Committee.

Special-Purpose Systems

     During the course of the investigation, several additional computer
systems were developed to fill more specialized needs.  A simple database was
prepared to list all exhibits used in public testimony, including the date
each was entered into the official record.  Subpoenaed telephone records of
several witnesses were entered into a database, permitting a variety of
database searches including chronological listings, lists of calls to a
particular location, and frequently called numbers.

     The hearings transcript database was one of the more useful databases.
All testimony was entered in this database, which could be scanned by key word
and could print out all transcript references to a particular event or person.
The House Committee staff could also search a chronology of events, as well as
all material produced on its word processors.

     Staff members of the House Information Systems group and the Senate
Computer Center were particularly helpful in establishing and managing the
databases and in assisting with computer and word processor operations
generally.

Cooperation from the President

     The Committees received cooperation from the White House.  The President
did not claim executive privilege, and he directed pertinent executive
departments, including the White House, to make available all relevant
documents and personnel.  The President also made available his personal
biographer for interviews and relevant extracts from his personal diaries,
pursuant to an agreement between the Committees and the White House.  The
President declined, however, to permit the Committees to make reference to his
diary extracts in this Report.

Pending Request

     Relevant PROF messages that had not been deleted as of November 15, 1986,
were produced by the White House to the Committees.  However, in August 1987,
after the Committees' hearing, the Committees' computer experts informed the
Committees of a possibility that PROF notes deleted from the NSC computer
might still be retrieved.  When a sender or receiver of a PROF message deletes
a message, he deletes only the computer's ability to call the message up to
the computer screen.  The message itself is not actually deleted.  Deletion of
the message itself occurs when the user writes a new message over the old
message in his "user space."  The selection of which portion of the user's
space is occupied by the new message is made randomly by the computer.  (Each
user has his own limited amount of user space.)  The computer has the ability
to print out a "dump" of all data stored in selected user areas, i.e., both
the "deleted" messages which have not been written over and the "live"
messages.

     On August 31, 1987, the Committees made a written request for a number of
things including a complete "dump" of the PROFs user areas for North,
Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, and Don Fortier.  According to the Committees'
computer experts these dumps could be printed in less than a day.  The White
House initially rejected the requests by letter dated September 4, 1987 on
grounds of "separation of powers principles, and Constitutional prerogatives."
Specifically with respect to the computer "dump" it stated that the requested
information would be irrelevant and would involve highly sensitive national
security matters.  The White House also said it believed the chances of
obtaining any usable information to be extremely remote, i.e., that all or
substantially all of the deleted messages had been written over, and that it
would take too much time to perform the "relevancy and classification review"
of the dumps.  The dumps would be thousands of pages long, and the White House
contended that most if not all of which would consist of "live" messages
already reviewed.  Since there is no way of telling from the face of the dump
which messages are "live" and which are not, the entire dump would have to be
reviewed.  The White House refused to review the dump itself on the ground
that it would take too much time, and declined to permit the Committees to
review it on national security grounds.

     The Committees did not agree.  They pursued the matter further, and
prevailed on the White House to print out a sample portion of a "dump" for one
of the users.  The White House informed the Committees that it contained only
live material that had already been reviewed.  The White House reasserted that
it would not perform complete dumps, but agreed to print out dumps containing
only the deleted material if a computer program could be written which would
separate the "deleted" data from "live" data which had previously been
provided to the Committees.

     The White House declined to permit the Committees' experts to have access
to the NSC computer system to perform this task on national security grounds,
but on several occasions the White House cooperated, and has stated that it
will continue to cooperate, by making NSC and White House personnel available
to provide information concerning the system so that such a program could be
written.

     Extraordinary efforts were made by the Committees and its experts during
September and October to develop this program.  Due to the difficulty of this
task, the experts had not yet completed a working program as of early
November.

     The Committees believe that it is important for them to obtain and review
this data to determine whether it contains information significant to the
investigation, and are hopeful that their continuing efforts to retrieve
remnants of "deleted" PROF messages will be completed at or around the time
that this Report is issued.  There is no assurance that the material extracted
will be anything more than fragments, and even the fragments may be unrelated
to any matters under investigation. Consequently, the Committees decided not
to delay issuance of this report. However, if any new and relevant information
is uncovered from the PROFs system and not included in this Report, the
Committees will take the necessary steps to make it available to the standing
Intelligence Committees and, if appropriate, provide it to the Independent
Counsel.

     Another potential source of additional evidence was data on word
processing diskettes gathered from NSC staff offices.  Many critical
documents, including the key diversion memorandum, were typed on such
diskettes.

     The Committees made requests to the White House and the Independent
Counsel who had joint custody of the diskettes themselves, and received
numerous documents that were printed off all these diskettes and have been
assured that all relevant materials which can be printed from such diskettes
at this time have been produced.  If further "deleted" materials can be
printed off these diskettes, we are confident that the Independent Counsel
will do so.

Cooperation from Other Governments

     The Committees received unprecedented cooperation from the State of
Israel.  Israel entered into an agreement with the Committees to prepare and
provide extensive financial and historical chronologies detailing the role of
Israel and individual Israelis in the Iran initiative from 1985 through 1986.
Israel was unwilling to waive its privileges of State secrecy and sovereign
immunity and permit its officials and citizens to be questioned by the
Committees.  In lieu of interviews or testimony, and without waiver, Israel
agreed to obtain and review relevant documents from Israeli participants and
to interview Israeli nationals.  With the specific agreement of the Government
of Israel, information from the Israeli chronologies is used in this Report.
The Committees used this material sparingly and only where it was the best or
only evidence of relevant facts.

The Committees' Report

     The Committees' Report was prepared as a joint effort.  The Committees
directed their Chief Counsels to organize staff attorneys into writing teams
that were responsible for drafting chapters based on the information that the
investigation had produced.  Associate staff acted as critical readers, and
support staff provided fact- and cite-checking as well as word processing
capability.  The Members of both Committees, acting on their own or through
their Chairmen, were involved in or apprised of every important step in the
process, from drafting to reviewing and finalizing the Report.

     The staff produced a draft version of the Report by mid-September 1987,
and the Committees separately reviewed and revised the draft.  Members
continued to review and revise drafts until November 5, 1987, when the
Committees adopted the Report by separate votes.

     A professional editing team edited, illustrated, and produced the printed
volumes.  Design services were provided by the Superintendent of Typography
and Design of the Government Printing Office.

Conclusion of Activities

     The Committees concluded their work by filing their joint Report
respectively with the House and the Senate on the designated days.  A skeleton
staff remained during November to complete the publishing program and to
catalog and prepare the Committees' documents and papers for permanent
storage.