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<\/a><\/p>\nBY: MICHAEL BEST
\nglomardisclosure.com<\/p>\n
First Lieutenant Alan David Standorf worked with, if not directly for, the National Security Agency at Vint Hill Farms Station, then a U.S. Army\/NSA listening post. In 1990, he became a whistleblower and\u00a0made contact with Danny Casolaro, an investigative journalist. Standorf gave\u00a0Casolaro\u00a0information and copies of classified documents to help expose illegal activities including money laundering, bulk data collection and a list of dissidents to be rounded up in the event of an emergency. Standorf\u2019s\u00a0was murdered and his body hidden in the back of a car that was left at the airport. Several months later, Casolaro\u00a0died in what has dubiously been labeled a suicide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Standorf\u2019s\u00a0story has been buried under layers of government secrecy and obstruction (to the point of violating DOJ guidance<\/a>), with what little is known about him being confused by\u00a0contradictory statements and some\u00a0misinformation (such as baseless accusations that his death was due to the Clintons, despite no connection to them and the presence of others with motives). This report relies on declassified and unclassified government records, military histories, affidavits, statements from both witnesses and investigators, as well as other contemporary sources.<\/p>\n In 1974, Alan Standorf graduated from Whitehall High School and subsequently joined the Army. This same year, one of his brothers, Gary, was awarded the\u00a0Spaatz Award for his performance in the Pennsylvania Wing Civil Air Patrol. Later, Gary would also join the Army where he was put in charge of managing the computer networks for Fort Monmouth.\u00a0\u00a0According to contemporary reports, Alan Standorf was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army assigned to\u00a0military intelligence in the Individual Ready Reserve in\u00a0May 1985. According to Standorf\u2019s other brother Mark\u00a0over fifteen years later,\u00a0he received his commission in 1986 when he graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Platteville.\u00a0At some point, Alan\u2019s Army status\u00a0became active and he spent the majority of his\u00a02-5\u00a0years in the Army stationed in Germany. While there, he continued to work with military intelligence.<\/p>\n Eventually, Alan\u2019s\u00a0active duty status was cancelled and he went back into the reserves as a member of the 450th Civil Affairs Company (later the 450th Civil Affairs Battalion) stationed at Riverdale, Maryland. The 450th is part of the\u00a0U.S. Army Special Operations Command and provided support to the\u00a082nd Airborne Division. The 82nd Airborne Division\u00a0specialized in parachute assault operations into hostile areas as part of the\u00a0XVIII Airborne Corps\u00a0\u2013 \u201cAmerica\u2019s Contingency Corps\u201d.<\/p>\n While a reservist, he continued to work closely with the Army and military intelligence, adding a new partner to the mix \u2013 the National Security Agency. Standorf took a civilian job at Vint Hill Farms\u00a0Station, which was operated by the U.S. Army and the National Security Agency (which is currently still\u00a0both a military and a civilian agency<\/a>) as a listening post\/processing point for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). As early as 1977, Vint Hill employees were reporting that the facility had machines to intercept foreign communications,\u00a0including between embassies. In 1987,\u00a0control of the facility was transferred control of the facility\u00a0from the\u00a0Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) to the\u00a0Communications-Electronics Command (CEC). At the time,\u00a0CEC was based out of Fort Monmouth.<\/p>\n Coincidentally, Alan\u2019s brother Gary was still in charge of at least some of\u00a0the computer networks at Fort Monmouth . Both Gary and his wife were \u201ccomputer systems programmers\u201d for the Army at Fort Monmouth.\u00a0Specifically, Gary worked for the\u00a0Army Information Systems Command<\/a>\u00a0which is primarily responsible for \u201csystem engineering and integration of information systems for the U.S. Army.\u201d When Vint Hill Farms\u00a0Station was shut down several years after Alan Standorf\u2019s death, many of the personnel were reassigned to Fort Monmouth. Despite\u00a0the overlap between their work with the Army and their shared security clearances, Gary may not have known anymore about Alan\u2019s work at Vint Hill or in the Army than the rest of his family did. Up until his death, all Alan\u00a0would tell them was his work was classified and that it was dangerous. After his death, his brother Mark described Alan\u2019s work as \u201cfor the war.\u201d<\/p>\n Official documents and statements shed little additional light on Alan Standorf\u2019s civilian work at Vint Hill Farms Station. Many of the statements appear\u00a0to contradict each other and what little his family knew. While one source described Standorf as an NSA clerk and another called him a \u201ca low-level analyst,\u201d different members of the police have given\u00a0contradictory descriptions of his job. According to a Lieutenant with the airport police where Standorf\u2019s body was found, Standorf\u00a0was responsible for the maintenance\u00a0and distribution of equipment at Vint Hill Farms Station. According to another police source, Standorf\u2019s civilian job was to \u201coversee security measures\u201d at Vint Hill Farms Station.<\/p>\n Whatever his position at Vint Hill Farms Station, Standorf had access to a great deal of information. This access allowed him to provide Danny Casolaro, who Michael Riconosciuto had introduced him to, with detailed\u00a0and classified documents with TOP SECRET and SCI markings. According to a source who saw these documents, they\u00a0provided proof that\u00a0copies of PROMIS had been\u00a0illegally sold to Canada, Australia and Israel<\/a>. These copies of PROMIS had been modified with a backdoor\u00a0designed to allow U.S.\u00a0intelligence to access the systems they were connected to. PROMIS has also been compared to PRISM<\/a>, since it\u2019s primary purpose was to sort and manage large amounts of information that could\u00a0be imported for multiple systems. Between its primary purposes and the modifications embedded in copies\u00a0sold around the world (and in\u00a0physically modified computer systems\u00a0often sold as part of the package), PROMIS formed the backbone of one of, if not the, earliest electronic mass surveillance systems\u00a0used by the United States.<\/p>\n The documents also provided some of the earliest hints of MAIN CORE, a PROMIS-based system briefly disclosed and ignored in the mid-1990s before it was discovered by investigative journalists<\/a> like Tim Shorrock. According to Shorrock<\/a>:<\/p>\n [MAIN CORE dated] back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as \u201cMain Core,\u201d the database reportedly collects and stores \u2014 without warrants or court orders \u2014 the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security.\u00a0According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as \u201can emergency internal security database system\u201d designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They also documented money transfers between\u00a0individuals such as\u00a0Adnan Khashoggi, Richard Secord, Ed Meese, and Earl Brian. Some of these transfers involved the\u00a0Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a bank that, like BNL and Nugan-Hand bank, is\u00a0infamous for its ties to drug and arms trafficking, as well as nebulous CIA ties.<\/p>\n Rightly concerned about being discovered, Casolaro and Standorf were joined by Bill Turner, another defense industry whistleblower (the one who has described the documents)\u00a0of Casolaro\u2019s in a hotel room with rented copying equipment.\u00a0They\u00a0quickly copied documents so that Standorf could\u00a0return\u00a0the originals before anyone noticed they were missing. If anyone noticed they were missing, Standorf\u00a0doesn\u2019t appear to have told Casolaro. Some of the papers that were copied here would later be\u00a0in\u00a0the briefcase full of documents that\u00a0Casolaro took with him on the weekend he died in a hotel bathroom. The\u00a0documents\u00a0disappeared, along with the briefcase. While the official reports from the Department of Justice (DOJ) claim that no one at the hotel\u00a0saw this briefcase, the handwritten notes taken by the Martinsburg Police indicate otherwise.<\/p>\n Based on statements Casolaro made to others about his sources and contacts, Standorf continued to provide him with information for a time but then \u2018dried up.\u2019 The timing of this matches Standorf\u2019s death in the beginning of 1991.<\/p>\n Standorf\u2019s death followed shortly after his resignation from Vint Hill Farms Station on December 19, 1990 after being called into active service. Beginning December 11th<\/a>, the\u00a0450th Civil Affairs Company was\u00a0ordered into active military service. On December 27th, they were \u201ccalled up\u201d and according to one history they reported to Fort Bragg four days later, on New Year\u2019s Eve. On December 28th, Alan Standorf saw\u00a0his family for the last time. According to Mark Standorf, his brother visited with friends on New Year\u2019s Eve, and Alan saw his landlady the next day. Unlike the 30 or so other members of his unit who failed to deploy as a result of not meeting the requirements for Special Operations Forces, Standorf\u00a0simply never arrived at Fort Bragg. Investigators believe that Standorf was\u00a0traveling from\u00a0Lehigh Valley to Fort Bragg when he\u00a0disappeared.<\/p>\n According to detectives, Standorf withdrew $500 from the ATM shortly before he died of blunt force trauma\u00a0to the back of the head. Although he appears to have last been seen on January 1st, the detective estimated Standorf\u2019s date of death as having been\u00a0January 3, 1991, the same date of death later reflected in the Social Security index and in his military records. On January 4th, his car was\u00a0left\u00a0in short-term parking at Reagan airport. According to one report, Standorf\u2019s body was found on January 28th. According to a police statement published the next day, his body was found at 9:45 P.M. by a policeman on patrol. Standorf\u2019s body was left in the backseat of the car and was covered by his suitcase and other effects. By the time Standorf\u2019s body was found, the car had been parked in the short-term parking lot for either 24 or 25 days.<\/p>\n Due to the sensitive nature of his position, Army\u00a0investigators and the FBI were called in as well as the police and airport police. After several days of cooperation, they concluded that the matter was a robbery, pointing to the missing $500 and the missing handgun. This seems unlikely, and also appears contradicted by the FBI\u2019s later basis for withholding the relevant files. According to this theory, Standorf was\u00a0last seen on New Year\u2019s Day before\u00a0leaving for Fort Bragg, a destination which he would never reach.\u00a0The theory posits that somewhere along the way, he met his robber\u00a0who\u00a0either took the money Standorf had already withdrawn or\u00a0forced Standorf to withdraw money before being killed on January 3rd and his body left in the airport parking lot on January 4th. The latter means\u00a0that the killer held onto his body for a day before disposing of it\u00a0in an unlikely manner.<\/p>\n Not only was the body not placed into the trunk of the car, which seems like the most logical place, but it was transported to and left in a place that receives\u00a0an abnormal amount of attention. A\u00a0simple robbery committed by a local would have no reason to leave the body there as opposed to any location or facility that doesn\u2019t have security cameras and its own dedicated police force.\u00a0The parking lot\u00a0wouldn\u2019t be a convenient or safe place for anyone who wasn\u2019t planning to get on a flight out of the country. It\u2019s not uncommon for\u00a0hitmen to leave the\u00a0jurisdiction after a killing, or to be brought in from\u00a0a different area solely to perform the job before leaving. Certainly, a robbery motivated only by\u00a0$500 and a handgun\u00a0isn\u2019t worth a homicide and plane ticket.<\/p>\n Even after detectives concluded that the\u00a0death was most likely the result of a homicide, they kept\u00a0in mind the possibility that his death was related to his work. As a result, the release of information on the case was \u201ctoned down\u201d from the very beginning. The official records that have been released have done little\u00a0to clarify\u00a0what Standorf\u2019s job in the military was.\u00a0According to one record, his listed occupation\u00a0in the U.S. Army was as a Quartermaster and had been promoted to First Lieutenant before he died. While this appears to match\u00a0a single statement from a police source, it also seems to contradict everything else that\u2019s known about Standorf\u2019s work.\u00a0The records indicate that his initial assignments were all in military intelligence, nor is there anything in the 450th\u2019s next assignment to indicate he would be more useful as a Quartermaster than in an intelligence role. The\u00a0450th Civil Affairs Company formed the core of what became\u00a0Task Force PSYOP, where they were joined by the\u00a04th Psychological Operations Group. Their mission was to convince\u00a0the Iraqis at the Tallil Air Base\u00a0to surrendering or abandon the base.<\/p>\n After Casolaro\u2019s death in August 1991, Bill Turner\u00a0sent an anonymous tip to police that his death might have been connected to Standorf\u2019s. Although the police investigators followed up on the lead, they were apparently unable to find any records connecting Standorf and Casolaro. The investigators\u00a0remained convinced that\u00a0it was most likely a simple robbery. Given the care that Standorf and Casolaro apparently took to avoid detection (using a hotel room, copying documents and rapidly replacing them, etc.) the failure to find any link between the two\u00a0isn\u2019t an indication of anything.<\/p>\n Although the police and Army investigators appeared satisfied that the matter was\u00a0a simple robbery, the FBI remained doubtful. As I noted previously<\/a>, an excerpt written\u00a0in 1993 or 1994 and formerly classified SECRET details the interest in Casolaro and\u00a0Standorf in regards to Inslaw, BCCI, BNL and other\u00a0related matters that Casolaro was investigating. According to the excerpt from the BCCI Task Force, more than half of them believed that Casolaro\u2019s death needed further investigation despite\u00a0being aware that expressing that \u201crisked one\u2019s own judgment being called into question.\u201d The excerpt also noted that:<\/p>\n There have been allegations that a key source of Casolaro\u2019s [Alan Standorf], an employee of the electronic surveillance station at Vint Hill Farm (Va.), was found murdered at National Airport shortly before Casolaro\u2019s own death. An inquiry into this allegation was assigned by the WMFO but has remained pending for months. It needs to be completed in order to determine if there is any merit to the allegation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Just over 25 years after Standorf\u2019s body was found, I filed a FOIA request<\/a> with the FBI for records on him and his death as part of a larger project on the Inslaw affair and Reagan\u2019s other scandals<\/a>. More than a year later,\u00a0a response came back \u2013 the FBI\u00a0refused to release any information except that an investigative file existed, which the Bureau asserted flatly exempted the material from release.<\/p>\n While this might seem standard enough and Exemption 7(A) is quite legitimate, the way they cite it is completely improper and appears to violate caselaw as well as the Department of Justice\u2019s FOIA guidelines. File level exemptions are simply not allowed, as Agencies are required to review\u00a0the materials on a document by document basis. The DOJ\u2019s own guidance states that \u201cit is beyond question that Exemption 7(A) is temporal in nature and is not intended to \u201cendlessly protect material simply because it [is] in an investigatory file.’\u201d Despite this, that is exactly what the FBI has done in an attempt to bury this material.<\/p>\n Beyond this,\u00a0courts have found, and the DOJ guidance states, that the age itself makes the\u00a07(A) exemption\u00a0suspect. While \u201cExemption 7(A) is temporal in nature, it nevertheless remains viable throughout the duration of long-term investigations. \u00a0For example, in 1993 it was held applicable to the FBI\u2019s continuing investigation into the 1975 disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.\u00a0Even when an investigation is dormant, Exemption 7(A) has been held to be applicable because of the possibility that the investigation could lead to a \u201cprospective law enforcement proceeding.\u201dThe \u201cprospective\u201d proceeding, however, must be a concrete possibility, rather than a mere hypothetical one.\u201d A later court found that, by the time the Hoffa case was as old as the Standorf case, simply the \u201cinordinate amount of time that [it] has remained an allegedly pending and active investigation\u201d justified an in-camera review of the materials.<\/p>\n The Department of\u00a0Justice\u2019s own guidelines state the FBI is required to\u00a0review each document in order to withhold it.\u00a0\u201cThe D.C. Circuit in Bevis v. Department of State, held that even though an agency \u201cneed not justify its withholding on a document-by-document basis in court, [it] must itself review each document to determine the category in which it properly belongs.\u201d The letter the FBI\u00a0sent<\/a>\u00a0states\u00a0flatly that the material \u201cis located in an investigative file which is exempt.\u201d<\/p>\n While the FBI\u2019s refusal\u00a0does violate the DOJ\u2019s own guidance, it is nevertheless informative \u2013 if the FBI believed that Standorf was killed in a simple robbery, then they have no jurisdiction and would\u00a0simply refer the request to the Other Government Agencies (OGAs) as is typically done in such requests. This\u00a0would\u00a0have cleared it from the FBI\u2019s queue just as quickly and\u00a0thoroughly with as little work on their part. That the FBI asserts they\u00a0still have a law\u00a0enforcement action pending on the case, whether they properly reviewed the files for the exemption or not, indicates that\u00a0Standorf\u2019s death wasn\u2019t\u00a0a simple robbery \u2013 it was connected to his work with military intelligence and at Vint Hill Farms Station.\u00a0In light of that, Occam\u2019s Razor makes it clear it\u2019d be foolish to assume his death wasn\u2019t connected to his whistleblowing.<\/p>\n ___ FBI violates DOJ guidance by withholding file on murdered NSA whistleblower BY: MICHAEL BEST glomardisclosure.com First Lieutenant Alan David Standorf worked with, if not directly for, the National Security Agency at Vint Hill Farms Station, then a U.S. Army\/NSA listening … Continue reading <\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/glomardisclosure.com\/2017\/03\/18\/fbi-violates-doj-guidance-withholding-file-murdered-nsa-whistleblower\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"