Top secret phone surveillance company calls Lincoln home, meet the man who created it - 1011now

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) For decades, since its official inception in 1987, PenLink has called the Capital City home. Its conspicuous headquarters sits, tucked away, near Old Cheney and Highway 2 in southeast Lincoln.

The creator of Penlink, Mike Murman, is a now-retired Lincoln native and UNL grad. (Source: KOLN/Bryan Shawver)

Its global operation provides software and equipment that monitors, tracks and collects data from the cell phones of people under investigation, from local law enforcement to government agencies, located in countries around the world.

Mike Murman, a now-retired Lincoln native and UNL grad with an entrepreneurial spirit, created PenLink all those years ago. He has since sold the company, but was the force behind turning a small-time operation, starting with the Lincoln Police Department, into an established name for secret surveillance.

It really started in the early ‘80s when Murman was sued by his former employer, Selection Research Inc., now known as Gallup. Murman said he had left the company in 1983 to start a venture of his own called Measurement Systems.

He hired a few people to create software that built candidate profiles for human resources departments, which segregated applicants based on relevant skills to better help hiring managers.

“They were claiming that the software I had developed was based on their trade secrets,” Murman said. “I had restraining orders, I had clauses where it was difficult for me to go and add customers.”

The legal battled lasted years, eventually working its way to the Nebraska Supreme Court in 1989. The court ruled in Murman’s favor.

But before that, during the years in between, running low on money and needing a source of income, Murman had his staff working on various software programming contracts.

It was then, he stumbled upon the need for the automation of pen register data.

"We developed a software program specific to the Lincoln Police Department to automate their collection of pen register data for a gambling case," Murman said.

Pen registers were machines that police departments and other agencies would use to collect the date, time and numbers dialed by a phone on a phone line being investigated during a surveillance case – a less intrusive version of a wiretap. The pen data would gain authorities phone numbers of other crime subjects.

Various companies manufactured equipment used for pen registers, making it impossible to automate pen register data, since different agencies often used several different brands to compile information.

It was there that PenLink was created. A software was created to work with the different pen register brands.

"Once we developed interfaces to all of the different manufacturers of equipment, we became the only software that would allow an agency like the Drug Enforcement Administration, that's using three or four different devices, to collect all of this intelligence and put it into one database,” Murman said. "It gave the U.S. government the capability to collect intercepted phone information from any vendor's product and put it into one database for analytics."

He readily admits he was the architect behind the creation and not the programmer, and surrounded himself with staff who could do the technical parts of the job.

The late 1980s were a struggle for Measurement Systems, as the lawsuit by Selection Research dragged on, but the business remained Murman’s focus as PenLink slowly gained traction with law enforcement agencies.

"I would drive to Chicago, Oklahoma City, Kansas City; anywhere that someone would listen to us and let us demonstrate our software."

"I think in the first year or two we only sold one or two or three software programs,” Murman said. “It was not generating the kind of income that on its own would keep it afloat."

By 1993, that changed when PenLink was awarded its first major contract, a global deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Over the next several years, with an amendment to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act or CALEA, and the transition to digital wireless, PenLink retooled its operation to adapt.

The system became known as the Local Intercept Network Collection On Line Network, or LINCOLN.

“We took it upon ourselves to be the pioneer in developing the next generation complete wiretap platform,” Murman said. “So, not just pen registers, but now full content audio wiretaps as well."

In the early 2000s, PenLink was used in the investigation of Scott Peterson, who was accused in the disappearance and eventual murder of his wife Laci and their unborn son.

Law enforcement used LINCOLN to track the whereabouts of Peterson, and presented the findings during the high-profile murder trial in 2004.

Murman himself was called to verify the accuracy of LINCOLN, which became a make-or-break moment for the company on a national stage.

The judge allowed the wiretaps into evidence.

With the 2000s and rise of in home wireless internet service and smartphone usage, came about data monitoring and collection.

“We started in the beginning where people had wireline phones, one phone in a home, to, by the time I left, every kid in the home had a wireless phone they were streaming on their computers and chatting on their computer,” Murman said. “We had to be able to intercept all of those forms of communication."

Today, the reach of PenLink’s stretches around the world.

More than $182 million in federal government contracts has been awarded to PenLink since 2007, according to government records.

We did reach out to PenLink seeking comment on their operation and continued presence in the Capital City, but the company did not get back to us.

In Nebraska, the company maintains more than $24,000 in active contracts with Nebraska State Patrol.

By 2007, Murman sold off a portion of his company to employees, and remained president until his complete buyout six years later – his retirement of sorts.

"I already had in my mind I wanted to move on and do something else in the end of my career, and that something else was Glacial Till Vineyard,” Murman said.

His venture into wine and hard cider started with his purchase of what is now the growing operation for Glacial Till in 2003.

He also continues to advise startup companies and take trail rides on his bike.

"I still have worries,” Murman said. “It's just not the same level of stress. I'm having fun with it.

The once home of sight-training for PenLink, inside a building in downtown Ashland, was transformed into Glacial Till’s tasting setup.

What started as a hobby turned into a full fledged operation run entirely by his three sons. In 2019, the company produced more than 80,000 gallons of hard cider.

"When I do look backward at [companies Murman created], you have to pinch yourself, it's like 'I can't believe I put that together.'"

2020-03-09 13:56:50Z
https://www.1011now.com/content/news/Top-secret-phone-surveillance-company-calls-Lincoln-home-meet-the-man-who-created-it-566177591.html