Intelligence center hones spy tech

IARPA develops groundbreaking gadgets for 16 agencies, but critics question need.

Katherine Shrader
The Associated Press

Washington — Using a new laptop and a satellite link, FBI agents can find out within two minutes whether the fingerprint from a newly captured suspect overseas matches a terrorist database in Virginia.

Intelligence officials are running documents in languages such as Arabic through a new computer program called "English Now." It converts the foreign characters into the Roman alphabet and makes words such as Baghdad, President Bush or Osama bin Laden jump out to spies who can't read Arabic.

The language software and the fingerprint-recognition system are examples of new spy gear that the national intelligence director's office bought last year. They may seem like tools that should have been available years ago, but the government isn't noted for its ability to quickly develop new technology.

A fledgling center called IARPA is hoping to change that. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity will try to develop groundbreaking technology for the 16 spy agencies.

One potential tool sounds like it comes from an episode of "Star Trek": "cloaking" technology that can bend radar around an object to make it appear it's not there. Others include power sources shrunk using nanotechnology and quantum computers that can speed code-breaking, says IARPA acting director Steve Nixon.

Not everyone is convinced this is the right way to make spy tools. The House Intelligence Committee questions whether the government needs it.

There is even resistance within the CIA itself, according to officials who spoke about the concerns privately. The agency gets money that is supposed to go for spy tools that can be shared across the government. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano denied any friction, saying the agency welcomes ideas that promote collaboration on new technology.

In the last half-century, U.S. spy agencies have made technical breakthroughs large and small. In the 1970s, the CIA shared its lithium-iodine batteries with the medical field, which now uses them in pacemakers. Its scientists developed microdot cameras that can produce images so small they can be hidden in the period of this sentence. They also built a life-size robotic dragonfly that could have been used for surveillance, if only it could have handled crosswinds.

The new intelligence organization will be based at the University of Maryland and staffed with 56 intelligence professionals from the CIA and from McConnell's organization.

Nixon says IARPA will sponsor research at universities, national labs and other organizations.

IARPA is thinking broadly, he said. It won't limit itself to hard sciences, but will also tackle social-science problems such as finding tools for language research or to help analysts measure cultural habits of another society. He also said the organization will work on privacy protection. NSA and other agencies want to be able to make better use of foreign intelligence information from overseas, which often contains information on U.S. citizens.

 

This was found at News-Leader.com