How IARPA Is Trying To Plug Intelligence Gaps

Feds Thinking Outside The Box To Plug Intelligence Gaps -- McClatchy News

WASHINGTON — Three recent events — the foiled Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, the Dec. 30 assassination of seven CIA officers and contractors by a Jordanian double agent in Afghanistan and the difficulties that U.S. Marines in Marjah, Afghanistan, have encountered — all have something in common: inadequate intelligence.

To lower the odds of similar troubles in the future, the government has launched a swarm of spooky, out-of-the-box research projects known collectively as the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

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My Comment: Not much meat in this article, with the exception that this new intelligence/research organization wants to do "great things".

I wish them luck.

Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) -- U.S. Intelligence's Answer To The U.S. Military's DARPA?

Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis C. Blair speaks at a dedication for the new building of the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Monday at M-Square, the University of Maryland's Research Park, where other national security tenants are clustered. The 125,000-square-foot facility will be completed in late 2009. (Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis / April 27, 2009)

Clandestine Defense Hub Prepares To Open At UM -- Baltimore Sun

Research site to develop tools to fight future threats

The projects to be launched at a top-secret University of Maryland research center would make "Q" - James Bond's owlish gadget-meister - blink with tears of envy.

In the coming months, teams of the nation's top theoretical mathematicians, behavioral scientists, software engineers and futurists will assemble to figure out how to make U.S. intelligence better, faster and more efficient.

Aston Martins with twin machine guns and ejector seats? Flamethrower bagpipes? Jet packs? The missile-firing leg cast?

Beyond that. Way beyond that.

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My Comment: I cannot help but feel that this is just DARPA, but customed made to service the U.S. Intelligence Community. If they get the budget, I will expect (like DARPA) unique research projects being developed and implemented by IARPA .... developments that (unfortunately) we will not know about until many years later.