CIA suffering James Bond envy?

[mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL COM>]

From: Jennifer and Kevin Mccoy <mccoy () earthlink net>

CIA suffering James Bond envy?
By Reuters
September 29, 1999, 6:00 p.m. PT
http://home.cnet.com/category/0-1005-200-265864.html

WASHINGTON--The CIA said today that it has set up a company headed by a
computer-game whiz to stay on the cutting edge of information technology
advances.

  The Washington-based venture capital company, called In-Q-It, takes its
name from "Q," the Ian Fleming-created master gadgeteer who supplied the
fictional James Bond with lethal wizardry. The two other parts of the name
stand for Intelligence and Information Technology.

  Unlike its Langley, Virginia-based sponsor, In-Q-It will recruit far
from bars, back alleys, and exotic bazaars, turning instead to the
burgeoning crop of Silicon Valley high-tech start-ups.

  The fund was formed to give the CIA a pipeline to the best
information-technology talent to solve the most pressing intelligence
problems, said William Harlow, the agency's chief spokesman.

  CIA director George Tenet said the unprecedented rate of technological
change "dictates a change in the way the intelligence community does
business."

  "In-Q-It answers this challenge by creating an innovative engine for the
community to work together with individuals, industry, and academia to
explore new and unconventional approaches to common problems," he said in
a statement put out by In-Q-It.

  In-Q-It will invest in start-ups or partner with others to help solve
the spy agency's information-processing needs, said Gilman Louie, the
39-year-old president and chief executive of the new company.

  "Our first job is to find out what exists today," he said in a telephone
interview. "We're going to create a baseline of today's best
technologies."

[snip...]