For those with short memories, Poindexter, according to the charges against
him, secretly sold weapons to Iran and, after raising $30 million from
this illegal sale (to which no member of congress was Privy) gave the money
to the contra rebels in Nicaragua. They, in turn, used the funds to do
things like blow up bus loads of school children . . .
Chief Takes Over New Agency to Thwart Attacks on U.S.
By JOHN MARKOFF
John M. Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who was President Ronald
Reagan's national security adviser, has returned to the Pentagon to direct a
new agency that is developing technologies to give federal officials instant
access to vast new surveillance and information- analysis systems.
The Information Awareness Office, which Mr. Poindexter took over last month,
is one of two new agencies that the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, or Darpa, created in recent months as part of the Bush
administration's effort to grapple with new kinds of military threats after
the attacks of Sept. 11.
The other new agency is the Information Exploitation Office and is intended
to develop advanced computerized battlefield sensor networks to shorten the
time between when an enemy target is located and when it is attacked.
The Information Awareness Office will focus on what the agency refers to as
asymmetric threats, or nonconventional military targets like potential
terrorist organizations.
The administration has called for a sharp increase in Darpa's budget in the
fiscal year 2003, and the agency is being reshaped to focus on a variety of
new technologies, including biological warfare threats as well as new
computer data mining technologies.
Over the years, Darpa has financed research that led to the creation of the
Internet and stealth aircraft.
Mr. Poindexter, who is 65, was a controversial figure both for his role in
the Iran-contra scandals and for his efforts to assert military influence
over commercial computer security technologies.
With Oliver L. North, a former National Security Council aide, Mr.
Poindexter was convicted in 1986 as part of the guns-for-hostages deal that
provoked a Congressional investigation. The conviction was overturned in
1991 on grounds that the men had been granted immunity from prosecution as a
result of their testimony before Congress.
Since leaving government in the 1980's, Mr. Poindexter has worked as a
military technology consultant, most recently for Syntek Technologies, a
military and intelligence- agency consulting firm in Arlington, Va. Since
1995, he has consulted with Darpa on new technologies intended to give
military and civil crisis managers access to battlefield and related
information.
Mr. Poindexter, who declined a request for an interview on his new position,
became closely involved as a contractor in 1995 on a Darpa development
project code-named Genoa intended to give national security managers
advanced personal computer networks with access to large databases of
relevant information.
In recent weeks, Mr. Poindexter has contacted a number of Silicon Valley
researchers looking for information on specific technologies.
Several scientists who are close to the agency said he had returned to
government service because he had a passionate concern about assuring that
the nation's crisis managers had better computerized systems for
communication and data analysis.
After 9/11, there is clearly a sense you have to present information to
decision makers in a coherent fashion, said Shankar Sastry, a former Darpa
manager who is now chairman of the electrical engineering and computer
sciences department at the University of California.
Mr. Poindexter also consulted on another Darpa project called Command Post
of the Future, Dr. Sastry said. The project designed a series of
high-technology rooms that surrounded military planners with electronic
communication, decision- making and mapping aids.
One component of the new computer information systems that is being
emphasized by Mr. Poindexter's new office are data mining techniques
intended to scan through vast collections of computer data, which may
include text, images, sound and other computer data, and find significant
patterns.
We now have so many sensors that we need new ways of making sense of the
information we collect, said Steven Wallach, who is vice president of
Chiaro Networks and a member of the president's Information Technology
Advisory Committee. How do you associate a name with a picture taken in
Malaysia, a cellphone call in Frankfurt, Germany, and a bank transfer from
Pakistan to Chicago? There aren't any perfect answers yet.
The development of such advanced surveillance and data-mining techniques has
raised new concerns among civil liberties groups in the United States, and
Mr. Poindexter was involved in disputes about the government's role in
computer security during the 1980's.
Mr. Poindexter was responsible for several computer policy mistakes in the
