Thanks for that, justdrew. I also saw this at cryptogon about HNC:
HNC Software Inc. is San Diego’s largest software company and develops predictive software solutions for business-to-consumer service companies. These solutions allow companies to make more intelligent and profitable decisions and are marketed to industries- including financial, insurance, retail, telecommunications and the Internet.
Like many San Diego-based software companies, HNC Software Inc. traces its origins to the defense industry. When the company was launched in 1986, it focused on defense-related research and development. But over the years as defense budgets shrank not only in San Diego, but nationwide, HNC quickly realized that in order to succeed and grow, other commercial applications had to be found for its products.
…
But perhaps the most exciting frontier awaiting exploration and commercial development by HNC is in an area that scientists still know very little about: the human brain. HNC is working on a long-term research project launched in 1998 that is jointly funded by HNC and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Defense Department, to investigate ‘cortronic neural networks,’ a concept originally proposed by Robert Hecht-Nielsen, HNC’s co-founder and chief scientist.
HNC hopes to develop new capabilities in the areas of textual, aural and visual representation, and to actually build three new predictive, neural-net based systems: one that reads, interprets and searches text more effectively; a second recognizing speech and other sounds, enabling users to perform audio searches; and a third that can scan for and interpret images. The ultimate goal is to integrate all three systems. The net result – machines that someday might be able to reason like humans.
“This is the most important scientific challenge of our time, and finding the answer will be the adventure of the millennium,” says Hecht-Nielsen.
The Motivation Behind the Colorado Killings Is Murky, but the Horror Is Crystal ClearTwo months before he was charged with killing 12 people and wounding 59 others at a midnight opening of The Dark Knight Rises, James Eagen Holmes was scheduled to conduct a seminar on how the tiniest bits of genetic material can signal psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Whether or not he actually delivered his talk on micro RNA biomarkers is not yet clear, and he has since dropped out of the graduate neuroscience program at the University of Colorado Medical School in Denver.
But what soon became murderously clear is that none of our present societal markers are able to prevent a maniac from obtaining an arsenal and coldly plotting a massacre.
...
Before dropping out of graduate school in June, 24-year-old Holmes made the same benign impression on the brilliant professors and doctoral candidates who study the brain and behavior at the school’s neuroscience center. The professor who ran his course on the biological basis of psychiatric and neurological disorders is a prominent member of the medical school’s department of psychiatry. The two student-led seminars scheduled immediately after Holmes’s seminar were on psychosis and paranoid delusions.
http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/neur-sci/2 ... 55098.htmlThe link I picked for this coincidentally-dated article is, appropriately enough, from a neuroscience discussion group:
Below I have reproduced (in ASCII) a front-page New York Times article from 1977 that I copied from microfiche.
...
The New York Times, Thursday, July 21, 1977
Page A1
C.I.A. Data Show 14-Year Project On Controlling Human Behavior
By Nicholas M. Horrock
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 20 -- The Central Intelligence Agency conducted a 14-year program to find ways to "control human behavior" through the use of chemical, biological and radiological material, according to agency documents made public today by John Marks, a freelance journalist.
Mr. Marks, an associate of the Center for National Security Studies, asserted at a news conference that Adm. Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, in a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, "seriously distorted" what the C.I.A. research programs involved.
Mr. Marks said that, based on documents about the program he had received under the Freedom of Information Act, he had concluded that Admiral Turner "seems to be practicing what used to be called 'a modified limited hangout'" when he called the agency's activity "a program of experimentation with drugs."
"To be sure, drugs were part of it," he said, "but so were such other techniques as electric shock, radiation, ultrasonics, psychosurgery, psychology, and incapacitating agents, all of which were referred to in documents I have received."
It made me, and surely many others, take immediate notice when they saw that this latest bizarre massacre took place so near to the Columbine event. Also right by the Colorado NSA facility, Lockheed Martin, the mysterious Denver airport - I'm sure there's many more to list.
CIA Plans to Shift Work to DenverCIA Plans to Shift Work to Denver
Domestic Division Would Be Moved
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 6, 2005
The CIA has plans to relocate the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Denver, a move designed to promote innovation, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.
About $20 million has been tentatively budgeted to relocate employees of the CIA's National Resources Division, officials said. A U.S. intelligence official said the planned move, confirmed by three other government officials, was being undertaken "for operational reasons."
A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Other current and former intelligence officials said the Denver relocation reflects the desire of CIA Director Porter J. Goss to develop new ways to operate under cover, including setting up more front corporations and working closer with established international firms.
Associates of Goss said yesterday that the move was also in keeping with his desire to stop the growth of CIA headquarters and headquarters-based group-think, something he criticized frequently when he was chairman of the House intelligence committee.
Other CIA veterans said such a relocation would make no sense, given Denver's relative distance from major corporate centers. "Why would you go so far away?" one asked. "They will get disconnected."
The main function of the domestic division, which has stations in many major U.S. cities, is to conduct voluntary debriefings of U.S. citizens who travel overseas for work or to visit relatives, and to recruit foreign students, diplomats and businesspeople to become CIA assets when they return to their countries. It was unclear how many CIA employees would relocate to Denver under the plan.
Although collecting information on U.S. citizens under suspicion for terrorist links is primarily an FBI function, the CIA may also collect information on citizens under limited circumstances, according to a 1981 executive order. The exact guidelines for those operations are spelled out in a classified document signed by the CIA director and approved by the attorney general.
The Denver move, which is tentatively scheduled for next year but has not been finalized, coincides with several other developments related to the CIA's domestic intelligence work.
Last week, the CIA and FBI agreed to a new "memorandum of understanding" on domestic and foreign operations, the first change in decades. The negotiations surrounding the memo were highly contentious, with the FBI saying that it should control and approve the CIA's domestic activities, including its pool of U.S.-based assets that have been invaluable in the past to understanding the intentions of foreign nations and groups.
But the FBI is having significant problems developing its own domestic intelligence branch and the CIA is generally viewed across the intelligence community as more experienced and skilled at handling foreign informants who eventually return abroad, where the CIA has the lead in intelligence gathering and operations.
Both the CIA and FBI are trying to deepen their outreach to U.S. research and academic institutions and to private subcontractors working on major government contracts abroad.
Originally, the FBI also pressed to have the bureau disseminate all intelligence reports from sources -- foreigners or U.S. citizens -- living in the United States. It was undercut, however, by the fact that the bureau routinely falls behind in issuing counterterrorism reports and, at the time of the most heated negotiations, in December, the FBI had a backlog of more than 100 reports it had not distributed.
In response to questions this week about the new agreement, the FBI and CIA issued a joint statement to The Washington Post. "The FBI and CIA are committed to effective, joint operations to safeguard our nation," it says. "To that end, we are completing work on a memorandum of understanding that will codify our joint operating principals. We are pleased with both the process and the outcome and we recognize that our joint efforts will enhance national security."
Under the agreement, the CIA must coordinate its operations with the FBI. The CIA's domestic division has agreed to provide the FBI with more information about its operations and debriefings. One goal of updating the memo was to ensure that the two agencies were not working at cross purposes and were aware if one or the other had already recruited or debriefed someone.
It is unclear how a move to Denver would increase the effectiveness of the domestic division's operations, said several former intelligence officials.
Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since Sept. 11, 2001.
The Denver suburb of Aurora is home to the little-known Aerospace Data Facility. Located inside Buckley Air Force Base, it has become the major U.S.-based technical downlink for intelligence satellites operated by the military, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, according to military and government documents obtained by William Arkin, author of "Code Names," a book about secret military plans and programs.
About 70 miles away, the U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado Springs, is tasked with homeland defense and has been increasing its domestic intelligence work.
It could not be learned whether the CIA's Denver plans are linked to the presence of either facility.
, 82. The first thought through my mind was your connection to the place.