DARPA concerned about its image.

• Author: Fein, Geoff S.
• Position: Washington Pulse - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Brief Article

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is stepping up its public relations efforts to communicate better to the public the nature of the work being done at the agency, said DARPA's director Anthony Tether.

DARPA has lots of talented scientists and inventors, Tether told reporters. The problem is that they only talk to other "techies" and not to the public, let alone the Congress, he said.

They tend to come up with names for projects that "are cute," said Tether, but to an outsider, "if you have a concern over the Patriot Act or stuff like that, [it] could scare you."

A case in point is a project initially entitled "Cities That See." It was designed to collect images from multiple cameras in various locations and build a database that would help track vehicles, for example.

"If we had this technology today, we would have it in Iraq," to help track car bombings, said Tether.

But these technologies are not well received in the United States, because they are perceived as infringing on personal...