‘Tying the room together’: DARPA’s Project Gandalf

‘Tying the room together’: DARPA’s Project Gandalf.

In the 1998 Coen brothers cult film The Big Lebowski, southern California slacker Jeffrey Lebowski aka “The Dude,” bemoans the desecration of his living room rug by criminals out to collect a debt in a hilariously absurd case of mistaken identity. After the thugs urinate on his prized possession, The Dude is crestfallen because that rug “really tied the room together.”

Fast forward to 2008, only there’s no mistaking either the identities or what’s being “tied together” here. DARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) is seeking solicitations for “Project Gandalf,” according to an October 7 “Industry Day” announcement on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

In a bid to “tie the room together,” DARPA is developing a demonstration project that will provide “counterterrorist” special operators and spies, aka state terrorists, with

solutions to … radio frequency (RF) geolocation and emitter identification using specific emitter identification (SEI) for specific signals of interest. The ultimate goal of the Gandalf program is to enable a set of handheld devices to be utilized to perform RF geolocation and SEI on RF signals of interest to the Gandalf program. The specific goals and performance objectives associated with RF geolocation and SEI for the Gandalf system are classified. (“Gandalf Program, DARPA Industry Day Announcement,” Federal Business Opportunities, October 7, 2008)

That’s right, a hand-held cell phone tracking device that will enable security operatives to locate and take out opponents of the capitalist “new order” in global South or “hardened” heimat cities.

Sounds like a seamless way to “tie together” information culled by NSA trolls or the Justice Department’s Terrorist Identity Datamart Environment (TIDE), the “master list” from which all other federal agencies derive their own dubious watch lists.

The Gandalf Program is classified Secret/NOFORN, meaning only American firms whose personnel hold coveted U.S. Department of Defense “secret clearances or higher” need apply. The October 28, 2008 Industry Day will be held at the Rosslyn, Virginia headquarters of the Scitor Corporation. An appropriate venue if ever there were one.

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Antifascist Calling…: ‘Tying the room together’: DARPA’s Project Gandalf