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SOCom to open site in Pinellas

The operation responsible for coordinating the war on terror will establish a classified research center in St. Petersburg.

By PAUL DE LA GARZA
Published October 8, 2005

TAMPA - The Pentagon is establishing a secret facility in St. Petersburg to help Special Operations Command better process intelligence.

Because the project is classified, details remain sketchy. But Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, confirmed the basic outline late Friday.

He said Blackbird Technologies of Virginia was awarded the $27-million contract to operate a Joint Intelligence Operations Center on behalf of SOCom, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base.

SOCom oversees the nation's secret commandoes and is coordinating the Defense Department's global war on terror.

"They're continually looking for a more effective way to deal with their intelligence issues," said Young, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

The center - to operate out of a building at 9th Street N and Gandy Boulevard - is intended to help National Intelligence Director John Negroponte "remodel" military intelligence at SOCom.

Reading from a prepared statement, Young said the facility "will house personnel that will help define and redesign SOCom's processes and technologies required to ensure better communications, knowledge development and information sharing within the command structure and its support elements."

He added: "The SOCom upgrade will look at better data management capabilities that include the use of open source information, emergency backup and retrieval systems and visualization tools."

Young declined to veer off the prepared statement, citing the project's secret nature.

"A lot of what they're doing is very classified," he said. "Basically, I would say that this would be creating a Joint Intelligence Operations Center for SOCom."

Larry Langebrake, a professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg who had worked to get the project downtown and is familiar with the specifics, also declined to discuss it.

A SOCom spokesman did not respond to a message seeking comment Friday night.

Open source intelligence, or "OSINT" - the kind of work that will be conducted out of the center - refers to intelligence-gathering based on information collected from open sources, such as information available to the general public.

That includes newspapers, the Internet, books, phone books, scientific journals, radio broadcasts, television and other sources.

The term has been in the news recently.

According to published reports, Able Danger, a secret SOCom project, used open source intelligence to identify the lead 9/11 hijacker as living in the United States a year before the attacks.

Asked why the facility was being established in St. Petersburg and not at MacDill, Young said: "St. Petersburg is a good place to do business. I've been telling industry for years that Pinellas County is one of the best places in the world to do business."

He also noted that SOCom is down the road from the center along Gandy Boulevard.

Young said Blackbird Technologies will have about 60 people in the facility, which is scheduled to open "as soon as possible."

The company Web site describes Blackbird Technologies as "a security consulting company specializing in intelligent responses to threats facing vital information systems, infrastructures, and facilities."

Since 9/11, SOCom has played a pivotal role in the war on terror.

Its budget has gone from $3.8-billion to $6.6-billion, and staff levels have increased by 6,000 to 51,441.

In March, President Bush signed a directive that puts SOCom in charge of "synchronizing" the war on terror. That effort will be led out of the Center for Special Operations, which is scheduled to open at MacDill on Nov. 1.

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Paul de la Garza can be reached at delagarza@sptimes.com or 813-226-3432.

[Last modified October 8, 2005, 01:25:11]