The Report of the Independent Panel on the Central Intelligence Agency In-Q-Tel Venture

In early 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency recognized it was no longer the technology leader it had been when it developed the SR-71 and Corona reconnaissance programs in the 1950s and 1960s. Facing the reality that the private sector — not government — was leading the information technology revolution, the CIA proposed, with congressional approval, a brand new entity: In-Q-Tel. BENS agreed to form an Independent Panel to conduct an inquiry. (June 2001)