Robert De Niro was originally cast as Darius Jedburgh, but dropped out due to creative differences after a few days on the set.
Based on the popular, award-winning British television miniseries Edge of Darkness (1985), written by Troy Kennedy Martin, and directed by Martin Campbell. In the original, Bob Peck played Craven, and Joe Don Baker played Darius Jedburgh.
The character Jedburgh is a British-accented secret operative of some sort. "Jedburgh" was also the name of a well-known British WWII program whereby they covertly inserted 3-agent teams, called "Jedburgh Teams," of covert Allied operators into Nazi-occupied France.
The DARPA motto mentioned by Jedburgh - "Scientia est potentia" - is Latin for "Knowledge is power".