got geoint?

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? We hope everyone had a restful holiday weekend, and were able to take the time to honor those who have served our great nation. There is no shortage of IC-related news this week. From a CNN story about the challenges of filling the DNI position to plans for more intelligence oversight by Congress, this week’s MMNKO post focuses heavily on policy side or our world. So, as we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on.

Who Wants to be U.S. Intelligence Chief?
Now that Dennis Blair has packed his bags after 16 months as the nation’s chief intelligence officer, finding a new director to lead the 16 agencies of the intelligence community is turning out to be a tough sell. CIA Director Leon Panetta is a top choice of the Obama administration for the new director of national intelligence, said administration officials, but with three directors coming and going within five years, some, including Panetta, appear wary of the position. Panetta would likely face little opposition on Capitol Hill. Key congressional leaders who would have to sign off on a new DNI have been singing his praises. Read the full CNN article here.

Obama, Democrats Spar Over Intelligence Oversight
President Barack Obama’s White House has been fighting a plan spearheaded by fellow Democrats in the Congress to allow the investigative arm of Congress to probe the intelligence community’s activities, officials and congressional aides said on Friday. The tug-of-war over whether the Government Accountability Office should be able to investigate the intelligence agencies has put a spotlight on growing tensions between the congressional intelligence committees and the Obama administration over oversight. Successive U.S. administrations have asserted that the GAO does not have a right to investigate the intelligence community, warning that sensitive information about national security could be compromised. Read the full Reuters story here.

B-17 Drops Flowers in NY to Honor CIA Casualties
Historic aircraft have escorted a B-17 bomber on part of its mission to drop flowers over the Statue of Liberty in a public Memorial Day tribute to seven CIA employees killed in Afghanistan. Two World War II planes from the American Airpower Museum on Long Island took off with the bomber and flew with it before breaking formation because of strong winds Monday afternoon. The bomber dropped flowers in New York Harbor. The CIA’s director of national clandestine service attend a memorial service at the Farmingdale museum. Read the full AP story here.

U.N. Official to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes
A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan. Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake. Read the full NY Times article here.

Gov 2.0: NASA, Microsoft Ready Mars 3D Views
A partnership between NASA and Microsoft to bring high-resolution images of Mars to Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope is almost ready for public viewing. The Web-based application will show the surface of the red planet in such detail that viewers will be able to see “little rocks” and tracks left behind by NASA’s Mars rovers, according to Chris Kemp, NASA’s recently named CTO for IT. Kemp provided a preview of the new capability this week at the Gov 2.0 Expo show in Washington, D.C. He said the Mars imagery would become available on WorldWide Telescope “very soon. Read the full InformationWeek article here.

A Future GeoCity in the Cloud: Washington D.C.
Washington, D.C. CTO Bryan Sivak is creating the infrastructure for a city that makes everyone a map maker in the cloud. His plan? Give citizens easy tools to create their own mapping applications that can be augmented with additional data. Sivak spoke at the Gov 2.0 conference this past week where he outlined projects now underway in the city. According to Information Week, these include his plans to create a private cloud that acts as a shopping experience for the IT manager. After adding a server to an online shopping cart, the order is completed and a server automatically spools up into the private cloud. Read the full ReadWriteWeb post here.

Happy Monday!

Tags: CIA, CIA Drone, CIA Drone Attacks and the UN, CIA flower drop in NYC, DIA, Fallen CIA agents in Afghanistan, GeoCity, GEOINT, got geoint?, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, UN and Drone Attacks, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF