got geoint?

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? As always, we hope you all had a restful weekend and are super-charged and ready to take on the work week. What’s that? Not feeling that “super charged”? Well, fret not. As always, we have compiled all the actionable news you need to kick start the work week in fashion. From Sen. Saxby Chambliss being named ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee to a strange story about Wikileak’s Assange once dressing as an old woman to evade the CIA, we have it all here in one post. And, as we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on.

Chambliss Named Ranking Republican on Senate Intelligence Committee
An eight year veteran of the Senate Intelligence Committee has been named the new ranking Republican on the panel. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia, was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday. “It is a priority of mine to ask the tough questions to ensure that we continue disrupting plots from those who seek to do us harm, and that we are giving our intelligence community the tools and resources it needs to keep America safe,” Chambliss said in a prepared statement. Read the full CNN blog post here.

Statement By Director Of National Intelligence James R. Clapper On The Selection Of Congressman C. A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger As The Ranking Member Of The House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence
On behalf of the entire Intelligence Community, I congratulate Congressman C. A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger on his selection to be the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 112th Congress. Congressman Ruppersberger is deeply committed to keeping our nation secure and is extremely knowledgeable in technical intelligence collection, and scientific and technical intelligence programs. The Intelligence Community looks forward to our continued work with the Committee under the leadership of Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger.

WikiLeaks’ Assange ‘Dressed as Old Woman’ to Evade CIA: Book
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange disguised himself as an old woman in order to evade US intelligence officers who he believed were following him, extracts from a new biography revealed Monday. Further passages from “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy,” written by Guardian newspaper journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding, also showed that the hacker did not know his biological father until the age of 27. Assange gained international notoriety in November 2010 when his WikiLeaks website began publishing over 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Read the full AFP article here.

January/February NGA Pathfinder Now Online
The January/February 2011 issue of the Pathfinder magazine is available online at http://www.nga.mil. This issue highlights National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Letitia A. Long’s vision of putting “the power of GEOINT in your hands.” NGA publishes the Pathfinder magazine bimonthly to promote public awareness and understanding of the geospatial intelligence discipline. This issue includes the articles “New NGA Capability Brings Transparency to Requests for GEOINT,” “Seeing into the Future: InnoVision Studies Reveal Growing GEOINT Challenges and Opportunities,” and “Technology Environment Increases the Impact of GEOINT.” Read more here.

CACI Awarded $238 Million in Contracts to Support National Security and Intelligence
CACI International Inc., announced today that it has been awarded approximately $238 million in previously unannounced contracts to support major operational components and critical support elements for both defense and federal civilian sectors in the Intelligence Community (IC). For these awards, CACI is delivering a wide range of talent and tailored technology that bolster its clients’ ability to accomplish vital national security missions. Approximately $165 million of these awards were made in CACI’s second fiscal quarter, ending December 31, 2010, with the remainder coming in the quarter ending September 30, 2010. Read the full CACI press release here.

Spy Games: Intelligence Agency to Fund Video Games for Spooks
Scientists say video games can increase concentration, help with learning and even improve decision-making skills. Now, in an effort to improve the work of spies, the intelligence community may also resort to using educational games. The motivation for this gaming pursuit, according to a recent announcement about the program, called Sirius, is that everyone is subject to bias, including spies. “When an intelligence problem invokes these biases, analysts may draw inferences or adopt beliefs that are logically unsound or not supported by evidence,” says the program announcement. Read the full AOL News post here.

TerraGo Technologies Achieves Record Growth, Expands Partnerships in 2010
TerraGo Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of geospatial collaboration software solutions, achieved its strongest performance to date in 2010 – a year marked by double-digit growth in sales and revenue, customer and partnership expansion, new product innovation, and increased global recognition as the provider of choice for software that takes geospatial intelligence to the edge of the enterprise and back. TerraGo grew its customer base to 250 federal government agencies, signed on its 900th TerraGo® GeoPDF® production customer, and surpassed its goal of 10,000 organizations using the TerraGo Toolbar™. TerraGo also achieved significant milestones with key strategic partners and new product enhancements, including the addition of 3D GeoPDF and “internationalized” language capabilities to its product portfolio. And, the company continued hiring leading industry talent, more than doubling its engineering staff. Read the full press release here.

Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy
Just before Google first sold its shares to the public in 2004, Larry Page, one of its founders, excited the nonprofit world with a bold commitment to philanthropy. He vowed to dedicate about 1 percent of Google’s profits, 1 percent of its equity and a significant amount of its employees’ time to the effort, which became known as Google.org, or simply DotOrg. “We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems,” Mr. Page wrote in a letter to potential investors. Although Google intended to tackle major problems like climate change, global poverty and the spread of pandemic diseases, it declared that DotOrg would not be “conventional” — a four-letter word in Google-speak. Read the full NY Times article here.

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