got geoint?

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? As always, we hope you were able to recharge over the weekend and are ready to take on the work week with gusto. And, if you need an extra push in the right direction — in terms of embracing the pile of work on your desk — we have pulled together all the key news you need to make this your best week ever. Once again, there are plenty GEOINT stories related to Japan, but we widened the net a bit more this week to include everything from policy to earnings (GeoEye) news. So, as we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on!

Eagle Vision Imagery Supporting Japan Recovery Efforts
The Electronic Systems Center-managed Eagle Vision imagery collection team here rushed into action within hours of the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Northeast Japan March 11. Shortly after 7 a.m. Eastern Time on March 11, the Eagle Vision team began working to order satellite imagery from a pre-established list of world-wide vendors, said program manager Capt. Jason Moll. In this case, the Eagle Vision team is using imagery from various globally operated commercial satellite operators, including two U.S. firms, as well as ones in France, Germany, Italy and Canada. Read the full Defense Talk post here.

Crowdsourcing and Mapping Radiation Levels
One issue that has emerged during the nuclear crisis in Japan is that there isn’t always a reliable source for radiation levels from specific areas. RDTN.org has just launched, an experiment to help address that need. The site allows people to submit their own reads, and maps them out next to data from official sources and measurement dates. This way, anyone can quickly get an idea of what is happening on the ground, first-hand. The site is brand new but should be very useful going forward. Also worth noting and specific to what is going on in Japan right now, JapanStatus.org is “a dashboard of accurate, sourced information on the situation in Japan following the March 2011 disaster.” Check out the full BoingBoing post here.

Tensions Arise Over Revised Intelligence Measure
House and Senate lawmakers are moving legislation forward that would authorize programs and spending for U.S. intelligence agencies for the current fiscal year — even though it is nearly half over. Notably, the House-version of the fiscal 2011 intelligence-authorization bill would require the Obama administration to develop a uniform system across intelligence agencies to detect the unauthorized release of government secrets. The requirement was put in the bill in response to the leaking of secret government documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. But the process of putting together the bill has sparked partisan tensions in the House. Democrats argue that the legislation — which authorizes the spending of tens of billions in taxpayer dollars — was not considered under regular order and that Republicans are rushing it. Read the full GovExec article here.

In Post-WikiLeaks World, Imagery Analysts Balance Duty to Share vs. Duty to Protect
In 1995, the intelligence community (IC) simply did not have access to the imagery and collection technologies that are available today. Many in the IC may recall that imagery analysts often personally carried every imagery product to the supported team of warfighters for briefings. This meant that analysts were working almost around the clock to provide the necessary geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) data required to support missions. Why did imagery analysts operate in this way? Beyond the fact that it was just how the system worked at the time, they went the extra mile because they were sincerely dedicated and passionate about their critical role in intelligence sharing. Read the full GEOINT Shield: Defense & Intelligence Blog on GIS Cafe here.

GeoEye’s 2010 Revenues Receive 22 Percent Boost from NGA Contract
GeoEye’s $3.8 billion EnhancedView contract with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) helped the satellite imagery provider increase its 2010 revenues 22 percent from 2009 to $330.3 million, the company announced March 17. After generating 2010 fourth quarter net income of $15.2 million compared with net income of $11.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, GeoEye now forecasts 2011 revenue to be as high as $380 million, with first-quarter revenues in the range of $86 million to $90 million. According to GeoEye, the fact that the company was able to expand the services it already provided to the U.S. Department of Defense to the NGA in return for a $337 million contribution to the construction costs of its next satellite allowed the company to increase its 2011 full-year estimates. Read the full Satellite Today article here.

NGA March/April Pathfinder Now Online
The March/April 2011 issue of the Pathfinder magazine is available online at http://www.nga.mil. This issue highlights how the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency continues to explore ways to leverage technology to improve situational awareness and develop contextual GEOINT. NGA publishes the Pathfinder magazine bimonthly to promote public awareness and understanding of the geospatial intelligence discipline. This issue includes the articles “NGA Announces Online Services Contest Winners,” “Persistics: A Revolution in Motion Imagery Processing” and “NGA in Haiti: Combating Cholera With GEOINT.” Click here to access the latest Pathfinder issue.

Open Geospatial Consortium Standards: In More Places Than You Realize
Back in the 1990s a number of governments, for example the USA, ruled that telephone companies had to provide the location of any mobile cellular device to support emergency response. This requirement became a key motivation behind the Internet Engineering Task Force‘s (IETF) community forming a new working group called GeoPriv. This group focused on how to best express location payloads as part of key Internet standards as well as defining techniques for expressing privacy rules related to the use of location. One Internet TFC (Traffic Flow Confidentiality) that has received considerable attention is the Presence Information Description Format Location Object extension (PIDF-LO). This is especially true in terms of the US Next Generation 911 requirements.

Tags: 2011 intelligence-authorization bill, Crowdsourcing radiation levels, Eagle Vision Imagery, GeoEye, GeoEye earnings, GEOINT, got geoint?, Japan disaster, mapping Japan disaster, MorganFranklin, Open Geospatial Consortium, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF