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Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off Post from got geoint? Here we are. It’s the week after GEOINT Community Week and like we said on Friday, our heads are still spinning a bit from the news of the DNI resignation. And on top of that General Clapper is being named as a potential candidate to replace Blair. Anyhow, we wanted to make sure this MMNKOP (we still love that acronym) focuses on the latest DNI news, but also highlights all the other news that is of interest to the GEOINT Community. As we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on.

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Welcome to the Friday’s Food for Thought post on got geoint? As we are wrapping up the final day of what has been a most excellent GEOINT Community Week, we can’t help but feel like our heads are spinning a bit. DNI Blair officially resigned yesterday. And, an unnamed official stated the General Clapper is the lead candidate to replace Blair. So, with all this breaking news happening today, we are going to do an abridged FFT post. Surely you all understand. But, trust us you will enjoy the video we showcased.

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Welcome once again to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? We hope everyone in the mid-Atlantic region was able to enjoy their hibernation brought on by the massive snow storm that hit this past weekend. Many of you may actually be working from home today because of road conditions. Either way, we hope you are maximizing your WiFi connections and have time to check out this week’s MMNKO post. This week, we have a mixture of stories to share: from extended coverage of last week’s Select Committee on Intelligence hearing to news of Apple rejecting any applications using GPS for location-aware ads and more. Fire up that second cup of coffee and read on!

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As many of our readers know, Leon Panetta has had a fairly rough go at being the somewhat-new Director of the CIA. Many CIA veterans questioned his lack of formal intel experience, and when he failed to protect the agency from the political backlash over its Bush-era detention and interrogation practices, many felt that he may not be the best man for the job. Recently, however, Panetta has made major strides in overcoming these doubts — especially for successfully defending the agency’s turf from Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair. This week, Time Magazine ran an indepth story about his turnaround, which you can read here. Also, check out this “2 minute bio” from Time as well here.

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Before we dive into the ever-popular Friday’s Food for Thought post, we wanted to share some very important news about the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). As many of our readers know, we have been covering the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for a while now, and have always made it a priority to cover anything breaking about intelligence agency. Well, you all may recall that Dennis Blair, Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, recently pulled together a panel of high-level intelligence experts to pretty much examine examine every facet of the NRO, including its mission, charter, staffing, requirements, organization, funding and relationship to other organizations. And guess what the next step may be? More power for the NRO.

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Yesterday, the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair unveiled the 2009 National Intelligence Strategy, which is the blueprint that will drive the priorities for the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies over the next 4 years. The National Intelligence Strategy is considered the most important document for the Intelligence Community as it lays out the strategic environment, sets priorities and objectives, and guides current and future decisions on budgets, acquisitions, and operations. In other DNI news, Blair gave a speech yesterday in San Francisco and said that if we had the same security technologies as we did eight years ago, 9/11 could have been prevented.

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Welcome once again to the Friday’s Food for Thought post. Before we dive into this post, we want to know if you have booked your travel for GEOINT 2009? As many of you saw, we just announced that the new DNI, Dennis Blair, will be speaking, along with Bruce Carlson, the new director of the NRO. Don’t you want to hear their strategic plans for the intelligence community? Speaking of community, we thought that would make an excellent theme for today’s post. We always hear the term “intelligence community” and we hope to dive deeper into the concept of community, and just how important we all are to each other. Consider this post an extension of last week’s FFT post on family. Scroll down and enjoy.

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It’s mid-August and the GEOINT 2009 Symposium is already shaping up to, once again, be the premier event for our community. Today, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) announced more confirmed speakers, which include the Honorable Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence, and retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson, director of the National Reconnaissance Office. Scroll down to learn more.

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You all may have seen our recent post that analyzes whether or not turf battles and bureaucratic red tape in the intelligence community are caused by human nature, or the environment. We came the conclusion that these challenges were all a product of the current structure of the intelligence community — meaning the environment. But, when did all of these challenges start happening? They say that the best way to understand the present and future is to take a look at the past. So, let’s break out the history books.

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Perhaps it is our human nature to engage in office politics. Or, it is a result of the bureaucratic systems that we have put in place in government — and in the corporate world — that cause us to undermine others for our own benefit? Whether it’s nature or nurture, one thing is for sure: treacherous political turf battles are happening right now in the intelligence community. Not that this is anything new in our world, but there is something brewing between the ODNI and the C.I.A

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