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Imagine if any Pakistani could send an anonymous text message to the authorities suggesting the location of Osama Bin Laden. Each location could be plotted on a map. The dots would be scattered widely, perhaps, with promising leads indistinguishable from rubbish. But on a given day, a surge of dots might point to the same village, in what could not be coincidence. Troops could be ordered in. This kind of everyone-as-informant mapping is shaking up the world, bringing the Wikipedia revolution to the work of humanitarians and soldiers who parachute into places with little good information. Sounds pretty cool, huh? Perhaps we are headed to a future where the best sources of Intel will be actual citizens? We highly recommend you check out this NY Times article about Ushahidi, which is shaking up the GEOINT world with its unique Intel sharing application. And, our faithful got geoint? readers may remember the podcast we did last October with Patrick Meier, Co-Founder, The International Network of Crisis Mappers (INCM). Meier also directs Ushahidi’s crisis-mapping operation.

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The White House threatened to veto the Intelligence Authorization bill because its demands for transparency and oversight would, in some cases, put American lives at risk, in the view of the Obama administration. President Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag (pictured), sent letters to the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Monday stating the that the House and Senate Intelligence Authorization bills “and their classified annexes still contain several provisions of serious concern to the Intelligence Community (IC). Three categories of provisions are so serious that the President’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill if they are included in the version presented for his signature: the Congressional notification provisions, GAO provisions, and provisions regarding the amounts authorized for the National Intelligence Program.” What do you all think? There is a fine line between transparency and risking the lives of those who work in the IC. Check out the Washington Posts’s coverage here.

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It’s not often that you see a familiar face staring back at you on the television screen. So, we were very excited to see Jeff Jonas, USGIF board member featured in the IBM “Why Data Matters” national advertisement. Mr. Jonas is chief scientist of the IBM Entity Analytics group and is a highly regarded member of the GEOINT community — so much so, he was featured in a national TV commercial! Very exciting. Check out the actual video in this post.

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Recently, we covered a story that Wired’s “Danger Room” broke about DARPA’s “Transparent Underground”, which creates real-time 3-D maps that display “the physical, chemical and dynamic properties of the earth down to 5 kilometer depth.” Cool stuff, no doubt. But, it seems that someone had someone has beaten DARPA to the punch on this one. Since 2005, Geospatial Corporation has been using a proprietary gadget called ‘Smart Probe’ to map deep earth via underground pipes. According to Wired’s “Danger Room,” the company’s probe can be inserted into pipes as small as 1 1/2 inches, and then travel their length while taking super-speedy coordinates — 800 per second — and saving them onto a USB key. The probe is removed, the data extracted, and a 3D map of the underground region is created. The probe can travel through pipes that are empty, or contain fluid or gas. And, it seems to be taking off. Check out this press release announcing Geospatial Corporation’s partnership with Tom Ridge’s firm, Ridge Global. Bigger takeaway: Geospatial Corporation was ahead of the curve…or perhaps they got luck with the timing? What do you think?

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Welcome to the Friday’s Food for Thought post on got geoint? Do you ever get the feeling that people no longer actually speak to one another? We like to stay within the safe bubble of email and texting as a primary communications vehicle. And do you remember Jerry Seinfield’s classic stand up joke about being surprised when someone actually answers his or her phone – as opposed to the call going to voicemail. So, where are we going with this? The big GEOINT story we covered this week was regarding war fighters using innovative smart phones. We could not help but think that mobile/digital communications is finally everywhere.

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We like to keep our fingers on the pulse of the most current and cutting-edge GEOINT applications. So, when we stumbled upon this story from Wired about using iPhones and cool apps to get real-time, situational data to the war fighter, we had to to take pause and shine a light on this.

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The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) today announced its Board of Directors voted on three new directors during its quarterly meeting held January 20. Joining the board and enhancing the breadth of knowledge, experience and strength of it are Jeff Jonas of IBM, Stephen S. Oswald of The Boeing Co., and Dr. Peggy Agouris of George Mason University. “These three individuals, each with equally impressive and unique professional backgrounds, will bolster the activities of the board and help lead USGIF as the preeminent organization for the GEOINT Community,” said USGIF CEO and Chairman of the Board Stu Shea. “It is exciting and rewarding be able to add to the rich composition of our directors with a distinguished industry visionary, a former astronaut and industry icon, and an academic exemplar.” Read the full press release here.

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Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? As always, we hope you had a restful weekend and a recharged and ready to take on the world. The big news we cover this week is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarding $1 billion in engineering contracts as part of its “TASER” program, as well as Army Gen. David Petraeus’ support of closing the prison camps at Guantánamo and more. 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? Last Friday, the opening day of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics was marred by the tragic death of Georgia luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. While this event tragic set the tone for the start of the Olympics and (rightly) trumped most of the other press coverage of the Winter Games, there was a world of GEOINT-related stories happening around the Olympics. So, for this week’s FFT post, we would like to showcase all the GEOINT stories — giving these stories their full due. Happy Friday.

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The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s (USGIF) Tradecraft Subcommittee will host its first quarterly Subcommittee session on February 18 during the ESRI Federal Users Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC. This breakout session will be in Room 158-A from 8:00-10:00, and will provide a forum for discussion of stakeholder perspectives on issues, challenges, and opportunities associated with professional certification in GEOINT. Dr. Max Baber, USGIF Director of Academic Programs, will kick off the session with an overview of USGIF initiatives, and we will follow with open dialogue regarding near and long term developments and prospects. To lead more about this session as the ESRI FedUC, read on.

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