Susan H. Meisner
Media Relations
Public Affairs Office
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The United States romance with geospatial world began almost a century back. It was during World War I that aerial photography was recognised as a major contributor in gaining battlefi eld intelligence. Soon, it led to the birth of a diff erent genre of information combining the techniques of imagery and mapping. Sensing the opportunity, US military was quick to form dedicated units to gather geographic intelligence or geointelligence. So while army formed Army Map Service (AMS) (which was later renamed US Army Topographic Command (USATC)), Air Force established its Map Unit, which was renamed Aeronautical Chart Plant (ACP) and gradually became the US Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC). It was only in 1972 that the United States decided to consolidate all its military mapping activities under the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA).
With changing times and tremendous progress in technology, a need was felt to centralise responsibility for imagery and mapping. On 1 October 1996, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) was established by the National Defense Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 1997. NIMA brought together diff erent organisations involved in this sector – the DMA, the Central Imagery Offi ce (CIO), and the Defense Dissemination Programme Offi ce (DDPO), and National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). Th e imagery exploitation, dissemination and processing elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Offi ce and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Offi ce were also merged into NIMA.
Post 9/11, strengthening intelligence network for securing homeland became one of the top priorities of the US government. Recognising the importance of geospatial intelligence or GEOINT in this sector, the then-US President George W Bush in 2003 signed the FY 2004 Defense Authorisation Bill authorising NIMA to become the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA. NGA, which is a part of the Department of Defense (DoD), is now a key component of the United States intelligence community. Its primary mission is to aid the security agencies by collecting, analysing and distributing geospatial information. Located at Bethesda, Maryland, NGA operates major facilities in Washington and Missouri and has liaison offi ces worldwide.
What is the role and activity of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)?
NGA is a US national intelligence and combat support agency whose primary mission is to provide timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT, in support of national security objectives. GEOINT is earth-referenced information about natural and man-made objects or events with national security implications.
We were established as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 1996 to integrate imagery intelligence and mapping functions across the defence and intelligence communities. In November 2003, the then-US President George W Bush signed the FY 2004 Defense Authorisation Bill authorising NIMA to become the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency, or NGA. Th e new name refl ected the growing importance of GEOINT to national security and thus, our agency’s overall mission.
Our vision is to provide GEOINT in all its forms, and from whatever source – imagery and geospatial – to ensure the knowledge foundation for planning, decision and action. We also strive to share our insight on intelligence challenges, provide analytical services and solutions and create easily accessible GEOINT that is tailored to our customers’ needs.
What are the various levels at which geospatial technologies can be used in defence and internal security, and how?
Th e application of geospatial technologies in defence and internal security includes foundation data (country and city maps, digital elevation models, gravity data, global positioning systems, maritime and aeronautical navigation) and world-wide situational awareness and treaty monitoring (focusing on emerging areas like commercial electro-optical imagery and airborne sensors, including full-motion video and motion imagery exploitation). NGA is also active in pursuing new geospatial technologies.
One of our research and development priorities is exploiting new radar sensor technologies such as those operating with diff erent polarisations to provide another layer of information to better characterise, visualise and detect various targets and terrain. NGA is currently engaged in a commercial synthetic aperture radar pilot project with the University of Miami’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Remote Sensing facility to employ advanced polarimetric SAR analysis and visualisation tools to help analysts characterise terrain, discriminate vegetative and man-made features and other aspects.
With NGA developing imagery and mapbased solutions for national defence and homeland security, what are the key criteria for developing these solutions?
Th e critical criteria for these solutions are the availability of appropriate technology and a skilled workforce. Today’s sensors provide an unprecedented level of geospatial data, that when exploited eff ectively, can provide valuable insight on key national and homeland security issues. Th ey allow NGA to create geospatial data layers, which may include military and security information, weather and terrain features. Th ese data layers, combined with available intelligence, create the critical pieces of GEOINT. Th ey provide decision makers and operational commanders’ unparalleled advantages and a nuanced situational awareness that was previously unavailable.
People, through expertise, fuse those data layers to create actionable intelligence and strategic insight. Th e ability to fuse, and apply expertise, represents the unique value proposition NGA brings to national security. GEOINT analysts understand these data and the corresponding geography, people, tactical challenges and strategic implications. Th at understanding is the element that transforms raw data into intelligence, or GEOINT. Th is combination has proven, time-and-again, to be a highly eff ective tool in mitigating threats. Of course, no analyst can tackle any challenge alone. Collaboration among people who share our mission and concerns has proven a critical prerequisite for eff ective solutions. NGA goes beyond imagery and maps to generate intelligence that helps decision makers.
While geospatial technologies are playing a key role in how modern warfare is fought, its importance cannot be negated during peace time. How can technologies be used for military and internal security preparedness?
Th e Director of National Intelligence defi nes the vision for the intelligence community in terms of a globally networked enterprise supporting the mission of creating decision advantage. We see the National System for Geospatial Intelligence continuing to grow as a unifi ed community of GEOINT professionals that will provide the critical answers to the situational questions of what, where, and when in delivering the decision advantage. Our analysts already provide an excellent level of situational awareness, but our security threats have been, and will continue to be, more complex. To maintain the edge in our ability to address these threats, we will have to focus on growing and operating as a cohesive community both within the National System for Geospatial Intelligence and the Intelligence Community. To do this, we will keep strengthening our traditional alliances and continue to establish new ones not only within our community, but also going beyond to international, academic, industrial and other new sources for partnerships.
Th is new and stronger GEOINT community will benefi t from the insights brought by this enhanced collaboration. Th is will open the potential for new and better means for communications and information sharing and dissemination. Our access and ability to use new and diverse collection sources is also increasing with our new partnerships. Our access to commercial and airborne sources, along with new and leading edge phenomenology is increasing in ways we would never have predicted. All these activities are coming together to give us future opportunities to grow as an intelligence community.
To achieve this vision, we need to start now. Some of our ongoing and near-term activities are:ttttt- Continue to deploy our personnel forward, ensuring a GEOINT presence throughout the IC and with the warfi ghter.
- Lead the community in establishing multi-intelligence operations throughout the NSG community.
- Continue to strengthen NSG governance to ensure the sum of our parts produces better intelligence than each of our US and Commonwealth partners produce individually.
- Continue to work with our mission partners to aggressively capture, integrate and manage all traditional and non-traditional GEOINT sources and phenomenology.
- Integrate all airborne sources with other GEOINT sources.
- Continue to build an adaptive multi-skilled workforce, with a commitment to diversity, by implementing the human development strategic workforce plan.
- Establish and enforce standards and architecture to ensure full interoperability across the GEOINT community.
Any intelligence activity involves several elements like imagery and various kinds of geospatial information. How important are standards and interoperability in such a scenario and how do you address it?
Geospatial intelligence standards consist of technical specifi cations or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines or defi nitions of characteristics of GEOINT to ensure that materials, products, processes or services are fi t for the analysis and visual representations of physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.
Th e National Center for Geospatial Intelligence Standards (NCGIS) is the coordinating organisation within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that is responsible for setting and implementing GEOINT standards management policies for NGA and the national system for geospatial intelligence community. NCGIS was established to ensure a coordinated standards-based approach to achieving data/system interoperability, implement collaborative business practices, and act as an advocate for the needs of NGA and the NSG community. Th rough strategic planning and architecture-based analysis, the NCGIS strives to optimise agency resources as it implements a comprehensive enterprise-wide standards management policy.
Th e NCGIS sponsors the Geospatial Intelligence Standards Working Group, a NSG community forum that addresses the latest standards issues that are critical to achieving the systems interoperability necessary for mission success. An NSG-wide plan for standards and continued involvement of NSG community are crucial to the development and implementation of standards that enable the sharing of timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence.
Kindly elaborate on the global support provided by you. Does that extend to Asia?
NGA is spearheading an eff ort to establish GEOINT standards, concepts and procedures to enhance its support to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) activities, particularly in the Asia-Pacifi c region. NGA provides annual GEOINT training related to HADR. GEOINT professionals from Singapore, Th ailand, and Taiwan have attended this training. Collaborative initiatives with Singapore are underway to enhance US-Singapore interoperability and increase our ability to provide a timely response in the event of a crisis in the region. NGA is also working closely with Th ailand’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency to promote the use of GEOINT for HADR-related activities.
NGA’s partnership with Taiwan spans over 30 years when our predecessor organisation, the Defense Mapping Agency, exchanged maps and charts with their counterparts in Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence. Th is was done through the America Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offi ce (TECRO). NGA continues to have an active geospatial exchange with Taiwan and an annual GIS conference to discuss future initiatives.
NGA has a newer relationship with our Mongolian counterparts. Our bilateral exchange and cooperation agreement was signed in 2004. Since that time, we have exchanged topographic data and performed several cooperative gravity surveys with the Mongolians.
