Fergie's Tech Blog

Mapping Terrorists

Global Incident Map

Several Bad Guys readers sent us links to the Global Incident Map, a cool computer mapping project that blends RSS news feeds, Google Earth images, and other data into a compelling look at terrorist and suspicious acts worldwide. Morgan Clements, its creator, told our pals at the Danger Room that since posting his work late last year, he's been approached "by all manner of law enforcement, military, intel, government, fed contractors, and private sector organizations."

That shouldn't come as a surprise. The intelligence community has been into this stuff for a long time, trying various tech tools to maximize its collective "take." The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (which handles the community's satellite imagery and mapping) and the National Security Agency (which handles its electronic eavesdropping) have long had joint teams trying to fuse "signals" intelligence, or SIGINT, with imagery and other "geospatial" intelligence, or GEOINT. The agencies call it "horizontal integration"–using NGA's "eyes" and NSA's "ears."

posted by Fergie @ 4/06/2007 04:16:00 PM