At Tearline, we work with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to produce intelligence reports on a variety of topics which we publish and distribute to NGA, ODNI, and the general public.

What is this project?

Every 60-90 days we start work on a new report with a research question that connects ongoing global events with a plan to provide provide critical intelligence to NGA and allies who our intelligence can benefit. We use Maxar’s G-EGD platform to view the latest high-resolution satellite imagery over our project’s area of interest. We combine this imagery analysis with open-source intelligence (OSINT) gathered from social media and local news sources. Putting all that together we write our report and work with NGA on any final details and fact-checking before sharing our findings with the general public as well as decision makers within NGA, DoD, and USG. This semester, we are also happy to welcome our new faculty advisor, Kim Nguyen, who is the Research Program Coordinator at the Intelligence Studies Project who previously worked as a Science and Technology analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

History of this project

Goals for the semester

• Complete our ongoing report surrounding “Temporary Accommodation Centers” for Ukrainian refugees within Russia.
• Launch our East Asian team to evaluate pressing intelligence issues throughout Eastern Asian with an emphasis on the Russia-China border and Myanmar.
• Continue to improve upon our research development process to increase the rate at which we can publish our reports.
• Begin developing more robust in-house tools and workflows to help with the latter goal.

What students will learn?

• Writing intelligence reports accessible to decision makers and the general public.
• Satellite imagery analysis using Maxar’s G-EGD platform. As well as preparing that imagery for publication.
• OSINT gathering and analysis using automated tools.
• Programming/language skills are not required, but as we seek to expand our impact these skills will become more important and we’re always looking for people interested in learning more!