{"id":53392,"date":"2023-05-24T18:17:23","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T10:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/satellite-imagery-could-aid-border-patrol-with-situational-awareness-official-says\/"},"modified":"2023-05-24T18:17:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T10:17:23","slug":"satellite-imagery-could-aid-border-patrol-with-situational-awareness-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/satellite-imagery-could-aid-border-patrol-with-situational-awareness-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellite Imagery Could Aid Border Patrol With Situational Awareness, Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

ST. LOUIS \u2014 <\/em>Earth observation data would be useful to the Border Patrol and its agents in the field to improve situational awareness around things like washed out trails and changing tactics used by illicit actors near the border, an agency official said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Agents want imagery immediately to know if a \u201cstreet that wasn\u2019t washed out a week ago is now open and available to us to use or has been since washed out,\u201d Dan Steadman, assistant chief of the Border Patrol\u2019s Team Awareness Kit (TAK) program, said during a GEOINT 2023 panel on homeland security here.<\/p>\n

Currently, about 16,000 Border Patrol agents are equipped with TAK on their cell phones or other mobile electronic devices, giving them greater situational awareness from various surveillance sensors and location data of fellow agents.<\/p>\n

Given poor communications in many areas of the southwest border and need for mesh networks, Steadman said the Border Patrol wants \u201cthat data ingestion for offline mapping \u2014 satellite imagery to give agents on the ground as they\u2019re responding to officer safety type situations, to have the most up to date information and how to better respond,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security\u2019s largest use of geospatial-intelligence (GEOINT) data is for disaster response.<\/p>\n

Last September, when Hurricane Ian clobbered Florida\u2019s west coast, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) \u201cprocessed more than 100 square miles of commercial imagery there, and 800 gigabytes of small unmanned aircraft systems data comprising nearly 80,000 images\u201d in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, NGA\u2019s director, told attendees here on Monday. NGA analysts also \u201cprinted more than a thousand maps and developed route analysis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

NGA also helped FEMA with getting resources to where they were needed by showing gaps in searches, Whitworth said.<\/p>\n

DHS is challenged at times with satellite imagery in support of disaster response depending on environmental conditions, Tom Madigan, the department\u2019s senior requirements officer, said. Madigan supports the DHS enterprise, which includes the department\u2019s components and state and local partners.<\/p>\n

Madigan, who also manages satellite imagery collection for all of DHS, said the department is best equipped to use the imagery during daylight and cloud-free times. That\u2019s when electro-optical imagery, which essentially produces camera-like photos, works well.<\/p>\n

DHS will use satellite-based synthetic aperture radar imagery, which works day and night in all weather, but \u201crequires a lot of expertise and exploiting, so that that can be a very difficult challenge across the enterprise,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s where things like change detection analytics and value-added type production really comes in handy to inform state and local personnel, especially in search and rescue type response operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next to disaster response, the second largest use of GEOINT data is in support of state and local partners around special security events, Madigan said. The satellite imagery provides \u201cperiodic refresh\u201d of these locations.<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s Geospatial Management Office also provide more than 400 critical infrastructure data sets to the states and locals, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat combination of satellite imagery with GIS (geographic information system) critical extra data sets really is a powerful tool for planning,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything from canine teams and explosive detection teams, venue security and screening, and all sorts of stuff that are behind the scenes for events such as these occurring today.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was first published by Via Satellite sister publication Defense Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS \u2014 Earth observation data would be useful to the Border Patrol and its agents in the field to improve situational awareness around things like washed out trails and changing tactics used by illicit actors near the border, an agency official said on Tuesday. Agents want imagery immediately to know if a \u201cstreet that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}