NGA Deputy Director: ‘Data is the New Black’

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Deputy Director Susan Gordon on Wednesday called for the government and Intelligence Community to prioritize innovation to better confront the broad array of threats the United States faces today.

Adversaries always have access to commonly available things, which means that those in the IC must find ways to be a step ahead, Gordon told The Cipher Brief’s Annual Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia. NGA produces geospatial intelligence through the analysis of satellite data and imagery of physical features and activities on Earth. Gordon said the government must urgently tackle the question of how to be innovative when it was “designed, in fact, to not be.”