Tearline

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.

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.

Task Team Leaders: Zauch Daum and Raghav Aggarwal

Faculty Advisor: Kim Nguyen

Our project began in early Spring 2022 and in May 2022 we published our first report with NGA on www.tearline.mil about refugee movements in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In December 2022, we published a second article featuring the research done in fall 2022 on Russia’s movement of temporary accommodation centers (TACs) and the existence of filtration sites in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

• 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.

• 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!

Researchers Offer Evidence to Counter Russian Denial of Filtration Sites in Ukraine
Published December 12, 2022