During the Q&A session at the GEOINT Symposium, Under Secretary of Defense, Lt. General (ret.) Jim Clapper, elaborated on the recently canceled BASIC (Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection) program, an effort by the National Reconnaisance Office (NRO) to obtain two earth observing remote sensing satellites. "Depending on your point of view, what happened to BASIC is either a strength or weakness of our form of government. There are many constituencies from which you must derive consensus. When we finally got consensus, we finally got signed for the purchase of two 1.1 meter satellites. But Congress decided that the sense of urgency no longer exists. It’s now over to the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) to decide the way ahead. The DNI has referred back to the NGA andi it will be up to Admiral Murrett, Director of the NGA to study. Clapper said in closing that "but this has been studied to death."

Listen to more of his remarks during his press briefing. (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.