Military Imagery Agency to be renamed.

• Author: Fein, Geoff S.
• Position: Washington Pulse

With the signing of the fiscal year 2004 defense authorization bill, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency will change its name to National Geo-spatial Agency (NGA). The name change is reflective of the agency's new role in providing more than just mapping and imagery, said Dave Burpee, an agency spokesman.

NIMA "identified where we were in 1996," he said. The current name "keeps us on par with the CIA, the National Security Administration and the Defense Intelligence Agency."

NGA will offer more detailed classified maps and images with higher detail resolution displaying more specific information, such as infrastructure.

Established in October 1996, NIMA replaced the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), the Central Imagery Office (CIO), the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO), and the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center. NIMA also assumed duties for imagery exploitation, dissemination and processing elements of the Defense intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

Other changes underway at NIMA include focusing on surveillance needs instead of reconnaissance and moving away from...