Town Fights FOI Request for GIS Data and Images

dweyerma writes "The state's highest court will now decide a landmark public records case involving access to aerial reconnaissance photographs and maps of Greenwich, CT. The town maintains the images in a tightly kept database known as a geographic information system, which a judge declared to be public records last December. The Connecticut Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear the town's appeal of that ruling, expediting the case by leap-frogging the state Appellate Court. The move virtually coincides with the third anniversary of the initial complaint in the case, which Greenwich resident and computer consultant Stephen Whitaker filed with the state Freedom Information Commission after the town denied his request for an electronic copy of the entire database for security and privacy reasons."

Comments

Go team!

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, which side are we for?

GIS?

[Xenex]

We haven't seen that around here for far too long...

Uhh

[skitzoid (moomoo)]

Uhhh those photos with me a betty the sheep on the farm uhh we were just playing leap frog

Re:Uhh

[cfuse]

Yeeeahh! Gimme some of that sexy leap frog luving. Baaaa!

I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[vertical_98]

The government is a body of individuals most notably ungoverned - Shepard Book

We used to to be the most loved country in the world, now we are the one that catches the most shit. I think the government should stop spoon-feeding us what they think we should know and let us have what we think we should know.

There are always somethings that can not be revealed: Witness Protection, Undercover Officers, etc. But the maps are already available they are just not together in a nice electronic format. Maybe its time for the government of, for, and by the people to become that again.

Vertical

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

There are always somethings that can not be revealed: Witness Protection, Undercover Officers, etc. Well the Bush administration seems to have no problem with revealing the identities of CIA NOC undercover officers. Especially ones who work WMD proliferation.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[pjt33]

We used to to be the most loved country in the world

For the benefit of a non-historian: when was this?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

"We used to to be the most loved country in the world
For the benefit of a non-historian: when was this?"

In the same way that Nero considered himself the best-loved emperor.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Trailwalker]

June 6, 1944

Even the French liked us that day.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[at_18]

From 12 september 2001 until bush started talking about invading Iraq.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Sirch]

There are always somethings that can not be revealed: Witness Protection, Undercover Officers, etc

What about the submarine base in Greenwich? Isn't that kind of sensitive?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the tell us what they thing we should know IN ADDITION to what we think we should know? That way they might tell us something we would like to know but wouldn't have thought of asking for?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[intnsred]

But the Russians weren't so happy with us that day.

The Russians were still pissed that while they were fighting over 200 German divisions on the Russian front, the US and UK were fighting as few as 4 German divisions in Italy, in what the Russians considered a broken promise to open a second front as soon as possible.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[RWerp]

Even a bit earlier: until Bush started pushing around everyone who wanted to help him in Afghanistan.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[pjt33]

I would say there's a big distinction between "loved" and "pitied".

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[caldfyr]

"i think the government... spoon-feeding..." It isn't up to the public to decide what they need to know. Regardless of the claims that our congress is running blind with no real info from Bush(not likely), your elected officials are the only ones that need to know everything behind every decision.
If you want to second-guess your congressman or senator's decisions, then ask them for the reasons behind what they do. Making enough noise will scare any politician into at least a half-assed reply.
If you disagree to a sufficient degree, then don't reelect them.
However, I do not believe that the typical local government has the needed wisdom to deny FOI requests. Hopefully the state supreme court decision can put a stop to ignorant fear driven decisions made because of the sensationalist FUD being spewed daily.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Simonetta]

in what the Russians considered a broken promise to open a second front as soon as possible. ...As soon as possible from the British-American prescective was as soon as the Germans and Soviet Russians had finished killing off as many of each other as possible.

The whole point of the second world war was to remove possible competition from Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the British Empire. To the extent that the Germans and Russians destroyed each other while Americans watched (until early 1942), that strategy worked. After the war, the British Empire fell apart as each part of it became more technologically advanced.
The cold war was a means of driving the Soviet Union into bankruptcy, which eventually worked. The fact that the Soviets were the most brutal and repressive government in the world, with 10,000,000 randomly-selected people in slave-labor gulag concentration camps, didn't help their cause either.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Epistax]

I think the government should stop spoon-feeding us what they think we should know and let us have what we think we should know.

It's a tiny bit more complicated than that. Not only should we know what we think we should know, should we not also know of what we think we should not know?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[abirdman]

It isn't up to the public to decide what they need to know

This is patently wrong, and a paranoid knee-jerk reaction to anti-terrorist FUD spread by well-meaning but clueless (and now campaigning) government functionaries. Public information is just that--public. And unless it is demonstrated before a judge that the information should be kept out of the hands of the public, then it belongs to the people. Hence the phrase, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

An uninformed electorate is a misled electorate. Government rules by the consent of the governed. And a gated-community, private club, members-only government is a government that has removed itself from the very public who has consented to place them in power.

One other point, which I think is relevant here, is that Greenwich, CT is one of the richest communities in the country. I think the reason they don't want aerial maps of the town made public is then we'd all know where and how they live. The anti-terrorist security angle is all just smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that America's richest elite class doesn't want to be noticed. Hiding behind the "national security" curtain is just plain cynical.

And what's worse is the poor computer consultant who wants the maps (and has got all the liberal lawyers up in arms and fighting for him) probably just wants them so he can sell good information to companies that do lawn care, swimming pools, and aluminum siding for castle estates.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[shutdown -p now]

10,000,000 randomly-selected people in slave-labor gulag concentration camps

Please provide a link or reference to factual materials supporting your number. "Everyone knows!" doesn't count.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Maudib]

The whole point of the second world war was to remove possible competition from Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the British Empire.

This theory nicely fits into marxist dogma, but really doesnt hold water. You could argue that the Germans started WWII in order to replace British-U.S. hegemony with their own, but to say that the Allies fought the war to remove competition is utterly absurd. Germany wasnt attacking British or French colonies, they were attacking Britain and France, trying to conquer them. The point of the war from the Allies perspective was purely self defense. The only other alternative was submission.

That it was purely a matter of self defense is further vindicated by France and Englands repeated efferts at appeasement in order to avoid wat.

No, waiting until 1942 to attack was certainly construed as diabolique by the paranoid Russians, however it took that long to build up the necesary resources. In 1940 the U.S. military was about half a million strong, how the hell is that supposed to turn into a second front overnight? That it only took two years is a testament to how quickly the Americans moved and how much they were trying to honor their committments to the russians.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Jesus_666]

Half Afghanistan, half Iraq. After Sep. 11, 2001, the USA were our (the Germans') best friends ever and we'd do anything to help them.
Then good ol' George decided to go to Afghanistan and shoot some people and the USA were a bit too enthusiastic about taking their revenge, but what the heck. It was still tolerable, kind of.
Then George and his buddy Tony decided that Iraq was not only hiding WMDs but also helping al Qaeda, all contrary evidence be damned. And everyone had to help them invade Iraq. And everyone who didn't think that Iraq should be attacked is evil. Right.

And now suddenly everyone is surprised why no one likes the USA anymore...

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

The town of Greenwich, CT is littered with very wealthy people. Many of them are NYC-based corporate execs, network TV news anchors, etc. The town gov't protects them, even to the extent of breaking the law. On the east coast, there is an understood right of the public to access the intertidal zone, but Greenwich stubbornly (and illegally) arrests any non-residents found on its beaches without local permission. This has been going on for years.

Signed, a CT AC.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no sub base in Greenwich. You must be thinking of Groton CT.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[benjamindees]

So, what, like a day? A week maybe?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[RWerp]

Then good ol' George decided to go to Afghanistan and shoot some people

This is unjust. Invading Afghanistan was justified. The Taliban regime was hiding suspect (to put it mildly) terrorists and did not want to give them away. They were also a bunch of cruel people oppressing a war-torn country (no issue of national sovereignity here, as many Talibans came from abroad). The USA were right to attack. The problem is, how they carried out the operation. Allies should be respected, not commanded. If you prefer to do everything alone, don't complain if people offended turn your backs on you.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Buran]

It's in Groton, right next to Mystic, not in Greenwich. I was there last week at the sub museum with a friend whose father was a submariner.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[afidel]

Even if it were in Greenwich (it's not) it would be moot. The airspace over the base isn't restricted and there is no no-satelite coverage zone over that area. So you can get near realtime info from commercial satelites. Historic GIS data (probably from arial photos several years old at the newest) would be nearly useless since everything non-fixed would have changed and fixed assets locations could be asertained from numerous other sources including terraserve.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Anonymous Coward]

"From 12 september 2001 until bush started talking about invading Iraq."

Looks like that number may be negative (12 days) if you count destruction of the Basra radar as buildup to the Iraq invasion

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Jesus_666]

I know that the attack on Afghanistan was justified. That doesn't stop me from describing it in a cynical way.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[caldfyr]

Insightful? If you haven't lived longer than the last 30 or so years, you at least know some history a little better than that. The same president that signed the FOIA into law was the president that was dragged kicking and screaming to the signing table. It isn't knee-jerk reaction, it is established mind-set. Maybe the mind-set needs to be changed, but that would involve not reelecting the same people until they die of old age.

I might be patently wrong if you could give some support, but you seem uninformed.

"public information is just that --public" Gee... how witty. What you don't consider is that any information in the public domain arrived there from somewhere else .Judges don't come into play unless a piece of information is contested. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" is a nice quote, but too many fail to realize that it is through representation.

An uninformed electorate is one that is not doing its job. If the senate and house don't know what the president is up to and vice versa, they have failed.

The consent of the governed principle means that the government answers to the people. If your electorate can't adequately explain their actions, then replace them. THAT is what the principle means. Either you have a recall election or you simply vote for someone else at the next normal elections, but that is how the process works.

"A gated-community, private club, members-only government is a government that has removed itself from the very public who has consented to place them in power"
That is a gross exaggeration of the topic. RTFA. If you had read it, you would have noticed that the state agency sided with the programmer. The town administrators either, as you said, don't want anyone to know about their little paradise, or they are ignorant and falling for FUD, and have let it scare them into stupidity. We both know the judge will force the town to comply with the state office's decree. If we're lucky, he'll fine the town for going against a higher governing body.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[TykeClone]

Half Afghanistan, half Iraq. After Sep. 11, 2001, the USA were our (the Germans') best friends ever and we'd do anything to help them.

Until they were asked?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[dcwusmc]

BRAVO. You have scored 1,000% with that insightful reply about government. We, the People, who grant gov't its legitimate authority, need to ride these usurpers at ALL levels out of town on a rail, after the usual bath in the tar bucket and the feather pillow! We need to reassert OUR authority and get government OUT of our wallets and lives!

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[instarx]

The Germans were asked to help fight terrorist in Afghanistan AND THEY DID HELP US. In fact they are still there helping us, as are the French.

What they refused to do, and rightly so, was help George Bush conduct his own personal trumped-up war with Saddam Hussein. With over 1,100 US troops killed to date and with the situation getting worse every day (four more Marines killed yesterday) it looks like they were right.

If your best friend asks you to help him rob a bank and you refuse and instead try to talk him out of it - are you his friend or a back-stabber?

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[TykeClone]

If your best friend asks you to help him rob a bank and you refuse and instead try to talk him out of it - are you his friend or a back-stabber?

If my friend is busy skimming the books at the bank that I was planning on robbing, then yes.

Try searching google for "germany un food for oil scandal".

Agree or disagree with Iraq, the Germans and the French had an economic stake in keeping Saddam in power.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[cabalamat2]

Germany wasnt attacking British or French colonies, they were attacking Britain and France, trying to conquer them. The point of the war from the Allies perspective was purely self defense.

In fact, it was Britain and France that declared war on Germany, not the other way round.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[instarx]

If my friend is busy skimming the books at the bank that I was planning on robbing, then yes.

Huh?

Try searching google for "germany un food for oil scandal".

I don't have to google it, I know about it. I even know about the pseudo-scandal with Annan's son working for the aid agency years ago. What does it have to do with our stupid foray into Iraq? Are you saying that because others are greedy bastards it is OK for America to be too? I don't agree - we should be better than that, not gleefully jumping in the cesspool with the others.

Agree or disagree with Iraq, the Germans and the French had an economic stake in keeping Saddam in power.

Do you think the Germans and the French aren't allowed to look after their own economic interests just because they aren't Americans? Are you pretending that Bush went into Iraq for altruistic reasons and not to gain control of its oil and play military genius with real lives?

We put Saddam in power when it suited our purposes and kept him there when it suited our purposes. Have you seen the picture of a smiling Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam? We gave Saddam those weapons he used on the Kurds, you know.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[duffahtolla]

The town of Greenwich, CT is littered with very wealthy people. Many of them are NYC-based corporate execs, network TV news anchors, etc. The town gov't protects them, even to the extent of breaking the law. On the east coast, there is an understood right of the public to access the intertidal zone, but Greenwich stubbornly (and illegally) arrests any non-residents found on its beaches without local permission. This has been going on for years.

Signed, a CT AC.

I quoting the AC because I just thought people should see this and I didn't have any mod points..

:)

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Nutria]

In fact, it was Britain and France that declared war on Germany, not the other way round.

Two words: treaty obligations.

Even though they (the Brits & French) broke treaty with the Czechs, they did honor the mutual-defence treaty with the Poles.

Of course, Germany was going to invade France anyway, so the fact that France declared war first is just a technicality.

And, amazingly, Hitler honored the Axis Pact treaty with Japan by declaring war on the USA after it (the USA) declared war on Japan.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Nutria]

Agree or disagree with Iraq, the Germans and the French had an economic stake in keeping Saddam in power.

Do you think the Germans and the French aren't allowed to look after their own economic interests just because they aren't Americans? Are you pretending that Bush went into Iraq for altruistic reasons and not to gain control of its oil and play military genius with real lives?

Just as the USA has been hypocritical about the regimes that it supports, the French, Germans & Russians (and to a small degree ChiComs) are being hypocritical about Iraq.

Saddam could have paraded IRBMs and nukes down Main St. Baghdad, and France/Germany/Russia would have opposed any attempts to remove them, because they had an economic stake in keeping Saddam in power.

A bit less hypocricy by all parties involved would be very useful.

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[Nutria]

We used to to be the most loved country in the world

For the benefit of a non-historian: when was this?

Never. It's only a feeble stick used by the Left to try and bash Bush.

And always. The USA is still The Land Of Opportunity, and lots of people still try to (legally or illegally) immigrate and come on work permits.

But to literally answer your question, iIt depends on where you live, and how old you are.

If you're old enough to remember the USA saving your country, you still love the USA.

If you're young enough to have grown up in post-war peace, then you've hated us since you started school.

All of western Europe, South Korea & The Phillipines are exaples of this. (I'll always remember the students demonstrating in the ROK thru the 1970s and 1980s about democracy and reunification with the North. Naive fools.)

The Cubans who loved us for giving them their freedom are all dead.

Most people in the Carribeans & Central+South America had very valid reasons to hate us though, for setting up the "Bananna Republics".

Re:I'm waiting for the 'Think about the Children'

[instarx]

This will be my last response.

Just as the USA has been hypocritical about the regimes that it supports,

I don't understand your reference to the US being hypercritical of the regimes we support.

the French, Germans & Russians (and to a small degree ChiComs) are being hypocritical about Iraq.

I don't think France and Germany are being hypercritical of the US because they simply refused to invade a country that was absolutely no threat to them and had no relationship to the war on terrorism. That sounds more like sovereignty to me. I also don't think it out of line for them to complain about the new American policy of pre-emptive invasion (particularly when the evidence for it was made up) - a very dangerous policy and the opposite of the US and NATO's policies of the past 50 years.

Saddam could have paraded IRBMs and nukes down Main St. Baghdad, and France/Germany/Russia would have opposed any attempts to remove them, because they had an economic stake in keeping Saddam in power.

You're making an assumption here that is a statement of belief and not fact. We don't know the answer to "what-ifs", but I suspect that if Saddam had paraded nukes and missles the French and German responses to our request would have been very different. In reality (again we get back to the bain of neocon simple-think: reality) there was NO evidence of WMDs, Saddam in reality had no such weapons, and the French and Germans knew that.

A bit less hypocricy by all parties involved would be very useful.

I agree with this, however I am not aware that the French or Germans ever claimed they did not have economic interests in the regime. On the other hand, the Bush administration has claimed over and over again that their motives were pure and unblemished by greed and profit. Also, Saddam was the HWBush administration's great friend when he opposed the Iranians, and HWBush could not have cared less about the Kurds when Saddam gassed them (in fact we gave him the chemicals to do it). Now Bush II wants to save the US from WMD's, no, wait..., he wants to spread democracy, no, wait..., he wants to help the Iraqi people. Yes, less hypocrisy would be a good thing.

FOIA Requests and the AG

[justzisguy]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Attorney General Ashcroft's October 12, 2001 memo instructing federal agencies to stall on FOIA requests.

So, rather than asking federal officials to pay special attention when the public's right to know might collide with the government's need to safeguard our security, Ashcroft instead asked them to consider whether "institutional, commercial and personal privacy interests could be implicated by disclosure of the information." Even more disturbing, he wrote:

"When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records."

The Greenwich case appears to be an extension of the precident set by General Ashcroft. If FOIA is curtailed, how will journalists and watchdog groups get their information they use to keep government honest?

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[flossie]

If FOIA is curtailed, how will journalists and watchdog groups get their information they use to keep government honest?

I do not think the word "keep" means what you think it means!

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[justzisguy]

Despite all the examples of excess, government works most of the time for most people. Of course it makes mistakes, but it is a human run organization and is subject to fallibility.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite all the examples of excess, government works most of the time for most people. Of course it makes mistakes, but it is a human run organization and is subject to fallibility."

So basically, government doesn't need to comply with the law, and you don't care.

American, are you?

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[praksys]

Subtracting the spin put on this by alternet, what exactly is so bad about this memo? Ashcroft told federal officials that they should consider privacy rights when dealing with FOIA requests, and "even more disturbingly" that they should make sure their decisions have a sound legal basis.

Shocking. Not.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[anthony_dipierro]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Attorney General Ashcroft's October 12, 2001 memo instructing federal agencies to stall on FOIA requests.

Considering that it is the Connecticut government fighting the request and not the US government, probably not.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... so the government's out to protect my privacy, and the DoJ will do whatever it can to support an agency with a defensible position. How terrible.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[ahknight]

Yeah, that didn't work for the Catholic church, either.

Doesn't matter how much sense the argument makes, people are reflexive when it comes to judgment and whatever their first opinion is, that's what they hold until death ... some longer.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[maxume]

The tone of the memo is slightly disturbing though. FOIA is designed to make the government more transparent. Ashcroft says, hey err on the side of obscurity, we are behind you.

I don't disagree that there are plenty of things that the government knows that it shouldn't tell people, but there are also lots of things where it is ridiculous for there to be any secret keeping...

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[caldfyr]

It is easy to misread the tone of a written message. Ever have a messenger conversation go to hell because of a quick-to-react emotional person on the other end gets a case of teh crazy on you? A conversation that would have gone an entirely different way over the phone or face-to-face?

The tone of his memo may be intentional. Sometimes telling people to be careful isn't enough. Sometimes, to get their attention, you need to use various means to provide emphasis on the message. Or , then again, the person that sent the message to the local goverment agencies was probably in a serious mood (it is, after all, a serious job) and the letter reflected it.

Some people think FOI means that everything should be put out into the public view for all to see. Personally, I would rather there be some judgment used. There is no need for the majority of people to know the exact layout of a sewage system, or the water distribution system, or the GPS coordinates of the government buildings in town, etc. The local government should be required to review each request and say "Oh, you're the contractor that's going to build over there? Sure, here's the info on the sewer and water." And "You're an ex-con and want to know about the power and underground access in the local financial district? Um....no"

Just because some of the loudest people are law abiding citizens doesn't mean everyone else is. I would like to know more than I do, but I realize that I don't have a need to know. And being a reporter doing a story will probably get a person past most FOI issues, so as long as the reporter and watchdog organizations remain responsible they should not have any problems keeping the government honest.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[Fermier de Pomme de]

It's great that you think you don't have a need to know but the FOIA gives people a right to know - on the off chance that they are not as trusting as you.

And what is so special about 'being a reporter' that should give people access to certain records under FOIA while just being a citizen should not?

You seem to place a lot of blind trust in the government and think that everything will work out. What do you base this on? It certainly can't be recent events and I'm sure it is not history in general.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[caldfyr]

Think about this: Right now people are used to the era before FOIA. They didn't have any access. They fought for the access not only because it could be useful to some people, but also just for the fact that people want what they do not have.

There are countless situations where the wrong people having too much information can lead to disaster, and the wrong people aren't necessarily the ones outside our borders. For one example, imagine a school system that wants to show how much they want to help parents keep track of their children by having school buses report their current position and passenger number to the world wide web? In a time where commercials and news media are pimping cell phones that report a child's location to a parent with just the press of a button, I can imagine such a scenario being excitedly received by overly invasive parents. And I sure most /. readers can imagine several situations where John Q public could use that information wrongly.

Can you imagine the public and media backlash there would be? "Why wasn't the government/police/deity protecting us from ourselves?" The same people that wanted limitless freedoms will be the ones most vocally calling for censorship.

There are people all over that shouldn't be allowed to breed. And their rampant responsibility is dangerous to them and the people around them. It is difficult to consider any object or concept and not find a situation where they can be dangerous, whether from design, misuse, or just bad luck. Hell, if FOI is the only thing agencies consider carefully, at least they're exercising judgment on SOMETHING.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[caldfyr]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. It isn't so much "being a reporter" as being a reporter doing a story on such and such, which would most likely supply a person with a reason to see information.

I didn't say I was trusting. I know that the government isn't, by some miracle, the only entity in the universe free of idiots and corruption. But if it was my job to second guess every decision ever made, I would be... well... a member of the government, or at least one of the watchdog groups. And the watchdog groups get most of the info they want, anyway.

Plus, when it comes to a lot of our foreign policy, the information is classified, and for good reason. It is difficult to have oversight on an organization when you don't have a clearance. Luckily for me, my senators have the needed access and do the necessary oversight on the white house and their fellow legislators. If they make crazy decisions, their fellow senators are going to make a very public stink or leak just enough information to bring the situation into the public view.

If you don't trust your elected officials, then don't reelect them.

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[Insurgent2]

If FOIA is curtailed, how will journalists and watchdog groups get their information they use to keep government honest?

That's easy.
They'll just do like CBS and make their own forged documents to support whatever story they feel like making up that day that will be reported as "news".

Re:FOIA Requests and the AG

[Anonymous Coward]

"Subtracting the spin put on this by alternet, what exactly is so bad about this memo? Ashcroft told federal officials that they should consider privacy rights when dealing with FOIA requests"

Actually "corporate and institutional" privacy was the part we thought odd. Does the idea of corporate privacy not seem at odds to the concept of the FOIA?

(Hint: one of those ideas is US law, while the other is Ashcroft's personal opinion. And when he instructs federal departments to take just one side in that discussion - you'd imagine the AG would be reccommending that US law be followed)

We must act!

[Gentlewhisper]

Ok folks, if those bastards steal any more of our rights again, everybody aim your rifle into the sky.

We will shoot that fscking satelite down!

Re:We must act!

[flossie]

Ok folks, if those bastards steal any more of our rights again, everybody aim your rifle into the sky.

OK, rifles at the ready. Whatever the court decides, don't let the bastards steal citizens' rights to [privacy|information]

Um...

[Tito]

There are aerial photos available RIGHT NOW on http://www.acme.com/mapper/

Re:Um...

[Sunspire]

Or even better, if you use Keyhole 2, Greenwich CT photos are available at 1m resolution (the entire US is guaranteed to be available at 15m resolution). Now that's pretty damn good, you can make out cars easily and even people, I doubt the town's own images are much better than that. The program is available free of charge for 7 trial days to anyone in the world.

So clearly this data is already available to anyone who wants it, so it's not about security. Restricting aerial photography, that's been paid for by tax money in the first place, just keeps it out of public programs like NASA's World Wind viewer (featured yesterday on Slashdot). I'm sure the greedy bastards at Greenwich would have no objections to selling the photos to a provider like Keyhole instead of just give them up for free. Crying "terrorists, security breach!" is just the fashionable thing to do these days when don't feel like cooperating.

And let's face it. Programs like Keyhole and the free World Wind are only going to get better from here on. 5-10 years from now you're going to able to pan from San Francisco to Paris, either way around, and have a 1-5meter resolution all the way, so that you can count every Starbuck along the way if you feel like it. The globe is going to be mapped completely, deal with it.

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say don't forget about even microsoft's terraserver (terraserver.microsoft.com) or just terraserver.com its self (which personally I think sucks but it does have those sat photos of area 51)

Re:Um...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

And let's face it. Programs like Keyhole and the free World Wind are only going to get better from here on. 5-10 years from now you're going to able to pan from San Francisco to Paris, either way around, and have a 1-5meter resolution all the way, so that you can count every Starbuck along the way if you feel like it.

Who's going to spend the time to photograph the Atlantic at 1M resolution?

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

My county has a searchable GIS interface online for free.
Apparently, you can order subsets of the data on cd also for a fee.

Re:Um...

[gui_tarzan2000]

Uuummm... the photos of my house on that site are more than 10 years old.

"There are aerial photos available RIGHT NOW on http://www.acme.com/mapper/"

Re:Um...

[Jesus_666]

Who's going to spend the time to photograph the Atlantic at 1M resolution?

People who want to count the Starbucks, duh!

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

DOh!! You doubt that the cities images are much better than 15m resolution???

I work for a small (population wise) rural midwest county. We currently have 1 foot resolution photos of the entire county and 6 inch resolution for incorporated areas. These aerials were flown in 2000. In the summer of 2003, our entire state was flown at 1m resolution in color to map out flooded areas (unfortunately, foilage on vegetation is at full bloom in these.) Next spring, the entire county will be flown at 6" resolution. This is very common. In town, you need accuracy for utilities and so forth. Our county happens to be in a very flat area, so, to determine where water will end up, we need tight contours...2 foot contours will be derived from the 6 inch photos next year. 1 foot contours would be even better, but, are very expensive.

Personally, I would like to see everyone have free access to all of this. However, I understand the reasoning of those running things. Those in charge do not want to see people like the consultant mentioned in the Greenwich article taking this data at no cost and reselling it for a profit at the counties (taxpayer's) expense. The taxpayer pays for the data multiple times in this fashion. My take on this, however, is that we should give all the data (charge for media and labor (labor is illegal to charge for currently.) to anyone who asks for it (minus utility data.) If Joe Farmer has the technical prowess to do something meaningful with this data, so be it. If John Farmer doesn't have the know how, he can buy the software Joe Farmer created to use the data. Reselling of the data, however, should be banned. Why? Because, if not...Joe Farmer would put the data in a proprietary format for his software so that John Farmer couldn't use the county provided data with out also paying for the proprietary format.

The current plan we have limits acquisition of large quantities of our data to wealthy individuals and entities which is WRONG.

And then there are the data mining warehouses that have been knocking on every local government's door demanding complete dumps of GIS, property records, and so on (mainly in relation to the Matrix program.) We have categorically denied these requests.

Re:Um...

[penix1]

"And then there are the data mining warehouses that have been knocking on every local government's door demanding complete dumps of GIS, property records, and so on..."

And that is exactly what this litigant is doing. From the main story...

"Whitaker is seeking the images for potential "commercial and civic uses"..."

I work for State Government (and have worked for the Federal Government) doing GIS and know the problems involved in obtaining data vital to my job. I also know the abuses that can happen when the data is to be used "for commercial purposes".

Let me put it to you another way;
When I worked for FEMA one of the maps we produced was called a "teleregistration map". This map shows the location of everybody who called for assistance. More importantly, it contains all the data on how much assistance they got and from what sources. It also lists income levels and credit levels. Because of this the teleregistration data is protected by the privacy act. Every state I have worked in would like this data and usually badger the hell out of FEMA to provide it. Every disaster the request is turned down. Now, would you like this data given over for "commercial purposes"? How about to local governments where it is likely to be abused as well?

This guy wants the entire database (something I would refuse even if court ordered). From the story again...

"Stephen Whitaker filed with the state Freedom Information Commission after the town denied his request for an electronic copy of the entire database..."

The town used the excuse of "security" wrongly IMO and should have stuck to their guns on privacy concerns (especially if there are any in the DB).

Just my .02 on this...

B.

Re:Um...

[Mik3D]

Actually, most municipal entities are now looking for imagery in the 6 inch to 1 foot resolution range.

1 Meter is nice if you are only interested in streets and buildings. When you want to get down to mapping things like fire hydrants and storm drains you really need the high resolution stuff... and your not going to get it from a satellite. Aerial imagery firms are still making a great living flying 6 inch imagery (not to mention LIDAR).

Re:Um...

[JustAnotherBob]

Yes, but the GIS capabilities of the Keyhole software probally doesn't have multispectral sensing that the better funded surveys have. For example if it were lawn care companies that wanted to sell their services to people that had troubled(infested/sick) large lawns, then a limited GIS databse without a IR layer would be useless. With just regular maps you could see which house has the largest lawn, but you couldn't identify its health nor which nutrients it's lacking.

Re:Um...

[winwar]

"Who's going to spend the time to photograph the Atlantic at 1M resolution?"

Anyone who gets the funding.....

Re:Um...

[penix1]

"For example if it were lawn care companies that wanted to sell their services to people that had troubled(infested/sick) large lawns, then a limited GIS databse without a IR layer would be useless. With just regular maps you could see which house has the largest lawn, but you couldn't identify its health nor which nutrients it's lacking."

And you don't see a problem with this? Number one, maps can lie unless you have the required training (not something you can get in an hour or even a semester) data misinterpretation is likely. Everyone seems to think GIS is the ultimate end all be all for solving the worlds problems. Well, it isn't. It still takes expertise in the field of interest to properly interpret the data.

Maps want to be free!

[PhotoGuy]

Well, sort of.

It's always been a thorn in my side, that (here in Canada, and no doubt elswhere) tax money pays for government agencies to collect map and aerial photography data (and land records), and do not make it properly accessible to the public.

Prior to the internet, you could buy the maps and aerial photographs for a fee, which was a bit high, I always thought, but reasonable considering the trouble and costs associated with the physical reproduction of the media.

Now in this age of the Internet and blank DVD's priced well under $1 (even our lame Cdn $), providing that "public data" far more cheaply (and allowing copying) should be allowed.

Instead the fees for getting large sets of map data are exorbitant. I just hope that more competitive privatized satellite photography concerns can provide a lot of this, far more economically.

This is especially annoying, since here in Canada, we are taxed quite heavily; if you make more than $50K Cdn [30K+-ish US], your incremental tax rate is something like 50c on the dollar. Plus in some provinces, you pay 15% GST on everything you purchase; booze and gas have taxes that are astronomical (more than 100%, I believe). (Not that we Canadians drink a lot, *cough* *cough*.)

In many cases, those tax dollars are put to great use, incredible and accessible health care (as much as we like to bitch about it, it's great), generally excellent and free highways (toll roads are fairly rare in Canada), and so forth. Granted, those are more critical than map data, but I still hope we come around on the mapping issue some day.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Has there ever been a single post by a Canadian on Slashdot that doesn't go on and on about how Canada rules and USA sucks? I'm serious, now.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[dsanfte]

This is especially annoying, since here in Canada, we are taxed quite heavily; if you make more than $50K Cdn [30K+-ish US], your incremental tax rate is something like 50c on the dollar.

"As of 1999, the Canadian government only has three taxation bands, the highest of which is 29%, starting at CA$59,180. The US government taxes its second band of taxation at almost as high a rate, 28%, starting at US$25,750 for a single person. The US third band - comparable to Canada's highest band - is 31% starting at US$62,450 for a single person."

In many cases, those tax dollars are put to great use, incredible and accessible health care (as much as we like to bitch about it, it's great),

When my girlfriend had to go to emergency here in Gatineau, QC for an ultrasound after having constant, severe abdominal cramping, we had to wait ten hours(!!!) to see a doctor. Things aren't ok. What if it was an ectopic pregnancy? She could have died waiting.

generally excellent and free highways (toll roads are fairly rare in Canada)

Yes excellent roads, that's why cities are running defecits just keeping their transit systems going, and chomping at the bit for a share of a 2.5% tax on gas so they can finally fill some potholes.

I'm sorry, I'm Canadian, but painting a rosy picture of what's wrong with our country in some egotistical cherade aimed at impressing Americans is no different from Americans claiming they have they greatest democracy on earth, while their supreme court is deciding elections. Just stop, please.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

even our lame Cdn $

OT, yeah, but I dunno why everyone's so down on the Canadian vs US dollar... I mean the dollar is weak as hell against the Euro and you don't see us strutting around...

Re:Maps want to be free!

[rediguana]

I agree with what you say. However, there is usually one very good reason why public agencies do not release the information - they are not allowed to. They usually hire a contractor to get gather the information, and then they licence the orthophotography. So they don't own it, they just have a licence to use it. Governments therefore have to either be a bit more forceful about the rights that they have on the data they pay to be gathered, or they should do it themselves rather than use a commercial provider.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Jim_Maryland]

I used to work for Prince George's County Maryland (as an onsite sub contractor) as both their GIS programmer and the UNIX/Win32 system administrator. The question of who has access to the data was a common question, not only concerning private citizens/corporations but even between county/state agencies.

Aerial photography purchases were done from the budget of a couple of the agencies in the county (Maryland National Capital Parks & Planning, Dept. of Public Works, Health and Human Services, Emergency Services, Dept. of Environmental Resources, and maybe one or two more agencies). Each agency would commit a portion of the money to the collection/maintenance cost (for both aerial data and the generated vector files). Other agencies in the county who chose not to help pay for the cost of the data were often not given access to the data without some payment (not done at my level). I don't know the exact details on the public getting data, but they wouldn't have had direct access to our department anyways so I can only guess they wouldn't have any access as well.

Now to further elaborate on the inter-county agencies, the education board wanted to do a bus routing project using the road centerline file (for E911 and Dept. of Public Works primarily). The school board didn't contribute to the aerial photograph collection and county directors would refuse to allow them access. I'm sure PG County Schools are similar to other school systems in having a limited budget so refusing access seems unreasonable to me, but you have to follow the county policy.

Now for public access, a few problems exist with this. In general, a private citizen wouldn't have much need for the information so releasing to the public would essentially benefit a very small set of people/companies. The benefit for this small group would essentially be paid for by all tax payers. Another problem is at what point do you release the data in the collection/maintenance process? While aerial photos are essentially a "complete" product, the derived GIS data is a "living" dataset that is constantly being updated for changes since the photography. New attributes can be added to the datasets as well so the product can rarely be seen as complete. Analysis done on data must always be made with understandings of the condition of the dataset.

OK, gotta cut this short here...

Some counties are now looking at leasing the data from the aerial photography companies now. By leasing the data, various agreements on who has access to the data are put in place. The benefit to the county is that the data is generally provided cheaper and more frequently. The aerial photography companies benefit is that they know they'll have a regular data customer but they may also sell to private companies/citizens as well.

As for the data being available to myself as a citizen (btw, I live in one of the counties adjacent to PG County so I have to get data for my area just like everyone else if I want it), I'm not sure that I have a need to see it. Sure, it would be neat to have the aerial photo over my house, but I can get that through an online interactive mapping site (http://terraserver.microsoft.com or the other one listed in a previous posters comment). I'm not sure that I'd need it in raw format.

Some data is available for download. Check out agencies like USGS, Census Agency, NGA, etc....

Re:Maps want to be free!

[thogard]

The US Govt can't own a copyright. Thats why its publications are free. This is one area where the US is ahead of other countries in copyright law.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[intnsred]

When my girlfriend had to go to emergency here in Gatineau, QC for an ultrasound after having constant, severe abdominal cramping, we had to wait ten hours(!!!) to see a doctor. Things aren't ok.

And in the US people never have to wait to see a doctor! :-)

It's generally agreed that Quebec's provincial health care is the worst of the various Canadian provinces. While there's no doubt that Canadian health care has some problems, a few facts should be kept in mind:

(1) Before Canada adopted national health care, the average life expectancy of Americans exceeded the average life expectancy of Canadians.

(2) Now, the average life expectancy of Canadians exceeds that of Americans by more than 4 years.

(3) Canadians, as a whole, pay significantly less for health care than Americans do.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Caius_Julius]

"As for the data being available to myself as a citizen (btw, I live in one of the counties adjacent to PG County so I have to get data for my area just like everyone else if I want it), I'm not sure that I have a need to see it"

This is almost surely some engineering company that wants to harvest all of the town's data to set up a for-profit service. The argument about why or why not to favor this individual is hard to settle, but both sides of the argument about "freedom of information" and "security" are disingenuous.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Qzukk]

available to myself as a citizen...I'm not sure that I have a need to see it.

GIS data is useful for a lot of things. Aside from navigational systems (turn left at the next light) we use it at our company to tell people how many offices are in X miles of their house. "We" being a tax-paying company consisting of tax-paying citizens, who currently have to buy the databases and their updates.

Now a larger question is what happens when private resources (this aerial photography company that they're looking to lease from) gets used without purchase, then its unclear if the citizens derive any "ownership" of this data (especially if the contract says no, though it could become a question of whether the government could legally enter into a contract that deprives the citizenship the benefits of their tax dollars)

Re:Maps want to be free!

[NatHoward]

I thought this was mostly a very helpful comment, but I wish to cast some rhetorical light on one aspect of this question.

The poster says:

In general, a private citizen wouldn't have much need for the information so releasing to the public would essentially benefit a very small set of people/companies.

and

I'm not sure that I have a need to see it.

I would like to suggest that, while it's a legitimate philosophical question to ask, the question of whether a citizen "needs" some government information should not factor importantly into the evualuation of whether a law is good in a free society.

The problem is that a citizen's needs are a very poor index of what he should be allowed to do or to have. For example, I don't "need" a swimming pool, but I have one. If "need" were a criterion, almost nobody would have a pool, an SUV, eat out at restaurants, vote, be able to print a newspaper, be able to buy a newspaper, send their kid to private school, or, for that matter, read slashdot.

Our actions would be even more circumscribed if a self-interested government got to define the word "need".

It's clear to me, btw, that the original poster wasn't talking about "need" in this way, exactly. I just wanted to make sure that the notion of "need", once introduced, wasn't used without reflection -- that is, without my 2 cents being added in!

Now, how do I feel about whether government, having bought this information, should be compelled to disgorge this information? Why, yes! Government supposedly exists partly to internalize externalities of exactly this sort. If government doesn't wish to become the source for that information, perhaps it should contract with private parties for appropriate summaries, rather than the complete geographic database. Alternatively, a wise government might well conclude that its citizens, are, on balance, better off if they all have at least the potential ("need" or not!) to have this information for a nominal price....

Re:Maps want to be free!

[shalla]

Now for public access, a few problems exist with this. In general, a private citizen wouldn't have much need for the information so releasing to the public would essentially benefit a very small set of people/companies. The benefit for this small group would essentially be paid for by all tax payers.

I think you miss the point. It isn't whether or not a private citizen would have use for this, but rather that the government paid for it and the information SHOULD be available via a Freedom of Information request. Unless the information meets one of the exceptions listed in the Freedom of Information Act, it simply shouldn't be restricted. That's why we have the darn exceptions in the first place. "I don't think most people will use it" is not an acceptable reason to block access to information obtained with public funds.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the government fund Internet access to such records for the general public, but the records should be available on request.

If you are concerned about people making commercial use of such aerial photography, I would think such photography would still be under copyright and thus could not be used in such a manner.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[chiph]

The benefit for this small group would essentially be paid for by all tax payers

I think you just described a large portion of goverment services, from unemployment benefits to welfare, to public transportation.

Chip H.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[mrgriscom]

The complication and aggravation of acquiring data like this on a town-by-town or county-by-county basis would be rendered moot if the state of Connecticut finally got its act together and instituted some sort of decent aerial imagery program.

All neighboring states have sort some of program in place; most are very good. New York has a recurring high-res orthoimagery program. Massachusetts recently produced a high-res, state-wide dataset. Even Rhode Island has one, I think.

But in Connecticut, we're forced to forage for scraps of incomplete or old data, or fight endlessly with paranoid towns like Greenwich. A centralized state-wide program for the acquisition and distribution of high-quality, current aerial imagery would not only be beneficial (and greatly appreciated), but as demonstrated by our neighbors, very feasible too.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[eht]

They pay significantly less and that's why the nurses are migrating to the US, maybe if they paid more Canadian nurses would be willing to stay.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/ is _7241_320/ai_61995020

http://www.nurseweek.com/news/features/01-06/glo ba l.html

http://www.rescueamericanjobs.org/articles/index .p hp?info=american-nursing-shortage-global-foreign-n urses

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and eventually you start utilizing the systems which uniquely benefit you, and start profiting from the system yourself!

Re:Maps want to be free!

[stubear]

\I think the term need should be applied more to what the citizen plans to do with the information. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to have a form filled out by the requester in which they must explain what the information is to be used for. If they're just doing this to tweak the local government, or prove some point, then perhaps it's not going to be worth the local government's time to bother with the request and the requester can seek legal recourse if they so wish. If there is a contractor that is going to use the aerial photography for some job related purpose then perhaps it's worth the time and expense of the local government to get them the data at a reasonable fee. Not great examples but you can see the big difference of need based on "because I can" and need based on legitimate use of the information.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[abirdman]

Has there ever been a single post by a Canadian on Slashdot that doesn't go on and on about how Canada rules and USA sucks?

I re-read the GP post, and I didn't see where the poster said USA sucks. I think that was an inference you made on your own.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Dirtside]

In general, a private citizen wouldn't have much need for the information so releasing to the public would essentially benefit a very small set of people/companies.

On the other hand, NOT releasing to the public essentially benefits nobody. If they're already collecting it, what disadvantage is there to releasing it?

Re:Maps want to be free!

[smokin_juan]

During the past few months I've been creating a 3d model of my current/future house in AutoCAD. Easy access to arial photography has allowed me to add a bit of realism to the rendered drawings concerning ground color, tree positions, road, etc. I've also added the neighbors houses to see how the my house will look in the setting.

To the point, these arial photos brought me to the realization that a garage would be better suited to the east side of the house rather than the west, where the driveway is currently... There's more space between me and my eastern neighbor which will provide a more balanced perception of property lines. This isn't a decision that benefits me as much as it does the neigborhood. Granted, I probably could've realized the imbalance without the arial shots, but would I have? Is it usefull for a local government to release information that may allow citizens to make better decisions concerning their property? Nice neigborhoods attract business and residents (aka people to steal tax money from ;) after all.

I started the project with shots from http://terrafly.fiu.edu but later upgraded to some fancy hi-res color shots from www.globexplorer.com despite the price. And on the subject of local governments releasing aerial photos this one has released all of theirs... Unfortunatly I'm just outside of their field of view.

Here's the product if you're interested. It's hardly finished, but better than nothing.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[iCEBaLM]

Government is "For, by and of the people" is it not? Governments raise money by taxes. Governments are instituted to *serve* the people, not the other way around. If the government buys, creates, obtains or in any way has in their possession information of any sort then that information belongs to the people and should be given to them when requested, period. Need is not an issue and having a government who can say "you can't have it, but you can" is very dangerous as you've just turned your government into an aristocracy.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Anonymous Coward]

I also work with GIS data every day in my job and developed our local GIS system. The city and county paid for the overflights and photos, and spent many thousands developing the various layers. The money that was spent was taxpayer money, the resulting documents / data are public records. Anyone who wants a copy is entitled to a copy, whether they have a NEED for the data or not. If you bring me a DVD I burn you a set of all the data for no charge, if I have to provide the DVD it costs you a buck.

This kind of attitude, that the public has to demonstrate a compelling need to get what they're entitled to, drives me crazy. Yeah, I work for "the government", but I'm also dedicated to making government more transparent and easier to deal with.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Jim_Maryland]

I guess I'm not making the point as I see it. What I'm trying to say is that the tax payers are covering the cost of the aerial photography (and the derived vector data) but very few individual/corporations would take advantage of the release of the data. Wouldn't offseting the cost of collection (saving tax payers money) by charging the few that use the data make sense? I'm not saying that the government agencies are going to make a profit (I don't believe they could, even if they wanted to), but that they will reduce tax payer burden.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[deacent]

It's always been a thorn in my side, that (here in Canada, and no doubt elswhere) tax money pays for government agencies to collect map and aerial photography data (and land records), and do not make it properly accessible to the public.

Most agencies do make it available to the public. This is Greenwich being Greenwich. What is especially stupid about this is that much of the information is available at the Department of Enviromental Protection's web site. I used to work for the CT DOT doing GIS for them. At that time (6 years ago), we were trying to coordinate efforts with the DEP and University of Connecituct, who also had some good data including ariel photography. While the TIGER maps at the DEP may not have the accuracy that USGS survey maps have, they have all of the important information and they're close enough for many applications.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[stubear]

Then why should information be classified and kept from the public? Do I have a right to see the records for the Groom Lake Facility in Nevada (aka Area 51)? I pay for the building of weapons systems used by the US military. Should I then be allowed to take an F-16 for a joyride whenever I want simply because I have a pilot's license? What about social security, tax records, and medical information for anyone who's worked for the government? Tax dollars paid for that and I'd like to know a little about the guy I'm about to hire for a job. Where does the argument for tax dollars end and reasonable regulation of government resources begin? Governments are in deed established to serve the people, this does not mean we get to treat them like the waiter at a local restaurant and that they answer to our every whim. Should they not respond to my opinion that I think information of this nature be kept locked up? Wouldn't they then be serving me and putting my tax dollars to good use? By the way, as someone who once held a TS SIOP ESI clearance in the USAF, I do indeed believe there is information that is rightly classified and kept from the public. I'm not saying that specifically GIS data should or should not be, but not all information obtained by the government should be made public.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[abulafia]

By the way, as someone who once held a TS SIOP ESI clearance in the USAF, I do indeed believe there is information that is rightly classified and kept from the public. I'm not saying that specifically GIS data should or should not be, but not all information obtained by the government should be made public.

Of course you do. And in some cases, you may even be right. But relying on 'if you knew what I know" arguments is inherently weak and not a little manipulative.

One excellent test of whether or not a government action is legitimate is whether or not it is done in the sight of the people it supposedly serves. Just because it isn't doesn't directly imply that is isn't legitimate (it is a dangerous world), but it is a definite symptom of illegitimate behaviour.

The Bush crew are one of the most secretive administrations in a very long line of creeping nanny statists. It is trite to say but true - rot grows in dark places.

But hey, I'm one of these unrealistic small government types. What do I know.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[abulafia]

This is almost surely some engineering company that wants to harvest all of the town's data to set up a for-profit service. The argument about why or why not to favor this individual is hard to settle, but both sides of the argument about "freedom of information" and "security" are disingenuous.

Why the anti-profit bias? So long as this hypothetical engineering company can't keep others from getting the data too, it is not in the least disingenuous to talk about freedom of information.

Come on - Anyone who asks for data does so for a reason - as part of a larger goal. That some goals benefit the requestor financially doesn't make the request less legitimate than any other requestor.

Or put it a different way - any request for this data that is granted is a financial benefit, in that the requestor would otherwise have to gather it themselves at great expense. Centralizing the gathering in the government either should be seen as a legitimate function of government, and therefor a benefit for all citizens, or as an illegitimate function, in which case it shouldn't happen.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Idarubicin]

Prior to the internet, you could buy the maps and aerial photographs for a fee, which was a bit high, I always thought, but reasonable considering the trouble and costs associated with the physical reproduction of the media.

Now in this age of the Internet and blank DVD's priced well under $1 (even our lame Cdn $), providing that "public data" far more cheaply (and allowing copying) should be allowed.

On the other hand, for aerial photographs and satellite imagery, it may be that the cost of acquiring the images is a significant fraction of the cost that you pay for them. In other words, though collection of the imagery is partially subsidized by the government, there is at least some cost recovery from the people who actually make use of the pictures. It makes sense for the government to be contributing to this funding, because the government does make extensive use of aerial and satellite imagery--but giving away the images for free amounts to a government subsidy of any business that makes use of them.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[stubear]

I'm for small government too. I'm just saying that there need to be ways to reasonably divulge information obtained by government without giving away everythign simply because tax dollars paid for it. By the way, secretive governments are also smaller by nature, they just concentrate power in fewer organizations. The bigger they are, the more leaks they tend to spring.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Anonymous Coward]

they're getting sloppy in their old age

Re:Maps want to be free!

[legirons]

"The US Govt can't own a copyright. Thats why its publications are free. This is one area where the US is ahead of other countries in copyright law."

If anyone doesn't realise quite how far the US is ahead on this one, you can get digital maps showing streets, rivers, some buildings, rail, boundaries, ZIP codes, etc. for the whole of the US for free. Needless to say this is extremely useful for a whole host of things.

In Britain, this information is 'owned' by the Ordnance survey (their surveying was done using government money) and will cost you around $100 per square kilometre to use their data (nevermind redistribution rights, you have to enumerate each person who might have access to the data).

If $100/sq.km sounds a lot, the US covers 9 million sq.km

Here in UK (and probably elsewhere too), everyone uses 15-year old mapping data, because that's all that they can get for reasonable cost. And that data is available for free because the USA created it. (The NOAA/VMAP data of course). By everyone, I mean military, councils, government and probably even aviation. Ordnance Survey maps may have been created for the benefit of the military, but damned if they're not going to demand $10 per paper sheet for each one, to the extent that even defence research people always use the free american data instead.

So it can get pretty bad if your government ever starts restricting map data. It may sound trivial from where you stand, but you stand to become like the UK, where not even the government can use its own data, the departments are so territorial (no pun intended)

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Jim_Maryland]

A related example...

The state parks in Maryland receive funding to operate. Most of these parks (maybe all, but I haven't been to all of them) also charge a small fee to offset the operational cost of using them. The park can be used by everyone, and everyone's taxes do help support the parks, but those who actually use the park pay more than just the taxes to help it run. Why should someone who doesn't use the park at all pay all the cost?

The same applies for the data collected. Everyone does get the advantages of the data (911 systems, planning, tax collection, street maintenance, etc...) and often online interactive mapping programs allow access to data. If someone wants to use the data for profit though, can't they help offset the cost of the data and save the tax payers some money?

Re:Maps want to be free!

[rthille]

Why should someone who doesn't use the park at all pay all the cost?

Well, this may not be 'the' reason, but a reason is that because of those parks, more people will want to live there and property values will go up. So, those parks give everyone a benefit, not just those who use them.

Re:Maps want to be free!

[Jim_Maryland]

I'm not saying that people shouldn't pay some of their tax money toward things like parks, just that having people who actively use the parks pay a little more does make some sense. Same can be said for GIS data. Those who use the data can offset the cost of collection and save the tax payer a little money. I'm not saying that the fee should be anything outrageous though.

It should be available

[reboot246]

If the database was paid for with tax money, then it should be available to the taxpayers. Besides, as others have pointed out, the same information is already available in a form that would be useful to terrorists.

I use USAPhotoMaps to access the terraserver. I have a database of aerial photos and topo maps of all the areas I work (nearly my whole state). The resolution of the photos is 1 meter per pixel and for the topo maps it's 4 meters per pixel. That info plus a program to show streets and roads makes my job much easier.

Terra Server

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't mind a slightly old copy, it's all online for your viewing: Greenwich, Connecticut, United Stetes 13 April 1992. Click away to your hearts content.
Of, if you prefer, the Greenwich, Connecticut Topological Map, 01 July 1986 USGS

Re:Terra Server

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, that just links to some Microsoft site.

Re:Terra Server

[Anonymous Coward]

karma whore

Well, in Australia...

[ivi]

First, we pay public servants to CREATE data,
then we have to pay them to USE it!

USA seemed to be better at this than we are.

Re:Well, in Australia...

[ivi]

Sorry, I meant: We have to pay to GET access
to the data, if WE want to USE it... (also).

Re:Well, in Australia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, got that. But what you don't say is if it's a realistic cost.

It costs money to create, maintain, and distribute data. Are they charging an extra amount that's just going into general gov revenue or something?

Stop with the acronyms!

[Quobobo]

I'm sure the headline makes sense to some people, but not many people are going to understand FOI or GIS. I can't be the only person who thought this was about Google image search data and images at first glance.

It's just kind of ridiculous when a native English speaker can't make sense of the headline. Please, at least explain these things in the submission.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[droleary]

It's just kind of ridiculous when a native English speaker can't make sense of the headline. Please, at least explain these things in the submission.

Submission? It's explained on the top of every page! What part of "News for Nerds" don't you understand? If every common geeky TLA leaves you DaC, you can KMA and go sit -/.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Quobobo]

Today FOI and GIS, tomorrow OMG ASL PLZ!11! ROFL

Think about it, man. Do you really want that on your conscience?

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Gerad]

If you had bothered to even read the article summary, you probably could have figured out the acronyms by putting in a tiny bit of effort. But no, it's easier to bitch here and get others to do your work for you.

pathetic.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Guppy06]

"but not many people are going to understand FOI or GIS."

I know what they are! They're spells from Phantasy Star... aren't they?

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[dema]

The town maintains the images in a tightly kept database known as a geographic information system, which a judge declared to be public records last December. The Connecticut Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear the town's appeal of that ruling, expediting the case by leap-frogging the state Appellate Court. The move virtually coincides with the third anniversary of the initial complaint in the case, which Greenwich resident and computer consultant Stephen Whitaker filed with the state Freedom Information Commission after the town denied his request for an electronic copy of the entire database for security and privacy reasons.

I dunno about you, but I had no idea what those meant either.....until I read the submission.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Quobobo]

Hey, congratulations for completely missing the point. Could you point out where I said I didn't read the summary? While you're at it, could you point out where I said I didn't understand it? Hmm, probably not, because I was talking about the headline. I was saying that it's harder to comprehend than it should be, and rightfully so.

Check your own reading comprehension before you complain about others.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Quobobo]

Geographic information system, yes. Even though it's not capitalized or anything (which would go a long way towards clarifying things), I'll concede that you're right about that. But how on earth am I supposed to associate FOI with something listead as FIC (Freedom Information Commission) in the summary? That's just ridiculous, and shows the quality of writing on Slashdot. Real newspapers don't have writing like this, and for good reason.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Kirby-meister]

I don't agree - the average human whose time is actually worth money shouldn't have to wonder whether or not the article summary is worth reading.

You learn this sort of stuff in a writing course - the average person doesn't give effort to a reading that is confusing or doesn't seem interesting. Why should he waste his time figuring out if is?

Have we gotten to the point where not being interested in a jargon-filled headline and summary on slashdot is "pathetic"? If so, then I agree....pathetic.

Re:Stop with the acronyms!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Reader's Digest. I think it aims for your comprehension level.

hmm... architectural plans, Oklahoma city,...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, are architectural plans publically available? hmm... Would it have helped Mr. McVey (sp?) to have consulted with an engineer to find the optimal place to park? If there is a chemical or nuclear plant in the area of concern, those pesky terrorists might find it useful to be able to pick the best part to aim at... free aerial recon... OTOH,

I really do want to know whose grass is greener.

It would be really useful if there were appropriate markup in disagreements about who that tree that fell on Jones' Mercedes belongs to. Without having to call in a surveyor.

Pizza Hut could find their locations easier with a free as in beer navigation aids.

if the photos are frequent enough, say someone puts up surveillance information for a city, I'd like to keep tags on that ex-wife I beat up and went to prison for...

order something from a web site, the web site looks up the address, hmm... ratty part of town, small sq. footage area, looks risky. Reject the order. on the other hand UPS could probably easily already provide that service to a shipper. It's would be a an adjustment to their charge calculator to add some sort of "non-payment risk metric", coupled with the credit rating...

information wants to be free. That isn't a battlecry but it is an observation. It cuts both ways. Folks don't want the government and corporations to hide anything. Well, if they cannot hide anything, chances are that individuals will have a mighty tough time as well. Information is already cheap enough that it is available to any large organisation that has sufficient reason to obtain it, having it not free just removes it from access to the public at large, and fringe/criminal groups who aren't sufficiently organized. hmm... tough call...

What does he want to do with this data?

[arb]

From my reading of the article, he wants to use them for commercial reasons. He has asked for an entire copy of the GIS data and aerial photographical maps. That's a lot of data which would be expensive for anyone to generate. Has he offered to purchase the information, or is he expecting to kick start his business with free information paid for by the city?

Surely if he had a legitimate business idea, he would be willing to pay other data providers for the information he wants. There are several mapping, GIS and photographical companies that would no doubt love to supply him with the data he requires at a reasonable cost.

If this was a software company trying to use GPL'd software to build up a closed source business, people here would be up in arms.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

free information paid for by the city?

You act like the city magically produces money everytime it farts. You are aware that this mans and many others tax dollars went to PAY for these maps & pictures?? He is well within his rights to use public domain information to start a business.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's irrelevant. The point is that its information that should be available to the publc, be they private sector or civilian.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[samael]

The City _is_ the people. If the city has made something then it should be freely available to all of its citizens - they paid for it.

And if people want to use GPL software to help run their close-source business, then that's great - so long as they release any changes along with the binary.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[GPSguy]

Trying to add a little bit of sanity to this line...

Producing the data are expensive. Often, as well, the aerial imagery companies will retain ownership of the images (often not photos anymore) or ramp the costs of the service and imagery 'way up beyond what the city or state can afford. There's historical precedent to this, back when most of us didn't care or want those data...

He's asking for the whole database. Likely, if it's a reasonably designed GIS database, there's data of a tax/ownership nature that shouldn't be released electronically... if at all. There are some things about my taxes I don't see a reason for you to know, and if they're included therein (and they might be in a "reasonable" but not necessarily in a "good" design) then request was out of line.

In Texas, all GIS data derived with public funds but not restricted by contractual obligations are released as public data, or available from the various agencies upon request. (http://www.tnris.state.tx.us/)

This may change with restrictions and recommendations from the Feds bout reducing access to critical infrastructure data. For a variety of reasons, I can go either way on this. although I'm currently the "data wants to be free" guy in that duscussion.

That said, some of the GIS data we have in Texas on critial infrastructure and critical industries DOES come pretty close to qualifying for "due diligence" on the part of a terrorist. They'd get all the needed to mine the bridge, or do maximum damage to the chemical plant. Should we make it easy?

Finally, on the costs associated with requesting "free" data from state agencies: I've seen the numbers and have gotten the patient explanations on why they're so high. Let's say a CD-RW disk is $.25. Then you have to have a GIS analyst retrieve the data and place it in the burn directory. If it were something like, "Send me the whole database" this is relatively easy. Then you have to have someone burn the CD. Or CDs. The agency, at least in Texas, is required by State law to recover costs using a formula that incorporates the direct and indirect costs of the individuals doing the work, on a per-hour basis, shipping, and a depreciation allowance for the equipment, again prorated. A little bit here, a little bit there, eventually the CD costs $75, which was what TNRIS charged last time I went there rather than downloading the data directly...

There will be a quiz next hour.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Caius_Julius]

"Has he offered to purchase the information, or is he expecting to kick start his business with free information paid for by the city?"

He sounds like a scammer that has decided a court case to force the info out of the town is cheaper than paying for it tile by tile. If the town has refused to sell him the data at the price the do to everyone else then they are way out of line.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[max born]

Has he offered to purchase the information, or is he expecting to kick start his business with free information paid for by the city?

This doesn't seem to be about payment. Read the article again. The town has claimed that the materials' release presented an immediate danger to the community.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[arb]

True, to a point. Has he offered to pay a fair price for the data? My guess is no, and the town is using whatever justification it can to deny the request.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[diaz]

I work for a county that gets lots of requests like this. The county spends a lot of tax dollars to hire consultants to do the flights and correct the data.

We make the photos available on the web via a GIS application, so anyone can use it for casual purposes.

Usually when we get a request for the entire collection of photos, it is from a commercial outfit. They are usually NOT located within the county, so they haven't paid any tax dollars directly to the county. If we give this data out, it is a HUGE cost savings to the commercial outfit that would normally have to pay to have a flight done.

Wouldn't you want your local unit of government to help keep taxes down by raising additional revenues by selling this data?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[arb]

Wouldn't you want your local unit of government to help keep taxes down by raising additional revenues by selling this data?

Having worked for local government (in the planning and development areas, so I do know about this issue) I agree wholeheartedly with you. We had numerous people coming in requesting complete databases containing all sorts of information which they intended to use for commercial purposes. We had no problems with individuals seeking a reasonable amount of data for legitimate purposes, but the commercial operators were just trying to save a butt-load of money.

The town/county/state is not the only source of this information - if you really want to get hold of GIS data and imagery, you can quite easily locate providers of this information.

There was a big push several years ago to move to "user pays" systems around here - in this case I would definitely agree with such an initiative. Why shouldn't a person hoping to profit from this data pay the relevant costs associated with the collection and maintenance? Why should my tax dollars prop up someone else's business?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[AstroDrabb]

And if people want to use GPL software to help run their close-source business, then that's great - so long as they release any changes along with the binary.

Any company can take any GPLed code and use it internally for their business processes. Then can tweak the code all they want and never give away one line of code as long as the code is used internally. However, if that company tries to distribute a binary outside of their company, then yes, they would have to release the source code. The company is an end user just like anyone else. I can take a GPLed app like GAIM and change it and never release those changes as long as I keep it internally and not try to distribute a binary.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[cavac]

Even if they have to release the information to the public, aren't they still the copyright-holders?

A "for-noncommercial-use-only" tag should do the trick, maybe with the option for a commercial license?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[base3]

there's data of a tax/ownership nature that shouldn't be released electronically... if at all.

I don't know about Greenwich, but in my jurisdiction, property tax and ownership data are public record (and are available for online lookup, as public records should be). What is your argument for non-disclosure of real estate ownership records? Whatever it is, I bet the public interest trumps it.

The major point in the problem described in this thread, though, is that Greenwich knowingly created a public record, and now wants to refuse to disclose it. They sould like they're saying "Oh, we knew it was public record, but it was only public to people in the know. We wouldn't actually want the public to have unfettered access to the data."

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[base3]

Government created data can't be copyrighted. Of course, there's a huge loophole--the Federal government, for example, can hold copyright if the copyright is "donated." Of course, the government pays a contractor to create a big database, then asks the contractor to "donate" the database to the government. Not as bad as the UK, though, where the laws are subject to "Crown Copyright."

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[budgenator]

This may change with restrictions and recommendations from the Feds bout reducing access to critical infrastructure data.
A worrisome aspect of that is the fact that the info missing is often as revealing as the info present.

If I were of neferious purpose, I'd be more conserned with the "black-areas" than the illuminated. In my area, there are places where an attack one an infrasturcter facility could stop the water going to millions of people or power going to an area the size of the last blackout.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Have Blue]

So now everyone in the city is compelled to invest in this guy's new venture?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[samael]

No. I can't see how you got to that.

The city has, for whatever reason, obtained some information. They can either keep that information secret from the people who have _already_ paid for it. Or they can _share_ that information with _anyone_ who wants it.

Which one makes everyone richer?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for a state lottery. As most businesses with recurring customers are wont to do, the lottery wanted to keep a database of all their players so they could send them coupons and junk in the mail. Although such a database is very straightforward, the threat of a FOI request forced some creative thinking. The last thing the lottery wanted was to be forced to disclose a list of all their players (for example, to a neighboring casino).

Consequently, they added a rider to the contract with their ad agency that the agency has to provide this exclusively to the lottery. The ad agency (with lottery members on the review panel) then contracted with a database vendor in an exclusive dealing.

So the end result, the lottery can say, "we don't own this data, our ad agency does." The ad agency is bound by contract from disclosing any of it to anyone other than the lottery.

The problem in Greenwich is probably that no one thought about FOI when they went about building their GIS system. That's just poor public administration, and now they're trying to cover themselves. I haven't read too much detail on it, but they probably then botched their excuse for denying FOI and got themselves into this mess.

You're going to see a lot more of this in the near future, as mining government data can be a quick way to ramp up a new business. And for my part, I have no problem with my tax dollars funding something the goverment finds useful (having accurate maps), nor do I have a problem with anyone being able to request the raw data (census TIGER info, for example). Having that data available helps everyone. There wouldn't be mapquest/mapblast, handheld GPS receivers with street maps, in-dash navigation systems without the initial seed from government data.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[shutdown -p now]

Why should my tax dollars prop up someone else's business?

Why not, if they are already used to pay for someone else's benefits?

Besides, the point is that data should be open to anyone. So you should feel free to try and prop up your business that way. Or start one if you haven't one yet. You don't want to? fine. But that's not reason good enough to cry out loud for stopping others.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[shutdown -p now]

You're always free to start your own, and enjoy the same advantages. Sounds fair to me. If you don't want to, who's to blame?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Trailer Trash]

Has he offered to purchase the information, or is he expecting to kick start his business with free information paid for by the city?

It's implicit that he'll pay for it. When you do an FOIA request, you do have to pay reasonable fees for the duplication of the information. Otherwise, people would abuse the system.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[theLOUDroom]

So now everyone in the city is compelled to invest in this guy's new venture?

Everyone in the city has ALREADY paid for the photographs.

As part of the FOIA request, he has to pay any costs involved with duplication.

The cost, to taxpayers, of this man's request is ZERO.

The only legitimate issue that is raised here is one of privacy.
On that topic the gov't is in a sticky place.
If they try to claim that giving him these pictures will violate other citizen's privacy rights, then they are admitting that THEY are reducing the privacy of private citizens.

Personally, I think these images should be released ASAP. I think the privacy issue is pretty much nil.
There aren't any laws against this guy getting his own plane and duplicating these photographs, so how can one reasonably claim that he should not be able to have them?

If people don't like it, they should pass a law banning arial photography of another's property without consent. Personally I would support such a law (with exceptions) because I believe that if your house is surrounded by ten acres of woods, you should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If you decide to sunbathe nude, there shouldn't be any way for that image to legally end up of the freakin internet.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Idarubicin]

The city has, for whatever reason, obtained some information. They can either keep that information secret from the people who have _already_ paid for it. Or they can _share_ that information with _anyone_ who wants it.

You forgot an option:

Or the City can sell the information to the private company that wants to use it to make money.

The City then recovers some of the cost of acquiring the images, which means that all of us who contributed to that cost aren't just subsidizing one guy's business idea. Wouldn't it be neat if the City's aerial imagery program were revenue neutral, so that it doesn't have to come out of our taxes at all?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh, we knew it was public record, but it was only public to people in the know. We wouldn't actually want the public to have unfettered access to the data."

There's a difference between access and unfettered access. Here in Seattle, we can access all King County parcel and tax records, etc. online through the king county imap server thing. It's great. One parcel at a time.

But if you want the whole parcel dataset in gis format, you have to 1) pay and 2) sign a disclaimer saying you won't do a variety of things with it (eg query it to telemarket everyone with a certain tax record in a certain area, or whatever).

There are some really powerful things you can do with gis and a complete parcel dateset linked to tax records, zoning, etc. And sometimes its nice to do these things. And some things are not nice to have people do. It may be in the best interests of the city [the people] NOT to have annoying folks with all their data in a complete and open electronic database.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[samael]

I'm not sure that cities should generally be in the business of selling services. Capitalism and serving the public good sometimes contradict each other and I wouldn't want the city to have to be falling on the wrong side of the line.

Still, it's not a bad idea, provided it was properly controlled.

But would you be happy with other bits of information being sold under the Freedom Of Information act? Or would you rather that they were actually _free_ as the act states?

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other reply is correct. In all counties I'm aware of, property ownership and tax information (when the last time property taxes were paid, by whom, and for which property) are all publically available, many times online. Check google for your county's GIS system, you'll probably find it without any trouble. If not, you'll have to go down to the courthouse, but nobody's going to stop you from finding out who owns what property.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted the data, I'd just write a script to hammer the server. One parcel at a time. Then I'd still have the complete dataset to do with as I would, and would have agreed to nothing at all.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Anonymous Coward]

FOIA requests are only subject to duplication fees - this guy will be avoiding the cost of the data. He should be made to pay a reasonable amount to cover the cost of producing and maintaining this data, not just the cost of a few blank CDs/DVDs.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Its really the same arguement. Is it public data? Then the *public* gets access to it. To suggest that citizens of the county are more "public" than their neighbors in an ajoining county is misleading. To suggest that *public* data be a source of revenue enhancement is distrubingly wrong. All you've done is shift slightly those people who would benifit from the theft of *public* data.

Your arguement seems to suggest that the people who pay for the data collection should own it. If they were private people, then yes. But they weren't. We have laws that distinguish between public and private works. Its not like we want a market economy governing our government.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Well then, why not make the GIS available online? Charge for bandwidth. But they should only charge for the cost of access costs. To try to recoup the cost of building or maintaining the *public* data set would be wrong.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Isn't what he wants to do with *public* data not relevant? Public data is public data.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[Trailer Trash]

So what? It's not like they wouldn't have put together the database had he not asked for it.

Re:What does he want to do with this data?

[winwar]

With all due respect, your comment sounds closer to: "Go away, you are bothering us, don't you see we have work to do" than a reasonable statement. In Ohio, at least at the agency I interned for, one of the primary purposes of the agency was answering "public requests". Fundamentally, that is what government is FOR.

Sure, it can be a PITA. But we didn't have to do it immediately (unless they were asking a question in the office). And if the request was large, we could take some time. If we didn't have the data, we didn't have to do it. But I personally spent DAYS creating NEW maps for use by PRIVATE BUSINESSES using GIS that were given away FREE. That was our JOB. Granted, there were a couple of inches of disclaimers on the maps :)

This is not to say that there wasn't a concern about giving data away free (funding has to come from some source) but we could charge duplication fees/

Froggy Style

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Not to be confused with Doggy Style, yet very similiar. So you are basically admitting to what you are trying to deny. :)

Similiar to getting court documents

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Now the state I live in provides access to court documents as they are made available (usually several hours after the decision). Our court, and supporting systems is of course paid for by our tax dollars. However, if you want a copy of the documents, you have to pay about $0.50 US a page. Given the size of some cases, thats huge.

as the above poster mentioned, why couldn't they give me a copy on CD - charge me $1.00 for the CD and send me on my way? It's because they are sneaking in a hidden tax (what else would it be when the government charges for the same service twice)

It is reasonable to me that I pay for the small amount of time it takes a government employee to make a copy, but in these days of auto feeding copy machines and CD's - the prices they charge are way out of line.

I say it again: HIDDEN TAX

What makes it worse is that you search for the court cases on OLD outdated IBM PS/2's running some form of outdated software that can barely do a two word search and return ANY results. Most of the time you have to have the EXACT spelling of the name to get results.

Re:Maps want to be free! Eh? GPL GIS!

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

Sure, each city goes out and buys ArcView or whatever, and they have a heck of a time doing anything cheaply with it, but check out:

http://www.atlas.gc.ca

This is built on Chameleon, a GPL frontend for the GPL UMN mapserver whose development were partially funded by Canadian and American governments, respectively, for purely selfish reasons (reducing the costs of producing GIS servers, and being able to provide more information to more groups more cheaply.)

Re:Maps want to be free! Cdn concern with US$ exch

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

uh... perhaps because

86% of Canadian foreign trade is with the US , so everybody in Canada notices
the differences in that particular exchange rate.

No... Think About the Celebs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Key quote:

argued that the unfettered release of detailed information ... and celebrities' homes in electronic form could lead to breaches in security and privacy.

Yep. Wonder who might be behind this. It was done with public funds and it should be public. Are we going to stand up to terrorism or are we going to hide away an hope the big bad osma won't try to hurt us again. Everytime we cave on something like this, it is a victory for terrorism (and the celebs that are using it to their advantage).

Re:Maps want to be free! Cdn concern with US$ exch

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Yeah but thats no reason to be depressed about it. In fact in many ways its a good thing, and helps your exports to undercut US native industries, for a net economic gain. Calling it "lame" and so on is a bit silly.

Beware of the Leopard

[hendrix69]

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine month."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

You sure about that logic? some other data collection paid for by public money:

• Social insurance databases
• Driver's license db's
• all police investigations, regardless of whether charges are laid.
• medicare payment treatment and payment records
• nuclear missile plans.
• the approved architectural plans for that nice, bombable Hoover Dam.
• tax records of all sorts
• how the governement recognises you, as opposed to someone pretending to be you, and gives you access to your own information...
• military supply orders and troop movements.

  Basing the argument on the government having paid for the collection is a iffy at best. The basis should rather be based on maximizing the public good,which is, in the general case, harder to figure out. One has to weigh: privacy concerns vs. defence (against Terrorists domestic and foreign) vs. public benefit. The answer will come out different depending on what the data is, what technology is in place/reasonable, and how much the organisation is willing to spend to make the information public. How soon to make it public is also going to have a big effect on how much it costs. folks on the internet want information upto the second.

  You have a chemical spill in Seattle. You have a real-time information system for exchange among first responders who are doing their work. It hits the news and their site gets slashdotted. It's a dynamically built site, so caching by google is of no use whatever. The firemen and coast guard can no longer get information from aerial reconnaisance being done by a Canadian survey plane that happenned to be available. So they don't know where in the harbour the spill has gotten to.

  Wall it off? OK, you need a separate network accessible by city, province, state, and many branches of two national governments, as well transportation (railways, airlines) in the area, and any specialized contractors that might be called in. And it has to be setup ahead of time, and managed and funded so that it is up when a crisis happens.

  What is the cost of making that site public? Does the public need to know where there is a chemical spill? Of course they do! Should they get same information the government does on their first responder systems? Would be nice, but if the architecture/technology in place cannot answering that sort of demand, what do you do? Most people would accept as reasonable that you have a first responder system that is only available to a few, then have other systems which are used for public dissemination (aka. press conferences, other web sites, etc...)

All the richies probably scared...

[FatSean]

..those would likely be some killer treasure maps for theives with the means...

Re:All the richies probably scared...

[base3]

Their real-estate records already provide whose living where. Someone just has to know they can go to the country seat/town hall/city hall and look at them. And they're already in databases like Lexis/Nexis--so currently, would-be database-driven thieves have to make an investment in either time or money.

Rich people aren't entitled to any more privacy regarding real estate and tax records than the rest of us. They already use tricks like buying through shell companies or nominees to keep their names out of the public record. Those tricks aren't available to those of us whose banks don't need our business badly enough to concede to allow them on the contracts.

Re:All the richies probably scared...

[diaz]

In the county I work for, we make all of the property data available on the web unless someone specifically opts out. This is usually done by law enforcement officials for privacy concerns.

HOWEVER, this information is still public, so if someone comes to the county admin building they can have it. The assumption is that if someone is pissed off, they might go to the web and get the information and then go to a cop's house. But if they actually have to drive down to the county building, they might cool off (or be scared off) and not do anything.

Re:All the richies probably scared...

[acceleriter]

This is fair, so long as any citizen can opt out (and the option is publicized) and not just the privileged like cops.

there have to be limits on release of data

[Anonymous Coward]

Launch codes for missles are also 'public records'.
Will a judge now release this information as well as all the manuals on building and luanching ICBM's?

Clearly not.

Or maybe not so clearly not.

Now we see why it is important to limit the amount of data that can be kept on us. Now we see why data that the 'government' collects on us should be owned by us. Obviously not all of the data.

Re:there have to be limits on release of data

[base3]

Classified information, while not only not "public record," as the term is commonly used, is specifically exempted from the Freedom of Information Act and state sunshine laws.

GIS companies also get their data from government

[Anonymous Coward]

And most likely the 'GIS' companies got all of their data from the government in the first place.

What business is it of yours what he wants to do?
He probably has a patented business model and will sue the pants off of anyone who discusses it on-line.
Unless you live in a nudest colony then don't ask this question!

Re:Maps want to be free! Cdn concern with US$ exch

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

ok... well two years ago, it was worth 66 cents,
now we are at around 75 US cents. so it has gone up about 18%. thirty years ago, as any beer drinking Canadian (closest analogy to "red-blooded American" I could think of :-) will tell you, the Canadian dollar was as high as $1.10 US. so the national lament goes... personally, it's a load of bull.

as for making goods cheaper... hmm... if they are natural resources, those are all costed in US$ anyways, makes no difference. if it manufactured goods, then most foreign components are going to be purchased in US$. so won't make much difference
either.

xchange rates are just trade friction. when rates change, prices slowly adjust to reflect the new cost structure. There is not really a long term benefit. the argument would make sense if high value items were manufactured directly from Canadian natural resources. I don't think that is too common a case.

my guess is that costs in Canada are lower because
there is a public health care system, which controls costs better than the american system, and many other sorts of organizations, like workman's compensation which reduce liabilities, so that insurance costs are lower across the board. The un-employment insurance programs reduce social diparity and unrest, and make the country cheaper to police, again reducing costs. That corporations use the same programs to smooth over low-demand periods by having workers on those programs then, and available when demand picks up.
So they don't have to spend as much on hiring, since the skilled people remain in the industry through the dips. Again, this reduces costs for industry.

Re:GIS companies also get their data from governme

[arb]

The "GIS" companies who you presume "got all of their data from the government in the first place" would have paid a considerable sum for the use of that data and the rights to on-sell the data. Chances are though, the government purchased their original GIS data from a third party source. Not many local governments have the resources to create their GIS dataset from scratch...

What business is it of yours what he wants to do?

Well Mr Troll, if my tax dollars have been spent maintaining this data, I do not want some cheap-assed wannabe businessman ripping me off by getting free access to this data just so he can charge me for whatever "patented business model" he has in mind.

Unless you live in a nudest colony then don't ask this question!

Oh Mr Troll, what a funny man you are! ;-)

Re:GIS companies also get their data from governme

[jumpingfred]

You would still have free access to the government data no matter what pattened buisness modle this guy has so what is the problem?

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[Qzukk]

Would be nice, but if the architecture/technology in place cannot answering that sort of demand, what do you do?

You do realize that if the capacity was required, it would be put in place? It's not like people haven't figured out how to deal with /., I'm sure they can cope with a couple of hundred thousand panicking people wanting to know if their children are going to be all right.

Heck, they could just require registration, that seems to stop most slashdotters dead in their tracks.

Proper incident reporting is needed because by the time the press conference comes around, the spill has been spun so fast by everyone involved (especially the spiller) that it will have separated itself from the water in its own centrifuge. That benzene spill will become a "serious, but contained incident which will not cause noticable impact to the environment (nobody will notice the tumors on the fish)."

crap

[celeritas_2]

trying to keep yourself secure with secrets won't help you any, it will just make you think you're secure when really you're more vunerable because of your arrogance

GIS request

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for the IT department in one of the larger counties in Florida. A division of our department maintains the backend and file storage/access to the GIS mosaic aerials and street/address database (im talking terrabytes of info on a dedicated SAN). The actual street/address database is UPDATED by a different department, the real estate dept. That is neither here nor there. At any rate, the real estate department SELLS this info to the public at various sites, and even on the internet. In Florida we have what is called the sunshine law which basically makes ALL data, correspondances, etc. of county (city, county and state) agencies public record. Even email, memo's and all network data (except HIPAA-related, criminal/police/sherrif/childrens svc/fire info) public record. I could theoretically see a private citizen requesting copies of these aerials and other GIS data, and then selling them at his business or through some other private means, and making a profit at the expense of the county (or whatever agency). This is CLEARLY not the intent of the law. I do not have any problems with FOI act or the sunshine law, but people using this info to PROFIT should not be allowed. I also think citing security / terrorist concerns is just a weak excuse and complete BS. But clearly (and I think this is the issue) this guy is trying to make a quick buck off of his county's GIS department, and that is nonsense...

Re:GIS request

[shalla]

I could theoretically see a private citizen requesting copies of these aerials and other GIS data, and then selling them at his business or through some other private means, and making a profit at the expense of the county (or whatever agency).

And I could clearly see the individual who does that getting his ass sued for copyright infringement. Getting access to something does not mean you can rip it off and use someone else's work for a derivative work. Information can be made available for public use without making it available for commercial use.

There are two issues here:

1. Is there a legal basis to deny the Freedom of Information request? I'd guess no, since as far as I can tell, this does not meet any of the exceptions listed in the Freedom of Information Act. (blah blah IANAL blah blah.)

2. If this information is made public, will it be carelessly used for commercial purposes? Unless the photographers or government members are idiots (and I'm not saying they are or aren't--I don't know), the photos should still be under copyright, and facts (such as who owns what real estate) are definitely in the public realm. So the recipient couldn't use the photos commercially, but the facts aren't copyrightable. The database as a whole, however, probably is. So, the recipient of the information couldn't sell the database itself--he/she'd have to use raw data and create his/her own database for it to be legal to sell it. By the time they've taken public facts and created a system to access them that adds enough value that someone wants to BUY it, then yes, they should be allowed to profit from it.

A partially censored release...

[RomSteady]

I work for Layton City in Utah, and we are preparing to release an interactive GIS database viewer client sometime in the next month.

The hardest part has been determining what data should be available to the public. Release of some of the data is controlled under a Utah state law called GRAMA, which stands for the Government Records Access and Management Act. It tells us what information about our citizens we are able to release, and why. Property ownership information, detailed floorplans, etc., could all be considered protected under GRAMA if read correctly.

To start with, we're going to be releasing a limited version of our "center line" file. The "center line" file is essentially a file of imaginary lines running down the center of a map. That file has addressing information, so we can use it for address location and pathfinding, but the full version of the file also includes police patrol areas, emergency response information, and lots of other easily abused information as associated metadata with each polyline.

One other issue here is space. Layton is a relatively small town, bound to the north and south by cities, to the east by a mountain, and to the west by the Great Salt Lake and another city. Even with that, our full GIS database (if exported to shape files) is several hundred gigabytes.

Re:A partially censored release...

[Whyte]

I just want to echo a little bit of what you said. We as citizens have in part a vested interesting in both public access to governmental GIS data AND public censorship of governmental GIS data.

As most people pointed out, detailed maps and aerial photography are widely available right now. Getting access to the governments aerial photographs isn't, or shouldn't, be the issue.

The issue is the release of the actual data that is overlaid onto these maps. Because this data is what creates the spatial relationships, both physical and temporal, that makes GIS actually useful. Mainly in identifying systemic instances of disorder in a community and ultimately in producing efficient government policy to deal with it.

A part of this data is and should be made available to the public. Many governments, such as my hometown of Wichita, do indeed make a subset of this data available to the public through an interactive website.

However, there is also quite a bit of data that you don't want out in the public for privacy and other legal reasons.

Right now, a police officer investigating a sexual assault case can use a GIS system to instantly identify, which if any, registered sexual offenders are living or working near the scene of the crime. This is because their GIS system is linked to the states sexual offender database (and also assuming that database is updated continuously and correctly). We would probably all agree that this is for the good of the community.

Now imagine that this same GIS system is linked to your local DMV. Now imagine that all of this DMV information is now available to the public through a GIS website. Now imagine a sexual predator using the same search of the neighborhood to identify all addresses that include a female with a learner's permit (i.e. likely young girls ages 16-18 yrs old). We would probably all agree that this would be bad for a community.

The example is fallacious, but as an example of what is possible, hopefully it will get your imagination working. The capacity for abuse is virtually unlimited if the wrong individuals have access to the wrong types of information.

The government already has a lot of information about you and me. I personally don't want all the personal data they have about me published for the public to see. To be honest, I want as little of that information as possible known to anyone.

Re:A partially censored release...

[winwar]

"The capacity for abuse is virtually unlimited if the wrong individuals have access to the wrong types of information."

Ah, yes. But that is the whole point of the argument, now isn't it? Of course, I also think it is kind of like asking you when you stopped beating your wife-it is a loaded question. If the information is private or truly safety related, I can understand not releasing it.

I would rather too much information be released than too little because people with ill intent will already have access to the information. All too often government claims releasing information will cause harm merely to prevent release of information-as in this case.

"The government already has a lot of information about you and me. I personally dont want all the personal data they have about me published for the public to see. To be honest, I want as little of that information as possible known to anyone."

Unfortunately, it's a bit late. I would like to know what info they have about me. Private companies probably have far more information about me than the government (and can collect more-why do you think many databases are run by private companies FOR the government?).

Re:A partially censored release...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should look through the other responses here, someone said they work in a gov't office and will put the whole GIS database on DVD if you bring in the DVD for free - or charge you $1 if they supply the DVD.

No censoring or wringing of hands over what to "allow" the unwashed masses to see -

This is what people are talking about wrt corporations having more rights than citizens - if the utility company or a cable company or a large ISP or a road construction company wanted the data they would probably get it no problem - whether they were going to use for trying to make money or not and whether they really have a legit use in mind or not. But Joe Schmo who might want to start a new Wireless ISP (but not tip off the blabbermouths in city gov't who are chummy with the monopoly utility/ISP/cable guys who come in everyday), he gets treated like a terrorist because he doesn't want to say what it is for.

security through obscurity

[Doc Ruby]

The NYC government has a huge capacity fiber loop it gets from the telcos licensed to do biz in the City. Not even the government committee that oversees the department which operates the loop can get a map of the loop for planning, because of "security" concerns. That's working so well, that we're shredding all the subway maps, and covering their entrances with concrete.

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

Completely agree that people need to know, and that the information has to get out there, and that it has to get out there ASAP. The only question is, how soon is ASAP, and how much are you willing to pay to answer the requirement. "The shipment of nuclear warheads will be on I-95 mile 35 at 2:15 pm." Many people will want to be out of the area when that shipment goes past, given a choice. Others will might want to excercise their free speech rights to picket it, still others might elect to put a rocket through the truck cab, and walk off with the warheads.
Think of the security you need to put in place if you broadcast all such movements to everyone.
It is massively cheaper to simply not tell people what is being done until after it has occurred.

Free speech / free access to information is about being able to review government actions and hold it responsible. but we elect folks once every few years. That audit process is not a real-time one, and has to be based on a balance of facts.

"required" in practice doesn't mean much. "funded" means a lot more. and keep in mind that this type of tech is fairly new. If you just throw money at it, you can easily end up with a billion dollar "solution" that everyone will be pleased to finger as "your tax dollars at work."
Risk exists in all projects. If it happens in private enterprise, the company goes under or writes off a loss. In the government, it is a scandal. Putting a big solution in place, without building from previous experience, is asking for trouble. These answers are hard, and take time.
so the government is going to move slowly where there is such a perceived risk.

An excellent example of GIS

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an excellent example of placing all GIS data online for an entire metropolitan area. It includes photographs, assessor data, zoning -- everything you could want.

It's very easy to use. I just click on the "Cross Streets" button, enter "Highland" and "Coronado", and I can see my neighborhood from the air. Click on a property, and I can see what they paid for their house. Neato.

money for nothing

[Doc Ruby]

Who's going to bomb Greenwich, CT? No one knows what it looks like on TV, so it can't be a terrorist target. But then, NY state is #35 of 50 states in the amount of money the Department of Fatherland Security hands out to protect us from terrorism.

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[reboot246]

My main thought was that this is like closing the barn door after the horses have got out.

Some of those you listed are already available to some organizations and/or businesses. For example, a private investigator can easily get his hands on your personal information. Any business doing background checks on employees can also get it. Credit reporting agencies give out your info to anyone with the ability to do a credit check. The Social Security Administration is only a little better at protecting your info. The news media seem to have no trouble getting arrest reports and they're always getting "leaks" about ongoing investigations.

The ones dealing with national security, of course, shouldn't be made public. But with just the street maps, topo maps, and aerial photos already easily available (not to mention just driving around), a terrorist has pretty much all he needs to target vunerable spots. The news media tells the enemy all about troop movements and our nuclear secrets were sold or stolen long ago.

As a country, we're nearly wide open for most anything. I work in the natural gas business and I travel quite a bit within my own state. Gas regulator stations are unprotected, as are electric power substations; it only takes a little bit of damage to shut these down. Major bridges on our interstate system could be taken out with very little effort. We protect our government buildings, but our schools, malls, churches, and hospitals are sitting ducks for things like the truck bomb used in Oklahoma City. A handful of determined people with explosives could cripple this country.

My city has 1 foot aerials availalble online

[doormat]

http://www.accessclarkcounty.com/assessor/assessor .htm

The county also shares GIS data between utilities (water, sewer, gas, etc) but that data is considered confidential. Kinda easy to figure out why...

Franklin County Ohio GIS site

[vancera]

My local gov. makes a lot info available thru this site. Appraised value, purchase price, name of the mortgage company. No aerial picture, but often there is a picture from the street taken by the county appraiser.

Came in handy when I needed to determine what to ask for my house when it came time to sell.

Also a lot of fun to see what property your co-workers own. Turned out one of my fellow lowly grunts had a small rental empire he wasn't telling anyone about.

http://209.51.193.83/

It also kills me that this site has no name, just the ip address.

Reynolds wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Attorney General Ashcroft's October 12, 2001 memo...

In other news, Reynolds Manufacturing, makers of leading aluminum foil products, announced record earnings on strong sales associated with the 2004 U.S. political season.

"Our foil sales are unprecedented," said Reynolds CEO Tom Lansky. "Between the MoveOn.org crowd, the Democratic National Committee members, the Kerry campaign, and all the loose nuts out there wrapping their heads to keep out the imaginary Ashcroft evil mind rays, we can't keep foil products on the shelf."

Lansky indicated the company would be launching a cobranded promotion with a yet announced pharmacutical manufacturer in the final weeks of the political season. The planned promotion will include a sample sized trial package of lithium, and would be promoted by spokespersons Al Gore and Howard "Screaming" Dean.

"Sanity is a serious matter for the left, as all this paranoia and irrationality eats away at their grips on reality," said Lansky. "We're pleased that the lithium package promotion will help keep our customers from going too far over the edge, and in fact are looking at other anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and attention deficit drugs for further product tie-ins right after the election. Should Bush win as expected in all the poles, we're going to have a heck of a time keeping product on the shelves."

Re:Reynolds wrap

[abirdman]

It's spelled "polls" not "poles". Otherwise a nice piece of fiction.

some countries are more equal than others

[Anonymous Coward]

when it comes to images and data -- there are powerful political forces involved

for example -- why can you pay to have satellite images of any place in the world, except Israel? If you've ever wondered why people in the MiddleEast call us Israel's stooge...

public domain GIS data

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, homeland security is a concern. But we have a right to this information. The history of our country shows that development and economic progress were dependant on accurate maps. The USGS (US Geological Service) has always made topographic maps (topo sheets) available as public domain (well, they are like $7 a piece). This helped the country become more developed after the Louisiana purchase. In 1990, the Census bereau released the TIGER files, which are street level maps. It is with this pubic data that Mapquest and MS Streets were able to have a product to offer.

We have a right to capitalize on our research. We have a right to create jobs. Consider the western US without ever having maps available. How would it ever be explored, populated, developed, and become economically viable?

No problem

[figurewmeat]

Time to bring out those aerial photography kites we've all been working on.

Re:Um...if you want to go for age

[Ying Hu]

It's great the photos are there, but as an example, those for Houston, a major city, are greater than 7 years old - a lot of development and changes therefore are missing. It's probably the same for most of them.

Unless you live in calif

[nurb432]

There, you cant get anything more powerful then a bb gun...

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[Teancum]

I remember a story about old Soviet Russia where the KGB deliberatly messed up the maps of Moscow so "spies" wouldn't be able to get accurate information. This included everything from tourist maps to plaquards in the subway system. Everyday Moscovites would know where to go, and with the high level of security they couldn't simply wander around town too much anyway.

The ongoing joke in Moscow was that the best maps of the city were found in the American Embassy, which were commonly purchased by Taxi drivers.

I'd love some attribution to this story, and it seems unfortunate that the U.S. government is encouraging behavior more and more like the old Soviet government.

Its probably not about terrorism,

[Maudib]

But that doesnt mean its unreasonable for the town government to try to keep the database private. As many people have already noted, photos as good or better through commercial satelites are easily available. This implies to me that the town is protecting the data not because of the photos, but because it has a great deal of other information (property assesments, planned zoning).

Greenwich isnt your normal town. The residents are extraordinarily powerful and extremely intent on maintaining their privacy. If the town doesnt at least try to protect data, the release of which would piss off many residents, then the officials will definitely be held responsible in november.

This is the same town that went to the supreme court to defend the beaches against non-resident use.

Re:Its probably not about terrorism,

[Pfhor]

As a resident of Greenwich, I can say there are a lot of dicks in the area.

But the beach issue just pissed me off. As a resident, I pay taxes which go towards the maintenance of the beach. It keeps it clean, and its more than just a beach, its a bird sanctuary, and pretty much a park. I realize the classist issues that many people saw when they did not none residents going to the beach, but I always saw it as an environmental concern.

If the budget was not going to increase funding for the beach, but there were going to be more people going to it, how was it going to be kept clean? Well they have found a solution for it, that town residents get parking stickers and if you don't have one you have to pay like $20 to park there. I realize the town is a bunch of elitist pricks, but I was with them on that issue on the grounds of finding a sustainable solution for the beach.

Of course, i live in the cheap part of town, compared to the private estates in back country that have huge drive ways and elaborate fences.

This is also a town where the chief of police tried to shut down the highschool from having its flood lights on at night during the summer, so families could have picnics on the field, on the grounds that teenagers would use it as a location to have parties.

People have their heads so up their collective ass here its ridiculous.

Re:Its probably not about terrorism,

[Maudib]

Oh I was totally with the town on the beach issue too. Especially because if provided such great entertainment when the Daily Show Genine Gurafalo storm the beach with a bunch of homeless people from nyc. TV at its best.

I live near there, and it gets worse...

[nusratt]

Last week I called our town's Health Dep't. to ask to see records of permits for water-wells and septic-systems on 14 properties from the last 3 years.
At first they tried to brush me off by saying I needed to file an FOIA request.
In this case it wasn't security, merely civil-service laziness.

Simple cost issue

[hwestiii]

I worked for the municipal engineering department of the city that I live in a number of years ago and we had similar issues with our stock of aerial photographs of the city.

The issue never required adjudication, if I recall correctly, but the city engineer's stand at the time was that we didn't give full sets out simply because we'd paid for them, and giving them away for free to contractors or others was simply bad economics. If others wanted a complete set, then let them bear the cost themselves.

There have to be ways to address this without bringing security into it. Local and other governments may have an obligation to provide information they possess on an as needed basis, but this sounds like the guy is on a fishing expidition.

It seems to me that as long as the town provides the requestor with adequate access to the system in which in the information resides, they should be in the clear with respect to not providing him with a full copy that he can walk away with.

GIS publically available in some places

[kbahey]

Here in Canada, some places have GIS data available on the internet.

The Region of Waterloo Locator web site is one such example.

As someone who lives very nearby

[Lawrence_Bird]

(less than 10 miles is good enough for /. to know)

I suppose I have some interest in this case. For those who don't know, Greenwich also has quite a few major corporate headquarters besides the big houses you all expect. So I can understand some of the towns concerns. They aren't NYC with 40,000 police.

However, it is also true that most, if not all of this data is available via third parties if you are willing to pay. Apparently the database contains more than just images, information that might be a bit harder to get. Evenso, it is paid for by the local taxpayers and should be available.

I think a more sensible approach that gives some balance is that:

1) no release of public database info to non US residents
2) no release of local public database info to non city/county/state residents
3) no release of local public database info to corporations unless they have a legitimate office in that town or state.

Anybody not meeting those criteria is free to get the information for a price from 3rd parties. This way those who have paid for database in the first place (local tax payers) have access, but those of dubious stature must take an alternative route.

ummm

[temojen]

Maybe you're a farmer interested in buying a new plot. You'd like to know that it will have a good exposure, no major shadows, not be near any major pollution sources, and not be on the proposed route of a new highway.

Sure you could check each house labourously, or you could do the whole city at once with a good GIS, then concentrate on the areas known to be good.

But the city wouldn't know you were honest.

Re:ummm

[caldfyr]

You're a farmer looking for a plot, and you're looking in the city...

Let me help you with your example, since the idea was in the right place. Say you're a prospective homebuyer looking for that new info. Simply ask. If they don't give you the info, then ask why. They will probably say that they give specific information to prospective property buyers when given proof they are buying. So go to your favorite financial institution and get pre-approved for a property loan. Simple as said.

People like to blow things out of proportion, especially when they perceive a barrier. Don't try to make a picket fence out to be a 20 foot concrete wall.

what ever happened to "everything in moderation", or the "happy medium"? Too much of anything is bad. An entirely open society has evils just as bad as a society of secrets.

Re:ummm

[afidel]

Why should I have to fulfill some idiot proof barrier to satisfy some low level beurocrat? Unless the information is sensitive in nature then it should be free by default. For instance while house shopping I used several counties GIS databases to check out various homes that were advertised. If the home was in a flood plain I automatically scratched it off my list. This searching took me a matter of minutes per home, if I had to submit a request for the info including some "proof" that I wasn't doing anything nefarious to each communities engineering office it would have literally taken hours and hours of my time. The spirit of the FOIA is that all government records which are not sensitive are open by default, this is very good public policy. Another good example is public servant salaries, the Ohio society of journalists did a survey earlier this year where they asked for the salary of the superintendant of schools for every community in the state, less than 50% of requests were fullfilled in a timely manner and more than 20% were illegally denied. What if you were a researcher trying to pull various factors like executive salery together to figure out how to improve school performance, why should there be barriers to you obtaining that information?

Re:ummm

[caldfyr]

You're doing some assuming by suggesting that it was a low level bureaucrat making the decision. The article mentioned that a high level law enforcement agency sent out a memo to be watchful. If they didn't comply with advice, who do you think would be getting drilled by the next senate commission?

"Unless the information is sensitive in nature then it should be free by default"

Evidently, somebody decided it was sensitive. It doesn't make it impossible to get around. You're assuming again that it would take hours and hours of your time. Who is to say that you can't do a blanket request. Or maybe you won't even be required to fill out request paperwork. It seems to me that FOI requests are mostly for items that people are not yet "sanitized" for public consumption or for items that agencies would have to take the time to peruse files just to find; if it isn't worth your time to fill out a request, it isn't worth some "low level bureaucrat's" time to search for the information.

Like I said, a little bit of hassle won't kill you, and it's for your own protection. Flood plain? Any dams or resevoirs nearby? Can you not understand why law enforcement might not want this information tossed around indiscriminately?

"Ohio society of journalists did a survey earlier this year where they asked for the salary of the superintendant of schools for every community in the state, less than 50% of requests were fullfilled in a timely manner and more than 20% were illegally denied"

They did a survey, or they properly asked the department of education for information? There is a difference. Define a timely manner. Was the time taken untimely by the journalists' standards or by the law's? 20% were illegally denied by whom? Did the administrators deny the requests, or were they denied by secretaries who don't know any better?

Why are you so willing to scrap a system just because of a couple of kinks? Either have patience, or encourage your legislature to fix it.

Re:ummm

[afidel]

Why are you so willing to scrap a system just because of a couple of kinks? Either have patience, or encourage your legislature to fix it.

Uh, my legislature DID fix it by passing the FOIA. The purpose of the law was specifically to stop petty beurocrat's from hoarding their little corner of information. Cogress correctly figured that a more transparant government is a more responsive and efficient government.

TERRORISM!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on.

Now it's "terrorists mining the bridge". 20 years ago it was "communists sending the nuke". 20 years from now it'll be someone else doing something else.

And all the while you people live in fear, the fear keeps you in control, the fear stops you from asking questions. The government protects you from the enemy you fear, the enemy they created. Never mind being able to talk to anyone, never mind being followed by the secret police like in DDR, as long as those pesky TERRORISTS won't do harm.

9/11, the strike which was scripted like a bad Hollywood action movie, happened because it was allowed to happen. It was a convenient excuse to go for Iraq, the plans of invading which were already drawn when Bush became the president. The reason for going to Iraq was not some noble quest to free an enslaved country, or to gain revenge from 9/11. One of the reasons was to oust Saddam Hussein out. But that was just an effect of the cause. The real reason, the cause, was oil, or rather the lack of it. Saddam couldn't sell enough due to the embargo. He would not let go of power. Oil would not flow.

Oil is running out, and the Bush and co knew this. So you need either to cut down on the usage, or get new sources of oil. Cutting down on the usage is unacceptable, as this would mean lost profits for powerful oil giants who have close ties to the US government. USA would fall if the price of oil would start rising through the roof due to scarcity. The nation which relies on cars to drive even the shortest distances would cease to move. People would be on the streets demanding more oil.

Iraq bought just a little more extra time with its vast oil reserves. After some time, those will be finished as well.

The only person who really cares about those targets in the mapping services is you yourself, since you were taught to think like a terrorist and live in fear, always expecting the worst, always seeking protection. And you seek this protection and sheltering from the very ones who actually taught you to fear the invisible threat.

Photos? Plural?

[dopefish3]

Being a CT native, alot of towns here can be photographed in one fell swoop. ;P

There are four boxes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Use in that order." -- Ed Howdershelt

in virginia, we just rewrite FOIA to exempt gis

[Anonymous Coward]

grrr. virginia also started a for-profit organization around a state's worth of aerial imagery that taxpayers paid for.

I wonder what it is that makes government employees covet gis data so much? Maybe it's the stacks and stacks of shiny CDs.

No taxation...

[David Rolfe]

...without representation. Or is it the other way round these days?

"[...] and how much the organisation is willing to spend to make the information public."

Correction: How much we, the represented taxpayer, are willing to spend to make the information public. The 'organisations' are our surrogates. We fund them or don't. :-\

Just two cents.

"Security" concern is bull

[mapmaker]

I'm a GIS guy working for the Washington DC local government.

We have (arguably) the most target-rich landscape in the nation, yet we distribute 20 centemeter resolution aerial photography of the District to anyone who wants it for $15 here

How can we do that? We downsample (lower the resolution) of "sensitive" areas like the White House and Capitol Building so there is no terrorist-useful information available in our imagery.

These Greenwichians could do the same thing if security was really what they are worried about. But I suspect that what they're really concerned about is the ability to sell their imagery for a profit. So they're using "security concerns" the same way Lexmark tried to use the DMCA to stop competitors from selling cheap printer cartridges

GIS wants to be free (or free-ish)

[drouse]

Wasn't Slashdot talking just recently about Arizona turning public access to GIS into a profit center...

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/27/2255 21 7&tid=103&tid=98&tid=95

I've dealt with local government GIS data before and no one has ever been as anal about it as these people. The newspaper I work for, our county's GIS department, the local planning board and board of elections have all used the data for things like maps of the flood plane, hog farms, proposed zoning changes, election districts, etc. And we are right next door to an USAF base, where you would almost expect people to be touchy about maps.

Other communities have shaved time off emergency response calls (fire, ambulance, cops, etc.):

http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc01/prof es sional/papers/pap308/p308.htm

Keeping GIS open also aids market transparency. Having this information available over the Internet -- instead of just at the Courthouse -- reduces friction in real estate transactions and makes it easier for people to make informed judgments about real estate. It helps encourage smarter capitalism through route planning and provisioning.

To me the terror argument is spurious -- this is a case of some information control freaks playing Dilbert's Mordac character.

It *IS* free in Canada.

[Jetson]

It's always been a thorn in my side, that (here in Canada, and no doubt elswhere) tax money pays for government agencies to collect map and aerial photography data (and land records), and do not make it properly accessible to the public.

Go to www.geobase.ca and fill your boots. They have high-resolution elevation maps, road maps, land-usage maps, location identifier databases (town names, river names, etc.), and low-resolution satellite imagery. You can pay $25 (I think) and have some of it shipped to you on CD-Rom.

Re:It *IS* free in Canada.

[Jetson]

Forgot to mention:

(1) The web site is often down on the weekends. I don't know what that's all about. They are still adding new data all the time, so maybe they shut down on the weekends to integrate new information into their indexes. Try it from Monday to Friday and everything is there for the (free) taking.

(2) The site is run by the Dept. of Natural Resources. They have a mandate to release *ALL* of their data for free. It's part of a campaign to make Canadian businesses more competitive by giving them all equal access to data that at one time was sold only to major corporations.

My firm uses GIS all the time, for free!

[cbelle13013]

I work for a property rights law firm in Florida and we've started using GIS more and more. Engineering survey maps usually cost a couple bucks to reproduce (which is fine since its not the government doing the surveying) but most of the counties have very easy to use GIS systems. I was somewhat shocked to read this story.

In Orange County you can access aerials several differernt ways. The Property Appraiser has a black and white photo thats available, but if you go directly to the website its available in large color photos. I can piece together a 11x17 comparison map of what is current, and the likely changes to property that will occur once Uncle Sam brings in the bulldozers.

We don't profit off this information, but it sure as hell makes my life easier. I would have such a harder time with it not being freely available. Hopefully those New Englanders can figure out that it SHOULD be available and not even bring up "security and terrorism" to get this cleared up.

World-centric bias!

[casuist99]

Clearly the poster was talking about Paris, Texas! Leave it to a world-centric poster such as yourself to assume he was talking about the Paris in frog-land!

Re:the simple fact is

[flyboy974]

I didn't realize that the terrorists used the ariel photographs and GIS information to figure out how to fly an airplane somewhere. I guess they were using the GIS data to find the highest point in Manhatan and didn't look out the window. Maybe we should prohibit aircraft from having navigational equipment like GPS. Or we'll let them have it, we just wont' tell them where the mountains are. Oh wait... I forgot, this law only prohibits citizens of the United States from getting public information. People in other countries are free to buy satellite and surveyed information from companies outside the US.

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[flonker]

• Social insurance databases - Information about specific people should be private
• Driver's license db's - Information about specific people should be private
• all police investigations, regardless of whether charges are laid. - Information about specific people should be private
• medicare payment treatment and payment records - Information about specific people should be private
• nuclear missile plans. - National Security
• the approved architectural plans for that nice, bombable Hoover Dam. - Sure, this should be public knowledge. Not to mention this argument is flamebait on its face. Why do you insist on mentioning it's bombable? A terrorist could find the weak points without the plans.
• tax records of all sorts - Information about specific people should be private, corps on the other hand should be public.
• how the governement recognises you, as opposed to someone pretending to be you, and gives you access to your own information... - Information about specific people should be private
• military supply orders and troop movements. - National Security

Also, the last argument is a strawman argument. The point being argued is that information should be free, not that it should be free in real-time. (Although that would be nice, if it's technically feasible.)

Everything you wanted to know about GIS...

[tmalt0153]

but were afraid to ask. This place http://www.cbdusa.com/mapping/Glossary.asp has tons of info and a glossary about GIS. Just in case you really, really need to know more about how to spot your doghouse in satelite imagery.

GIS at my work

[glitch23]

At my work we have a GUI GIS.

Just another CYA -- or maybe Not

[Nom du Keyboard]

access to aerial reconnaissance photographs and maps of Greenwich

The town is probably just doing a CYA in the event that there are nude sunbathers inadvertently photographed in the privacy of their own backyards. It's not like they'd want to reshoot the database if that happened.

It's the town's CYA because maybe some of the citizens didn't C-Their-A's.

Connecticut, as usual, lives up to its name

[Anonymous Coward]

"You just try to Connect, I Cut!"

Bet a Buck

[GnarlyNome]

that they have great pictures over at Fort Mede

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the last argument is a strawman argument. The point being argued is that information should be free, not that it should be free in real-time. (Although that would be nice, if it's technically feasible.)

To the point: The Freedom of Information Act exists precisely to ascertain, after the data is collected and possibly used, whether it is of public interest such that it should be made available to the party or parties making the request. The scary thing, as has been pointed out, is that the DOJ has no interest in dealing with FOIA at all. Whatever benefit might be gained from these or other maps is not really in consideration -- it's just whether the particular agencies are charitable enough to fulfill the request, or they are really flagrantly being illegal about their information.

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[winwar]

There is a difference I think you are ignoring-I think few people have a problem with preventing public release of PRIVATE information or truly sensitive information

"Social insurance databases"

-not to be used for identification, only benefits, easy to justify excluding.

"Driver's license db's"

- already excluded in many states based on privacy grounds. Of course, if you know a cop, you probably have access anyway...

"all police investigations, regardless of whether charges are laid."

- much of this is public, maybe hard to access, (police reports are public...). If you know a cop, well, you probably have access anyway...

"medicare payment treatment and payment records"

- private info, see above.

"nuclear missile plans."

- national defense. Although I doubt much of it is unknown in general detail at least to a potentially adversary.

"the approved architectural plans for that nice, bombable Hoover Dam."

- probably should be public record. If it can be taken out by a terrorist attack (short of nuclear attack), it probably isn't structurally sound. A rental truck full of explosives probably isn't going to do much...

"tax records of all sorts"

- much of this is public record. Individual tax returns probably not. Of course, if you know anyone in the IRS, you probably have access.....

"how the governement recognises you, as opposed to someone pretending to be you, and gives you access to your own information..."

- Well, there is a problem here. If you don't know how the government does it, how do you know it is secure, or useful? Most of this is public record anyway (hello, public servant, what info do I need to gain access to x, y, z? Oh, A, B, and C? Thanks).

"military supply orders and troop movements."

- National security.

"You have a chemical spill in Seattle. You have a real-time information system for exchange among first responders who are doing their work. It hits the news and their site gets slashdotted."

Then the method sucks and doesn't work. And the idiot who made it the only method should be fired for incompetance. And heaven forbid the public might want to protect themselves....

I suspect "data collect with public money" wasn't meant to include most of the points you brought up. And I suspect you knew it.

It is far better to be feared than loved.

[HBI]

Machiavelli, of course.

HUH ?

[Tensor]

All oceans of the world are photographed, tho probalby not at that resolution.

Its mostly for SST (Sea-Surface Temp) and SSH (Sea Surface Height) but there are over 10 sats doing that everyday.

Most of that info is freely available.

Re:It should be available - no general answer.

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

I agree with your exceptions. The original poster's proposition was: "the public paid for it, so it should be free." The long list of justifiable exceptions only re-enforces how hollow the basic argument is. The correct. if unsatisfying, statement is: If the public paid for it, the government (as in those bums you put into office) must do the "right" thing, taking into consideration, all the conflicting interests, the amount of funding that people were able to justify throwing at any given project, and make some choices. reasonable people will disagree on what the "right" thing is.

There are posts claiming "we didn't mean real-time." hmm... Show me where there is an exclusion from the FOI act for real-time data. If aerial photography is available, then why not have a site with a town's video surveillance data in real-time, much like the traffic cameras that are common around most cities. It's video of public places, anybody can watch anyone else on the street, so there should be no expectation of privacy. I would love to have such a thing for my daycare, and have a look at what my children are doing when I have a break at work without disturbing anyone.

I don't know whether this information should be public or not, but to blithely claim that unless national security or citizen's privacy is at stake, all information should be public is, well, rash.

The Real Reason

[KnarfO]

that Grenwich won't release the photos is because, contrary to Marvel's "official" story line, the real location of the Xavier Shool for Gifted Youngsters is within citiy limits!

:-P