Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules GIS Data Can't Be Kept Secret
Silverbear writes "In an update from a Slashdot story posted in January, The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that there is not a significant security risk to the town of Greenwich in making its GIS Data available to the public, and therefore must do so. Greenwich had claimed that the data could compromise personal and national security, and was sued under CT Freedom of Information laws. The legal ruling is available."
I live in CT and have worked in Greenwich. They live in another dimension of reality there, entirely contained in their heads. They don't act as though they believe themselves to be part of CT, they have police preventing access to taxpayer funded town owned roads because they don't want commoners going near the wealthy and famous, and have the state's largest concentration of arrogant self-important snobs outside of the Avon-Simsbury region.
If the other 168 municipalities have to be wide open to publicly availible taxpayer funded satellite scans then so should they. I have a feeling however that they will keep on fighting this decision until Hell freezes over.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
So what's the point in hiding "public" information. Its like banning "google maps".
It's worse. Google is a for-profit company that creates software solutions for the public using public data. If they are charged for the use of the GIS data, fine.
The public, who paid for and even submitted the information stored in the GIS databases, should be able to freely examine and use the information as they see fit. There should be no restrictions on this, especially monetary or it will be another double-fuck fleecing of the public.
Yay, we paid for the taxes to collect this data and wasted our free time giving you Census information and now we have to pay to see it used in a useful manner?
If someone banned Google Maps I wouldn't really care. If the governments continue to close up our free access to information I will continue to get annoyed.
We, the public, paid for the government bureaucracy that gathered this data. We shouldn't have to pay for it again when we want to look at it. Kudos to the judge in this case.
Look at the NSA, CIA, random military bases. You're liable to be shot on sight if you sneak into them, and the information available there is simply an order of magnitude more sensitive.
GIS data (as I have proven) is not sensitive information. I have a feeling that at least some of what the CIA and NSA do is probably top secret and a cause for concern of our Nation's security.
Where taxes go up and down is not sensitive. How much my neighbors pay in taxes on their houses is quite important and is even more important when you are looking for a place to live (the true reason they don't want to pony up the information).
Let's not compare oranges and apples here. GIS != NSA/CIA regardless of how it is funded.
I have worked and setup numerous GIS systems across the country and the most common reason for local officials to ask for some system of blocking free use of GIS is not security or personal privacy or commercialization (private companies selling public data). It is to thwart public interest groups from finding out egregious local land-use and zoning practices. It also is to keep local real-estate and land speculators happy.
For some reason, they see providing any local information for "free" as a threat to their free-wheeling and dealing. Because GIS exoses local environmental violations, incompatible land-use practices, zoning violations, land holdings and conglomeration, and so forth. In recent years, GIS has helped to show redlining in communities (keeping poor people out of rich neighborhoods), gerrymandering school and election districts, and so forth.
Some cities mainly use GIS for fine tuning when and where to ticket parking violators. Washington DC was big on this. Some states (like Michigan) ban such practices, but by and large, local governments use GIS for activities that have not been fully sanctioned. Yet they are loathe to share GIS data with anyone else. For instance in Atlanta, they don't even share this information with other departments within the city or regional government. Their protectionist attitude puts to shame IP litigation we now see in the tech field.
I made most of my money in not setting up GIS systems, but how to keep the data away from public, public officials, and citizens' groups. The major software companies, mainly ESRI, have helped in this endeavor by creating tools to work around easy sharing. Only recently with OpenGIS and other initiatives, did this stranglehold began to loosen.
Anyway, needless to say, I don't work in this field anymore. And I sleep well now.