Slashdot Mirror
Google Using Pre-Katrina Imagery on Google Maps
Thirdsin writes "CNN reports that images of lands devastated by Hurricane Katrina have been replaced on Google's map service with pre-Hurricane Katrina imagery. Now a subcommittee from The House Committee on Science and Technology has asked CEO Eric Schmidt for Google's motivation behind the
imagery switch. '[Congressional subcommittee chair Brad] Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery. "To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Miller said.' It is worth pointing out that images from Google Earth have not been changed."
There are competitors to google. Anyone who doesn't like them can use their competitors' products instead. Compare that to government, where the moron voters choose either right-wing authoritarian idiots, or far-right-wing authoritarian idiots, and if you don't like it you're out of options.
Software patents delenda est.
Water projects are productive, cleaning up from hurricane after hurricane is a dead weight. It was a cute little argument you made, but you might as well have said "why should my tax dollars go to build roads for people who are too stupid to live somewhere other than a salt flat." Providing infrastructure is vastly different from providing disaster relief for predictable disasters, though apparently too few people remain smart enough to grasp that these days.