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Google Pulls Map Images At Pentagon's Request
Stony Stevenson alerts us to a little mixup in which a Google Street View crew requested and was granted access to a US military base. Images from inside the base (which was not identified in press reports) showed up online, and the Pentagon requested that they be pulled. Google complied within 24 hours. The military has now issued a blanket order to deny such photography requests in the future; for its part Google says the filming crew should never have asked.
well what did they expect? they let in a car with a deathstar-like thing on the roof. don't you think the gate guards would have asked what the heck that was? oh i don't know it could have been a camera, laser beam, bomb whatever... maybe they used the force. "move along."
google street view camera
Google Street View: Hey, we want to update Google Maps so ordinary citizens can more easily find their way around cities. Can we go into your military base with this car mounted with cameras in every direction? Seeing as so many ordinary citizens are going to and from the Starbucks next to Colonel Hapablap's quarters. Even though it's against Google policy to do this in military bases.
Military Base: I see no problem with that.
Seriously, how did this happen in the first place? Doesn't the military have security?
Google isn't that evil, for a start; All your base photography are not belong to us
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
Yes, I did mean that Google pulling them was not a bad thing. But a lot of people here will think it is.
And yes, I agree this is noteworthy, but the tone of the article is likely to be interpreted by many here as somehow negative; i.e., that a private company is "censoring" content at the request of the "government". Other posters have already said, essentially, "What's the big deal? This is all stuff I can see with my own eyes anyway!" Read through the rest of the posts and see for yourself.
Also, it seems very likely this was an ungated, or open, facility (as many large/urban installations are, which then have other levels of restricted access for controlled areas). Google probably formally asked permission to drive around, was granted it, and was allowed to drive around (since in this type of facility they are streets that are effectively accessible to the public). I find it very unlikely that this was a closed/gated/restricted facility that Google was just granted access to simply by asking. In fact, that is almost certainly NOT the case.
Come on, man. How long have you been Slashdot? You are obligated in all cases to say something negative about the US and censorship to get modded up that high. It helps ending with a comment about how the world is going to shit and you how you need to move to Canada. Something obviously went wrong here. But in all seriousness, you're dead on. It's suprised to see the Pentagon is actually on top of this. This means there must be some efficiency in the system. Speaking from experience, I don't really know how or why Google was given access. You typically have to jump through hoops just to get on one of these military bases. I almost think that Google probably should've known better, but thats just me.
From what I gather from the article is that the film crew just pulled up to a military base and asked if they could shoot some film/pictures in there.
It sounds to me that the guys that were filming just wanted a challenge, see how far they can get waving a "google-film-crew" badge. Or just try for giggles, who knows.
Anyway, it seems to me the military is the erroneous party involved here, if you just let a citizen drive up your base and let them film, something is definatly wrong with your security
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
I spent 4 years active duty and you are right about the amenities on the base. However, those 19 year olds with automatic weapons are not brainwashed by any means. Most of them dont want to be on duty and dont want to be there. They are strict about certain areas such as flight lines....if you step over the yellow line then you are on your face. Don't be fooled by speculation based on what the military is advertised to be.....its not.
In a democracy, everything paid for by taxpayer dollars should be open
While I agree with that statement, it implies that in non-democracies things should be something other than open.
But your last paragraph is really bad logic. You say that every scandal in the last 7 years of exposure to incompetence, corruption, or illegality has been decried as giving aid and comfort, which is largely true. That's because exposure of bad things does give aid and comfort to our enemies. The argument for exposing them anyway is that it's worth the price. It is incorrect and self-deluding to claim that there is no price to be paid.
But it is not "obvious" that covering for the people who made the mistakes is the real desire for secrecy, since that lumps all three of your categories together. The real desire for secrecy is in fact to hide our inner workings from our foes. Hiding them from ourselves is just a bad side effect that secrecy proponents are willing to accept, while you are not. And it's not the case that all revelations are met with equal cries of disdain from the Right nor glee from the Left. Lumping them all together is useful for creation of a bogeyman, but it's not an accurate picture.
sigs, as if you care.
It's fine to play devil's advocate, but can you really argue there is no compelling national security reason to not have easily navigable and searchable street level photography of military installations, even ones which are quasi-open/public, online?
You acknowledge that secrecy and classification systems have a purpose, but then go on to say that "every scandal" in the last "7 years" (interesting choice of timeframe; poilitical much?) have used secrecy arguments as an excuse. You then seem to make the logical leap that any use of secrecy in the last 7 years has been to cover up corruption (and this has never happened at any other time in US history...?).
Consider this: gathering foreign intelligence outside of the United States on non-US Persons has ALWAYS been allowable without any form of court oversight or warrants. As it should be. Now, there are two issues:
1. Some exclusively foreign traffic between foreign individuals can now travel through equipment located physically in the United States. Why should that be off limits? Indeed, if telecommunications operators are willing to assist, we should absolutely leverage the fact that we have direct access to the traffic.
2. Capturing communications of a foreign individual outside of the US -- even if the other end of the conversation ended on US soil or was a US Person -- is also always allowable without court oversight or warrants (however, the identity and conversation content of the US Person may be masked for legal reasons). Again, since warrants protect individuals, why shouldn't telecommunications operators be allowed to voluntary assist in the interception of such traffic via much, much easier means?
Foreign intelligence is a necessity, even for free nations. It always has been. Any denial of this is the denial of reality. The Constitution only applies to US citizens or persons with a legal status within the United States. It does NOT apply to foreign persons outside of the US; any argument that it does flies in the face of the very notion of nation-states, borders, and international relationships. This is precisely why the surveillance of such persons does not require a warrant. In the past, there was no earthly reason to conduct any such surveillance within the United States. Now there is.
I'm not saying taking such surveillance of non-US Persons within the United States' physical borders isn't rife with controversy, much of it valid. But can you see how it's possible for this to not be so clear cut when you just throw out the blanket statement that it's "illegal"? Can you actually envision a scenario in which the Intelligence Community is trying to aggressively leverage all of the foreign SIGINT capability it possibly can given the circumstances? I know that certain folks can only see this as an obvious plot to destroy the Constitution, strip away civil liberties, and create a police state. However, where I live -- aka, the real world -- this was simply an aggressive attempt to make a lot of foreign intelligence collection, especially when one of the endpoints is in the US, a lot more practical. That doesn't mean it's not controversial.
And Walter Reed...I try watching the "exposés" on Walter Reed, and you know what? Kill me for saying this, but water damage on some ceiling tiles and peeling paint? Is that really affecting the level of care? This is what people are up in arms about? Granted, there are a wide variety of other problems with military medical care and facilities, but they're not classified.
This isn't to say that secrecy has never been used to cover up for corruption or illegal behavior. But you're making some sweeping statements and coming to conclusions that aren't warranted. There is a compelling national security interest to not have easy-to-use street level photography of US military installations available globally. Basic principles of operational security and defense in depth would easily validate that. Does that mean some