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Calif. Politican Thinks Blurred Online Maps Would Deter Terrorists
Hugh Pickens writes "California Assemblyman Joel Anderson plans to introduce a bill to force Google Earth and similar services to blur images of so-called 'soft targets' like schools, hospitals, churches and government buildings to protect them from terrorists. 'All I'm trying to do is stop terrorists,' said Anderson. 'I don't want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.' Concerns that detailed satellite imagery and photographs available on Web services could help terrorists plan attacks are not new, with reports that terrorists have used such imagery to carry out attacks in Iraq and Israel, and an Indian court is considering a ban on Google Earth following reports that its imagery played a part in the Mumbai terrorist attacks."
"Security expert Bruce Schneier recently wondered what other things legislators might consider banning to prevent terrorism: 'Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then. I haven't seen it talked about yet, but the Mumbai terrorists used boats as well. They also wore boots. They ate lunch at restaurants, drank bottled water and breathed the air,' wrote Schneier. 'Society survives all of this because the good uses of infrastructure far outweigh the bad uses, even though the good uses are — by and large — small and pedestrian and the bad uses are rare and spectacular.'"
*yawn*
While were at it, lets ban airplanes because terrorists have used them before...and cell phones...terrorists love cell phones...ooh! and encryption.
Sure all of these technologies are used for millions of benign or helpful reasons for every malignant use, but banning things is so much easier, and more fun!
Also, it will help spur the economy, because the would be terrorists will have to buy cameras to take pictures of their targets.
If we just blurred all maps, the terrorists couldn't even find their targets!
We're thinking along the wrong lines. Why not just outlaw looking at maps with the intent to commit terrorism?
Take out the satellites ? Have you looked at the complexity of that ?
These are people that have trouble with the complexities of killing 6-month old babies. Satellites are long beyond their reach.
But you should realize that the balance of civilization versus terrorists is currently being held in favor of civilization by the dismal ability of terrorists to strike. They're pathetic, currently. They will not stay that way.
NOT blocking stuff like GPS and google earth obviously raises their abilities. It makes things easier for them (and for us, doing legal stuff, yes I know).
So not doing anything accelerates the next fase in the war on terror, when regular strikes become a fact of life in the US and Europe, just as they are a fact of life in the middle east. Then we will, like the middle east, be forced to attack anyone related ideologically to the terrorists, even if they have not themselves done anything wrong. Given the choice between attacking imams and dying, we both know what any sane person will choose.
That's the problem with powerful technology : the more powerful, the more you have to trust the people that have their hands on it's buttons. Once you go to far, you have little choice, but attacking those hands on those buttons.
Are you trying to say that those who aren't lactose-tolerant (or dislike milk) can't use heroin?
Sigs are for losers