Google Earth Uncovers Secret UK Nuke Base

thefickler writes "Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it's a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it's the UK government's turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government. However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed." Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it's simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.

Comments

Bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

SPOILER ALERT: Faslane is not a "secret" facility. It's the level and quality of imagery that's the problem. Good old /. editing at its finest, I had to actually check for a second that it wasn't actually another kdawson...in any case this "news" is at least a week old.

The actual article in The Sun

[while(true)]

The actual article: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2284752.ece

so secret they have their own public website!

[julian67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faslane "Her Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde is one of three UK operating bases for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth). It is the service's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of the United Kingdom's Trident-armed nuclear submarine force." This place has been notorious/famous for decades. Whoever wrote this "news" story is a fucking idiot and recycling on /. is fucking dumb too. Some of the other "top secret" places featured in the story feature regularly in documentaries, fiction, news reports and so on. Some of them are so secret that they have their own public website complete with pictures and a contact us button :-) http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html Well done Timothy, well up to your usual standard (rubbish).

WTF? Hidden?

[Lars T.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNB_Clyde Everybody already knew where the base is, there are public roads surrounding it, the Wikipedia article even as an aerial photo of it. So unless they are worried that terrorists start using GPS guided "smart" weaponry (but of course conventionally armed, because for nuclear they knew enough already) instead of just flying a plane packed with explosives into it, why the hell are they outraged exactly?

Also from US military

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better pictures courtesy of the US military
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/~cannon/medports/Faslane/HMNB_picture.html