Clear Public Satellite Imagery Tantamount to Yelling Fire

TechDirt pointed out a recent bit of foolishness as a followup to California Assemblyman Joel Anderson's push to force Google and other online mapping/satellite companies to blur out schools, churches, and government buildings. When pushed, apparently his justification was that leaving these buildings un-obscured is the same as shouting fire. "News.com ran an interview with Anderson, where he attempts to defend his proposed legislation as a matter of public safety. He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes. [...] Apparently, Anderson is the final determiner of what good people do and what bad people do with online maps."

Comments

the real WTF?

[FredFredrickson]

Shouting fire has two common purposes:

1. To alert people of a real danger, in an effort to save lives.
2. To scare people into a panic by pretending there is a real danger when there is not. (for lulz).

I'm having a hard time bending my brain to somehow apply this logic to leaving buildings unblurred.

Either you're trying to alert people of a real school/church/government building - to alert them of a real and present.. building, or you're trying to trick people (into a panic??) that the buildings are really there when they're not. That's the only reason to leave them unblurred? I'm sure I'd panic if I saw buildings on google maps that weren't really there. It might cause me to stop doing drugs. Maybe that's his plan all along??

But then he goes on to show off his USA public education by making the connection for us:

He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes

Clearly, it all makes sense now! Seeing those buildings can only be used for bad purposes- Just like yelling fire can only be used for bad purposes! EXACTLY! There is not a single good use for shouting "fire!" except terrorism.

Ultimately, the only real WTF about this article is the belief that someone who really wants to kill you won't just drive to your house/school/church and use his eyes to make sure he's bombing/shooting/flying airplanes/melting/flooding the right place.

Re:the real WTF?

[DrLang21]

Not to mention that I regularly use satellite imagery to augment maps when I am going somewhere unfamiliar and want to get a better idea of what it will look like when I get there. There are plenty of good uses for clear satellite imagery of buildings and all.

Re:the real WTF?

[badasscat]

Not to mention that I regularly use satellite imagery to augment maps when I am going somewhere unfamiliar and want to get a better idea of what it will look like when I get there.

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

Personally, I'm having a hard time getting really worked up about this one way or the other. Maybe it's because I lived without satellite images for approximately 33 of my 37 years on this Earth without much of a problem, and I don't think we'd be losing much to not have them again. This is not like GPS or the internet as a whole or something where there is real utility that would be lost if you switched it off.

On the other hand, I'm obviously against all this fear-mongering. I'm not so intentionally dense (as I do believe some people are) as to not see any way that a terrorist could use these images for their own purposes, but that doesn't mean I think it's a reason to blur anything or turn it off. It's just a tool, and like any tool it can be used for good or evil. It's not a weapon, it's not a drug, it's not something the government should have a role in regulating.

It's more like, say, a pipe wrench. Sure, I could take a pipe wrench and whack somebody over the head with it and probably kill them. I could do it repeatedly and probably kill a lot of people.

Or, I could use it to fix broken pipes.

This is the thing with tools. They have a benign purpose and that's what most people use them for. But of course they *could* be used for evil. Are we going to just regulate everything that fits that description?

If the government is going to outlaw Google's satellite images, then it seems to me they need to outlaw pipe wrenches too.

Re:the real WTF?

[LoadWB]

Ultimately, the only real WTF about this article is the belief that someone who really wants to kill you won't just drive to your house/school/church and use his eyes to make sure he's bombing/shooting/flying airplanes/melting/flooding the right place.

Obviously you do not have a clue, otherwise you would be a politician. Sheesh.

But seriously. I follow the same logic as you. But politician logic would follow your statement by "we should also put barriers around schools, churches, and government buildings, through which you may pass only after showing your RealID and subjecting yourself to DNA testing, Breathalizer, cavity search, and/or drug testing, and said barrier must be outside visual range."

Even without eyes, any terrorist organization worth its pillar of salt would already have access to intelligence on such buildings. The Internet just makes it more convenient. There really is no stopping a dedicated terrorist, Evil Villain(tm), or common stalker.

Re:the real WTF?

[netruner]

The real fallacy in this type of argument is that the public (you and I) needs to justify why they need something (in this case, unobscured maps). We have no obligation to explain why we need something, it is up to those who would deny us those things to explain why we should not have them.

This pertains to all things, period. I can easily explain why my neighbor shouldn't have 2000 lbs of TNT in his garage.

People often forget that we don't need to justify ourselves just because someone wants us to.

Re:the real WTF?

[Low Ranked Craig]

Don't let Joel Anderson find out about street view, he'll want that blurred out as well.

The 7-11 on the corner by my house was routinely robbed. I'm sure if the image of the store in Street View was blurred out, some of these robberies would not have taken place, because I'm certain that the type of folks that hold up a convenience store plan this stuff in advance with high technology.

Re:the real WTF?

[redcaboodle]

Personally, I'm having a hard time getting really worked up about this one way or the other. Maybe it's because I lived without satellite images for approximately 33 of my 37 years on this Earth without much of a problem, and I don't think we'd be losing much to not have them again. This is not like GPS or the internet as a whole or something where there is real utility that would be lost if you switched it off.

I suppose the point is that some political berk wants to censor information to the general public on the grounds of: You might do something with it that I - member of the ruling class - don't want you to.

Re:the real WTF?

[Cristofori42]

I think he meant 'Fire' as in the kind that's preceeded by the words 'Ready' and 'Aim'. I think.

Re:the real WTF?

[sbeckstead]

It's also the last thing you hear when standing in front of a firing squad!

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

There really aren't that many places mapped with Street View.

I often use the satellite imagery so I can see how many lanes are on a particular road and which one I need to be in to make turns or whatever. Or so that I can get a visual look at a tricky intersection. Very useful when I know I will be navigating in lots of traffic. Also, as far as buildings go it's useful to see where the entrances and exits are so I know where to turn because those are not typically listed on maps. Very useful for finding places to park. I know you can do all of this on the fly but it's much more relaxing to know where I'm going ahead of time .

Re:the real WTF?

[sbeckstead]

ooh and when followed by "for effect" it commences the bombardment from artillery!

Re:the real WTF?

[The Grim Reefer2]

Personally, I'm having a hard time getting really worked up about this one way or the other. Maybe it's because I lived without satellite images for approximately 33 of my 37 years on this Earth without much of a problem, and I don't think we'd be losing much to not have them again. This is not like GPS or the internet as a whole or something where there is real utility that would be lost if you switched it off.

While I understand where you are coming from and agree to an extent. You can also apply that same line of thinking to all kinds of things, including GPS and the internet. My father lived for the first 60 of 65 years of his life w/o the internet and has lived his entire life w/o GPS. So if they just go away, I really don't think it'd bother him very much.

On the other hand, I'm obviously against all this fear-mongering. I'm not so intentionally dense (as I do believe some people are) as to not see any way that a terrorist could use these images for their own purposes, but that doesn't mean I think it's a reason to blur anything or turn it off. It's just a tool, and like any tool it can be used for good or evil. It's not a weapon, it's not a drug, it's not something the government should have a role in regulating.

It's more like, say, a pipe wrench. Sure, I could take a pipe wrench and whack somebody over the head with it and probably kill them. I could do it repeatedly and probably kill a lot of people.

Or, I could use it to fix broken pipes.

This is the thing with tools. They have a benign purpose and that's what most people use them for. But of course they *could* be used for evil. Are we going to just regulate everything that fits that description?

If the government is going to outlaw Google's satellite images, then it seems to me they need to outlaw pipe wrenches too.

This is where the problem lies, except you'll need to ban more than just wrenches. Books and education will need to go as well. Obviously you need a certain level of knowledge in order to build bombs and such, so to be on the safe side we better ban reading too. Of course judging by this thread: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1323243 We seem to be taking care of these issues ourselves already.

Re:the real WTF?

[theillien]

Ironically, Anderson's metaphor glances over the fact that his entire proposal is yelling "Fire![2]".

Re:the real WTF?

[EdIII]

People often forget that we don't need to justify ourselves just because someone wants us to.

I think what people forget is that we NEVER have to justify ourselves to the government either. Ever.

This country has fallen so far from the ideals that caused its creation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

People forget what an awesome concept that is. Particularly the abolish part. It's concerning to me that we have offensive fascists like this in government that believe they should have control over information. That, the mere possibility of misusing that information is grounds for removing our rights to possess it.

I am not fooled by their protestations that is in our best interests. The people that are so fervent to take away our rights always start with those platitudes. The solution to the problems we have is not to subvert the ideals that formed our country.

it is up to those who would deny us those things to explain why we should not have them.

Those people that would wish to deny us, can only petition their representatives to create laws. We, as a people, are supposed to vote on whether or not to enact those laws. That's democracy. What happens more often than not now, is that men like this create and enact such laws without the consent of the people.

Re:the real WTF?

[Dekker3D]

but wouldn't an eye-less terrorist organization be terribly ineffective?

you've said about all there is to say though. just banning the information will get you nowhere unless you can be absolutely sure you've got every last bit of it. as long as people walk around freely, that is impossible. when we stop being able to do so because of the government, we can be sure that it failed. badly.

Re:the real WTF?

[Cowmonaut]

Other way around. The Gov has to justify hiding information from people. The excuses he gives are moot since someone can just get the address and drive there anyways.

Re:the real WTF?

[Ephemeriis]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

I live in Upstate NY, and around here we don't get a street view of much.

The satellite imagery is actually pretty helpful. A map just basically shows you a bunch of lines representing streets, it doesn't give you a feeling for what's in the area. The satellite imagery, however, will show you whether it's a residential or commercial area. And if you see a big building with lots of long, yellow vehicles in its parking lot you can guess that it's a school. Or you might see an interesting structure or grove of trees or something that makes a decent landmark.

Re:the real WTF?

[nsayer]

Shouting fire has two common purposes:

It has a third purpose that you forgot: As an order to subordinates to initiate weaponry discharge. Typically it's preceded by the orders "Ready" and "Aim."

Re:the real WTF?

[Lehk228]

actually the "shouting fire" ruling was the SCOTUS allowing suppression of anti-war and anti-draft activists during World War I

that it is regularly brought up in apositive sense shows how clueless the average American is about our own history.

Re:the real WTF?

[Paracelcus]

This brain-bruised putz is only trying to get people to talk about him, politicians are attention whores. I remember some twenty years ago when Dianne Feinstein threw a small pistol into San Francisco Bay to "highlight" the "war on guns" of course she forgot to mention that she go's nowhere with out an armed bodyguard.

What do you bet that it was a toy gun?

Wanna get your name in the paper? talk about the following..
Terrorism
The war on drugs
Gun control
The children

Re:the real WTF?

[nametaken]

I want to know why someone doesn't rudely stand up, interrupt him, and yell, "Don't you have ANYTHING important you could be doing right now?!"

Re:the real WTF?

[camperdave]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

A satellite view might show you walking paths, bike trails, and alleyways that may not show up on a street level view or on a map view.

Re:the real WTF?

[digitig]

Not to mention that I regularly use satellite imagery to augment maps when I am going somewhere unfamiliar and want to get a better idea of what it will look like when I get there.

Why are you going to an unfamiliar area? Sounds like terrorism to me!

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

This has been incredibly helpful for me many times. Don't know what is where, But if you see the top down image of a huge parking lot McDonalds double arches next door, and a fountain across the street, suddenly your top down view is much more useful.

Re:the real WTF?

[dotgain]

You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

I'm trying to land the space shuttle you insensitive clod!

Re:the real WTF?

[Sylver Dragon]

Don't let Joel Anderson find out about street view, he'll want that blurred out as well.

I'm afraid he's already got that covered: (Directly from the bill text.)

The bill would also prohibit that operator from providing street view photographs or imagery of those buildings and facilities.

Once again the California State Legislature shows that stupidity has no bounds.

Re:the real WTF?

[Creepy Crawler]

Yeah, you put so much trust in our founding fathers. I spit in their faces.

They knew what a representative government would do, and how it removes the power from the people. They, instead, made voting apply to white male landowners.

Oh, and I just love the "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness".. Unless you're an injun or a nigger. Then youre hunted or a slave. Real liberty there.

And dont even mention what we did to our indigenous people here in the USA. The Indian nations had a constitution in the 1200's. We had Land contracts, which still exist to this day, that grant large tracts of land for price to the tribes. History greats like Andrew Jackson instead moved the military against them and slaughtered by the thousands.

No, the country was founded by people that got sick of the UK and other oppressive European states, and wanted to play dictator here too. And they knew damned well that they didnt want the populace to play government. The fact that they were scared shitless of democracy should give you a few hints of their motives.

Re:the real WTF?

[PsychoSlashDot]

Blurring satellite imagery to protect citizens from terrorists is tantamount to kicking voters in the face.

We can play this game all day. As you say, it should be the government justifying any curtailing of civil liberties, not civilians justifying those liberties in the first place.

But seriously, maybe we should ban career politicians because they keep implementing foreign policy that angers people enough to start killing civilians to make a point. Just a thought.

Re:the real WTF?

[MaskedSlacker]

Uh, not that many places mapped with street view? Try again sherlock. I haven't found a place in Los Angeles yet that isn't (not that I was trying to, but every place I've checked is there). I know it's the same in SF, and I assume most major cities in the US.

Re:the real WTF?

[interkin3tic]

2. To scare people into a panic by pretending there is a real danger when there is not. (for lulz).

I'm having a hard time bending my brain to somehow apply this logic to leaving buildings unblurred.

Maybe he is worried that google will snap a picture at a time when a small cloud is over a building, and someone in said building will think "Hey, I wonder what my building looks like on google earth!" and will see the cloud and think "Ohmigod! The building is on fire!" and, I don't know, jump out a window.

While that makes no type of sense, it's important to keep in mind we're talking about a california state politician, so it doesn't have to.

Re:the real WTF?

[DavidTC]

Exactly. Before they even had street view, I'd use overhead view as a pseudo-street view, and still do for places without it.

Change your view to close to the ground, angled in the right direction, and you can learn what turns actually look like in advance, which is very useful when you've never been there before.

In fact, there's even a feature in Google Earth that does that automatically, on a fly-by, although I don't use it because usually just want to know one or two turns, and I want them to stay up until I grasp them.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that I regularly use satellite imagery to augment maps when I am going somewhere

Yeah, I work maintenance for Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country, and I use google maps at work specifically to look at the layout of schools. We have over a thousand individual sites. When I dispatch someone to a school for a repair job, I frequently need to know which entrance to send him to, where the parking lots are, and where the specific buildings are. This Joel Anderson fucktard can stick it up his ass. The schools I work for need that clear overhead picture.

Re:the real WTF?

[icebrain]

Feinstein goes nowhere without a gun of her own. She carried illegally for several years till she got caught, then got herself a carry permit. Funny how she gets one, but the average person can't.

She also violated every safety rule in the book when she swept a crowd with an "assault weapon", finger on the trigger.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not there is life outside of California

Re:the real WTF?

[Main Gauche]

Shouting fire has two common purposes

Claiming that someone equated "leaving buildings unblurred" with "yelling fire" has two common purposes:

1. To explain that someone actually equated "leaving buildings unblurred" with "yelling fire"
2. Sensationalism.

RTFA, then figure out which it is in this case.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only were the landed gentry the only voters, but they were also expected to provide a militia. That is, by all accounts, feudalism.

Indeed. It is a fallacy to think that feudalism ever ended. VISA wants to put you in indentured servitude as much as any plantation owner ever did. Citigroup made a killing doing just that, until their bubble burst.

Re:the real WTF?

[AmigaHeretic]

Well, I'm just a couple years younger than you, but I think satalite images are great. I have kids that play soccer and baseball and we're always going to different school to play games. I use google maps to get directions and then click the satalite view to get an idea of where their fields are located. Am I a bad person for doing this?

Re:the real WTF?

[ORBAT]

I don't know if you've heard, but there's this place called Earth. It's got lots of continents on it, like Africa, Eurasia, the Americas, and Australia. You might have noticed that I put "Americas" in plural as there's actually two of 'em there, North and South. Parts (not all of it) "North America" are covered by Google's Street View.

The more you know!

Re:the real WTF?

[stephanruby]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that.

Not everyone in the United States has street view yet (although it's getting there for sure). Hawaii still needs to be done, and entire suburbs in the rest of the United States are still missing.

Re:the real WTF?

[mikael]

I do too, although arguably street view is a lot more useful for that. You're not going to be looking at where you're going from 200 miles up when you get there, so why do you need to see it from that angle if the purpose is to get an idea of what it will look like from the ground?

I use the pictures for finding my way to conferences/hotels/visits. It helps to know where exactly a building is in a campus or business park. The colors of the roofs/walls/pavements help too. There's nothing worse than guiding a taxi driver to the wrong entrance of a business park because some dufus in Ordinance Survey decided to flip round the orientation of a building just to confound copyright violators.

Re:the real WTF?

[Scarletdown]

And if you see a big building with lots of long, yellow vehicles in its parking lot you can guess that it's a school.

And if you just see a big blur there instead, then you may very well think that whatever it is being hidden there must be a suitable target for whatever nefarious scheme that you are developing, if you are the type that partakes in nefarious schemes against the public.

Re:the real WTF?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

But seriously, maybe we should ban career politicians because they keep implementing foreign policy that angers people enough to start killing civilians to make a point. Just a thought.

Maybe we should outlaw making stupid statements like this. In just about all wars, one of the parties involved wasn't angered at all. Nearly all wars started with ficticious casi bellorum. (ie. made up by the attacker) Unless you're willing to accept that it really was Poland's "agression" towards Hitler that started WWII (who attacked while Poland was withdrawing troops from it's own borders).

That's obviously the great inconvenience with "peace for all on earth", if ONE country, or even a large enough group, disagrees ... it's over. Just a single one.

So until you get Bin Laden and his victims happily dancing together (which would obviously necessitate abolishing one or two islamic "laws") you can't have peace.

Peace can only exist if every 2 parties that can attack one another refrain from doing so.

That would require quite a few ideologies to die, the most pressing one would seem to be islam (unless you consider the genocides founder of islam executed peaceful, or convince muslims to stop following him, to banish mohamed from their religion). And the list is (very) long. Until that is done, there can be no peace. No matter the career politicians.

And even if all people shared a single ideology and lived happily together, eventually the laws of physics themselves (specifically : scarcity) would cause conflict, and war.

That's just how natural selection works : everybody is always working to exterminate everyone else (either directly by attacking, or indirectly by using up resources (merely for being alive, you require about 500W, that's before you get to drive an SUV)). So if you believe in evolution, war is just the "above ground" part of natural selection in humans. The part we don't try to hide.

Re:the real WTF?

[symbolic]

to alert them of a real and present.. building

Some have concluded that had the buildings not been blurred on 9/11, they would have been able to steer the planes out of the way in time. Oh wait...

The "fire!" analogy this guy uses is exactly the opposite, as the blur is tantamount to yelling, "Bullseye!". The only solution is obvious, and that's to blur the entire map.

Re:the real WTF?

[MaskedSlacker]

Lies and slander

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of life, but not all that much living.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you're catching on to their plan: Keep the masses dumb.

Re:the real WTF?

[digitalchinky]

You're just making stuff up and then using 'the internet' as if the concept of top down mapping had been invented last week. What has actually existed for far longer than just your 37 years is the bog standard hard copy paper based map that looks down at streets in exactly the same way a satellite would see it from directly above. This is not useful to you? Colour me astounded. Overlay that satellite based imagery with street names and such, and you have your same old bog standard map all over again, just with a little more glitz instead of boring old coloured boxes to indicate schools, hospitals, shopping centres, car parks and blah blah. Being computer based can make the whole thing a whole load more convenient.

While you may not see any intrinsic value in this newfangled top down view, quite a chunk of the remaining population have a little bit of a different opinion. This bozo suggesting we blur satellite images is nothing short of delusional. The information still exists, you go to your local newsagent and it's right there on the shelves. I've yet to see a road map that doesn't include schools and a myriad of other interesting things. With a satellite image you might get building positions, but so what, with a car you can just drive there and get even better positional information. Lets just shut the barn doors here while we watch the horses gallop over the horizon.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit Johnson, enough with your complaints about my TNT. It is purely for recreational use and you have no right to take it away. It's bad enough that you complain about it at the street Christmas party, now your bringing it up in online forums?

Re:the real WTF?

[mpe]

Other way around. The Gov has to justify hiding information from people. The excuses he gives are moot since someone can just get the address and drive there anyways.

Maybe instead he should wear glasses which blur his vision. This would be far cheaper for one thing.

Re:the real WTF?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It is shameful that there is no street view for Amazonia. Somebody ought to build some streets there as well!

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the government is going to outlaw Google's satellite images, then it seems to me they need to outlaw pipe wrenches too.

Don't for get pens.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The blurring of "school/church/government building" under "Think of the children!" and "Think of the terrorists!" is probably just a guise so they can blur out their own homes and whatnot.

Re:the real WTF?

[ultranova]

Not to mention that I regularly use satellite imagery to augment maps when I am going somewhere unfamiliar and want to get a better idea of what it will look like when I get there.

And that's exactly the problem. Only a pedophile would seek out a school, only a terrorist would seek out a church, and only a politician would seek out a government building.

Besides, everyone knows that terrorists use Google Maps to aim their orbital laser cannons.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm glad i didn't waste as much time as you actually thinking about that bullshit.

Re:the real WTF?

[Kvasio]

Two, really?

Re:the real WTF?

[ORBAT]

Oh zing. I always count Central America as a part of N. America. I'll use the fact that it is geographically continuous as an excuse.

Re:the real WTF?

[EdIII]

There is a slight difference. VISA can't force you into servitude and abuse you as readily as the nobles did to those poor bastards under feudal governments. You are talking about voluntary feudalism. You could opt out any moment you want too.

Of course, the allure is all the shiny stuff. So, if anything, it's advanced feudalism. By giving you a higher standard of living and more immediate gratification, coupled with good dose of alcohol and pharmacueticals, you have slaves that don't even realize they are slaves.

There is still choice though. Everyone can cut up their VISA cards, stop using credit, and live strictly within their means. Also, use solar and wind and stop paying the energy companies so much of your yearly production to them. It's not easy is it? The new slavery is just the path of least resistance.

Re:the real WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

People often forget that we don't need to justify ourselves just because someone wants us to.

I think what people forget is that we NEVER have to justify ourselves to the government either. Ever.

This country has fallen so far from the ideals that caused its creation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

People forget what an awesome concept that is. Particularly the abolish part. It's concerning to me that we have offensive fascists like this in government that believe they should have control over information. That, the mere possibility of misusing that information is grounds for removing our rights to possess it.

I am not fooled by their protestations that is in our best interests. The people that are so fervent to take away our rights always start with those platitudes. The solution to the problems we have is not to subvert the ideals that formed our country.

it is up to those who would deny us those things to explain why we should not have them.

Those people that would wish to deny us, can only petition their representatives to create laws. We, as a people, are supposed to vote on whether or not to enact those laws. That's democracy. What happens more often than not now, is that men like this create and enact such laws without the consent of the people.

This is not the way a republic works. We are not a democracy, we should not be ruled by the mob, because teh mob is stupid. The founding fathers knew this fundamental truth of human nature. That is why the USA is not a straight democracy that is also why the senate was origianlly voted on by the state legislatures not the people. I'm rabling off topic, anyway we're a republic, not a democracy and don't let any idiot public school teacher tell you otherwise.

Seriously people...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Default Deny makes good computer security; but profoundly dangerous public policy.

Re:Seriously people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Default Deny makes good computer security; but profoundly dangerous public policy.

Some might say this is security through obscurity--I think relying too much on analogies is profoundly dangerous public policy.

Re:Seriously people...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Security through obscurity is also bad policy. I was, however, referring to the "He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online" bit.

The assumption that, if there is "no good reason" for something, then it can be banned, is a dangerous one.

Geohashing by building reference

[Sparr0]

I go geohashing/geocaching using nearby buildings as a reference, with no GPS device. I put the lat/long into Google Maps, print the deepest zoom of the location, then triangulate my position based on building corners when I get there. I don't care that the building might be a church or a school, it's just a handy object with well defined corners.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Jane Q. Public]

And you would end up burying your object many yards away from your "known" coordinates, or digging for one a similar distance away. Google Maps is just not as accurate as a good GPS.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[AnotherBrian]

I go geohashing/geocaching using nearby buildings as a reference...

TERRORIST!!!

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[mahohmei]

On a recent geocaching trip, I compared the coordinates on my TomTom [primarily for driving] against my friend's Garmin, which was exclusively for hiking.

At any given point, the two devices were off by, at most, 15 feet. There were a few geocaches we found online whose locations were impossible--for example, in the middle of a football stadium. The fact that our two GPSs only disagreed by about 15 feet meant that whoever planted the caches had the coordinates wrong. Or possibly Googled them. :-)

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Jane Q. Public]

Can someone please explain to me how that was "flamebait"? It's a fact. If you enter the exact coordinates of a benchmark in Google Maps, the spot marked on the map is not likely to be very close to the actual benchmark. Try it.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Sparr0]

That depends entirely on where you are. I have lived places where Google Maps was off by hundreds of feet in some places. I currently live in Atlanta, and have never seen my spot be more than 20 feet off the spot agreed on by my GPS-using counterparts (often my spot is not even the farthest off the consensus).

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Sparr0]

Why is the middle of a football stadium impossible? Even if you mean the exact middle, as in the center of the field, if it's a grass field...

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Zerth]

Just checked and mine is within the error margin of my GPS. Says I'm sitting on the opposite side of my office, maybe 8 feet or so.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Anemophilous Coward]

Yeah, in many areas the satellite imagery suffered from Datum mismatching issues with the underlying road/ground data set. They've been slowly fixing this as new sets get updated. Datum differences can lead to all sorts of positional errors.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Jane Q. Public]

You misunderstood me. What I stated was: enter in the known, fixed position of a benchmark (used for surveying among other things) into Google Maps. Then zoom in. You are likely to find the position marked by Google Maps to be a good distance away from the benchmark.

As an example, I have compared Google Maps against its own satellite imagery. I have found the roads as displayed on the maps portion to be quite often many meters from the actual road on the satellite image.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[barzok]

Unless they have been horizontally adjusted, many benchmarks are not at the coordinates that are posted for them.

Also, if you're using different datums for the benchmark vs. GMaps, or even a bad conversion between degrees/minutes/seconds to degrees/minutes/decimal minutes, you'll be "off".

PLUS, the georeferencing on satellite imagery isn't always correct.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[barzok]

Geocachers don't dig. If the hole wasn't already there to put a cache into, you're not supposed to make your own.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Zerth]

You misunderstand me. Measuring from the local benchmark(conveniently in my back yard), it is off by 8 feet. That is within the margin of my GPS, so I'm not likely to bitch about it, since I'd only expect to be within 20 feet to account for twice the error.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Jane Q. Public]

All I can say is, you got lucky. In my tests, even just testing the "Map" view versus the satellite image, I have routinely gotten differences of many meters.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[Jane Q. Public]

"PLUS, the georeferencing on satellite imagery isn't always correct."

Excuse me, but unless I am mistaken, that is exactly what I stated.

Re:Geohashing by building reference

[barzok]

I was pointing out that it's also possible that the benchmark is off and the imagery is correct.

Or, both could be wrong.

What I'd like to ask him...

[swillden]

...is what, *exactly* he thinks bad people can do with sharp images of buildings that they can't do with blurry images.

'Cause I sure can't think of anything. That's no proof, but it seems like if this is a real problem he's trying to solve, he ought to at least have some idea what it is he's trying to prevent.

Of course, his real goal is to get his name in the news, and he's succeeding admirably at that.

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[TapeCutter]

An example would require knowledge and his message is "only bad people eat the fruit of the knowledge tree".

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[PitaBred]

Hell, what does Google provide that driving down the street doesn't?

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[_Sprocket_]

...is what, *exactly* he thinks bad people can do with sharp images of buildings that they can't do with blurry images.

He notes that with sharp, detailed images you can see vents and elevator shafts. My God, man! VENTS and ELEVATOR SHAFTS! Have none of you even SEEN "Mission: Impossible"?!

(Note: the preceding message involves sarcasm. Normally such a notice is not required, but considering the subject, apparently some people DO take these things seriously).

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[veganboyjosh]

What comes to mind isn't an answer to the parent question, but the flip side of it, and a good reason why we shouldn't blur any buildings.

Much like the "parental warning: explicit lyrics" stickers on music, the blurriness will just attract attention.

What's that? You weren't aware there was a government building in your neighborhood? Well, now that it's blurred out, you know there's something of political/social value there. Something that would probably make a good target...

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[ccady]

Well, a reporter already asked him what a bad person can do:

I'm all for online mapping, but knowing where the air ducts are in an air shaft is not necessary for me to navigate in the city. Who wants to know that level of detail? Bad people do. ... With a [paper] map, you can't count the number of bricks in a building, or see the elevator shafts. With this level of detail [afforded by online maps] you can. I hear the argument that, "Yeah, I want to also ban cars because cars are used in robberies." Look, cars have other commercial uses. There are no other uses for knowing on a map where there are air shafts.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/11/google.earth.censor.california/index.html

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[deimtee]

You might even find an Unshielded Thermal Exhaust Port!

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[_Sprocket_]

Many Googlians died to bring you these satellite images.

Re:What I'd like to ask him...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be easy to make a google maps plugin that puts a bullseye on every blurred piece of the map...

I suppose he would have a point

[Gat0r30y]

If people went around geo-tagging all of these locations as "On Fire!", and fire departments regularly looked at the meta information on all of the buildings around them in order to determine whether or not they are on fire.
Or maybe he's just a tremendous ass.

Re:I suppose he would have a point

[omnichad]

I said it was funny, but slashdot said I marked it as Overrated. Removing mod.

Re:I suppose he would have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that a member of the California Legislature would have better things to do with the People's Time than fuss about crap like this - indeed, it's been proven repeatedly that you can't legislate morality or intelligence.

Maybe he ought to quit and allow someone else to step in who can help balance the state's budget and get the economy going again instead of dictating how private enterprises should do things.

I don't live in California, nor do I (nor will I ever) have any funds invested in the State of California. If I want to invest in junk bonds, there are plenty of publicly traded companies such as GM, Ford and GE to whom I can lend money.

Big arrows

[Kell Bengal]

This might have an opposite effect. Suppose they /did/ blur out all these sensitive structures. Isn't that kind of like waving a flag, pointing and saying "OMG, please blow up anywhere but here - oh no, please not RIGHT HERE."

Re:Big arrows

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This might have an opposite effect. Suppose they /did/ blur out all these sensitive structures. Isn't that kind of like waving a flag, pointing and saying "OMG, please blow up anywhere but here - oh no, please not RIGHT HERE."

Instead of blurring out the images, they should just 'photoshop' them out. I believe this has already been done with some military airbases in europe - a while back someone posted before shots and links to current shots in google earth and you could see that these bases had been "erased" leaving generic terrain in their places (all except for one, which now had a "road to nowhere" still visible).

Re:Big arrows

[noidentity]

No, but you see the point is to trick the terrorists by making them think they ALREDY blew it up. "No, ze building zis is already in a blurry pile of ruins. Ve must move on."

Re:Big arrows

[Anonymous Coward]

yes yes, easily point out the stuff that they want to attack, thats much better than leaving the buildings looking like the rest.

Re:Big arrows

[ndunnuck]

Are your terrorists French?

Re:Big arrows

[nsayer]

No, ze building zis is already in a blurry pile of ruins. Ve must move on.

Germans? Really? We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then (apologies to Tom Lehrer).

Re:Big arrows

[TheGratefulNet]

douchebag: we have stopped fighting the germans for, what - well over half a century now.

or is that jon stewarts 'generic foreign accent' that he just re-uses?

Re:Big arrows

[noidentity]

Yeah, I couldn't do the middle-eastern accent, so I just chose German. Maybe I was thinking of the old Die Hard movies or something.

Re:Big arrows

[Anonymous Coward]

What if instead they just put giant fluorescent letters on the top of the building that said something to the effect of "THIS IS NOT A SCHOOL, MOVE ALONG"? That may be too long though so how about a giant bullseye with a circle slash through it?

Re:Big arrows

[againjj]

Link: http://googlesightseeing.com/2009/03/09/the-mysterious-case-of-the-vanishing-airport/

FIRE!!!

[basementman]

FIRE!!!

Re:FIRE!!!

[nsayer]

Aye-aye!

*ca-click* *WHOOSH*

Torpedo away!

Re:FIRE!!!

[dubbreak]

FIRE!!!

Stay calm. The halon will put it out shortly.

Re:FIRE!!!

[pnevin]

... we salute you

GNIS - Freely available from the Feds

[mls]

As I said last time, this info is available freely from our own US Government.

You can search and retrieve with Lat/Long a list of these "soft targets" using the US Governments own Geographic Names Information Services (GNIS) system.
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/

Re:GNIS - Freely available from the Feds

[maxume]

Yeah, if you look around California government websites, there are dozens of photos of 'important' targets.

At least he is bringing attention to the issue, so people who haven't thought about it can take a second to think about it and then point and laugh.

Re:GNIS - Freely available from the Feds

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the US GOV does not maintain TWO sets of maps like the USSR did? Re-call paranoia Cheney, he left work unfinished.

Nice pool, Joel

[ddusza]

I am actually surprised he didn't include his own home as part of the list....

Ya, I learned the hard way...

[tobiah]

there are consequences for yelling "Church!" in a crowded theatre.

Counter to his stated goal

[name_already_taken]

Wouldn't blurring out government buildings, churches and schools simply highlight their locations on the maps?

If he's concerned about building details being shown, you have to wonder why. For example, what good does knowing where the skylights on a school do for a terrorist? Very little.

Re:Counter to his stated goal

[zippyspringboard]

Bingo! I'd say you are pretty close, in that it "highlights them." Just another way to keep everyone constantly aware of the the threat we are under. The hope is that next time you check Google maps you will get a little extra food for thought!

Shoot him.

[commodore64_love]

Doing so will increase the overall IQ of the California Legislature. Whichever person is elected to replace him is bound to be more intelligent.

Re:Shoot him.

[taustin]

You clearly don't know much about the California Monkey Sanctuary. This guy's not even unusual.

So...

[Darkness404]

So wait... Even though I can find blueprints of various government buildings on a website, can find listings of just about every church out there with directions on the web along with schools... The fact that I can get satellite images of them somehow means that it will be abused somehow? Why is it that in this country our government increasingly mandates to remove anything that might possibly be used for evil because its "new"? The fact that I can get blueprints of various important government buildings at the library of congress isn't an issue, but because I can look at them in Google Earth it is? The USA is becoming more and more like a dictatorship.

Re:So...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

The USA is becoming more and more like a dictatorship.

While I agree that this is completely absurd, I think it's also important to moderate your indignation. This is just one asshole, not "the USA" as a whole.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Mr. Anderson's seen too many Movie OS montages of how terrorists plan and pinpoint targets. Obviously any sort of complex plan requires GPS technology, satellite images, and the most recent Dell laptops on the market. A goatee and a black van help, too. And that's just for getting a slurpee.

Counterargument

[Gat0r30y]

The only possible purpose for censorship is evil.

Re:Counterargument

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Posted AC because I already modded this thread.

-cparker15

Re:Counterargument

[TheLoneDanger]

Evil doesn't require intent.

Re:Counterargument

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily. All kinds of loving Christian parents mean well when they censor content for their children. It's the results of censorship that are often evil.

Re:Counterargument

[XMode]

A few year ago I would have seen the humour in that, giggled and moved on. I'm now coming to believe that censorship is WAY beyond evil.

What?!

[BancBoy]

Sorry, I thought you were trying to show clear public satellite imagery.

Wow, I guess Assemblyman Anderson is right, I can't tell the difference...

I can understand part of it...

[Daswolfen]

Now I can see the need for using the obscuring technology to cover up places vital to national security like military bases and such. However, considering the level of detail available from Google earth is not enough to warrant the mass panic that Assemblyman Anderson seems to want to foster. It is not like you can see the details you can with the latest generation of spy sat. You don't get real time intel on things like deliveries and other information you would need for planning. You get no more than you would get driving down the street taking a few pictures.

Heck, cell phone cameras present a greater security risk to this country than Google Earth, but I don't see any reason to ban them either. Nearly anything can be used for nefarious purposes if desired. So banning a research tool just because someone MIGHT use it to help plan something untoward is a reactionary stance and should be avoided at all cost.

Re:I can understand part of it...

[John Hasler]

> You get no more than you would get driving down the street taking a few pictures.

No doubt he has plans to "regulate" that as well.

I sympathise with his point of view

[Ontheotherhand]

Look, most brainless knee jerk anti terrorist rubbish has already been done, and has found some sort of traction. This guy is scraping the bottom of the barrel, sure. but cmon, give the guy a break. It seems to work for other politicians?

Blurring MAKES an Easy Target ID

[BoRegardless]

What is this guy smoking?

Yeah, I know, the same stuff that allows them to vote to spend more than they can possibly get in taxes, leaving CA in an endless HOLE financially.

Now, why did we vote these guys in?

Re:Blurring MAKES an Easy Target ID

[Locke2005]

Now, why did we vote these guys in?

I voted with my feet and moved to Oregon... why are you still in California? ;-)

Re:Blurring MAKES an Easy Target ID

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

He represents the wing-nut, right half of San Diego county including Borrego Springs, El Cajon, La Mesa, Santee and other hot spots. His web site has a nice picture of the San Diego skyline, but I guess no one told him it is not in his district. OTOH there isn't anything in El Cajon that I would take a picture of. He doesn't list an email address on his website but he does have an email form. You need to be thinking like B1 Bob Dornan to get elected from this turf.

Re:Blurring MAKES an Easy Target ID

[Reziac]

Because thanks to California taxes, I can no longer afford to move back to Montana. :/

Tax dollars

[thesolo]

Public schools & government buildings are built using taxpayer dollars. Churches do not pay taxes and are thereby subsidized by taxpayer dollars.

Therefore, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to view the rooftops of the buildings for which we essentially paid. If I think the church down the street from me has an architecturally-brilliant roof and I want to look at it, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to do so.

Of course, there's also arguments to be made about security through obscurity, security theatre, etc. Tim McVeigh didn't need Google Earth when he parked a truck bomb in front of a federal building...

Re:Tax dollars

[Gat0r30y]

Therefore, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to view the rooftops of the buildings for which we essentially paid.

I think I've figured out what this whole thing is about. Assemblyman Anderson has been going around doing lude and lascivious things on the rooftops of public buildings which he doesn't want anyone to find out about.

Re:Tax dollars

[hurfy]

"If I think the church down the street from me has an architecturally-brilliant roof and I want to look at it, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to do so. "

Damn you

I never thought to look what the new roof on the church down the street looks like from Google Earth. ooohh shiny. Umm, too shiny, in fact, it is half artifacts from the reflections :( lol, fresh copper roof last year was too bright for the aerial shots. oh oh, self-blurring roofs...forget i brought it up......

Anderson Hates People

[DynaSoar]

Anderson wants to blur only public buildings. He says nothing about the millions of lives that would have been saved had all private residences been blurred out also. Since it's inevitable that bad people will use the unblurred maps for terroristical purposes, we should go ahead and charge him with genocide now to save time later.

You can't attack a map, you can only attack physical objects/locations. If Anderson had any sense he'd blur out the actual buildings rather than their cartographical representations. Better yet, they could be totally obscured. All he have to do is to get a law passed requiring all bad people to cover their eyes when near a place where they intend to do bad things.

Re:Anderson Hates People

[Reziac]

Isn't "blurring out the actual buildings" exactly what the theoretical goal of these terrorists IS??

Hmm. Makes you think about this Assemblyman fellah...

Blurring

[larien]

So, while in America, we should squint when walking past schools & government buildings so we don't know what they look like? Because surely only bad people would want to know what a school looked like...

*sigh*

Reasons from a Good Person

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a Geotechnical Engineering consultant. When I get a job to do, one of the first things I do to roughly assess the job site is look at google maps or live maps for satellite or aerial photos.

By blurring images of any kind of soft target or government installation just because it of what it is he is simply going to make it harder for anybody to do his or her job, honest persons and terrorists alike. If I can't find a good image of a site to get an idea of what it is like, I'll have to make an extra trip out there to assess things initially, taking up more of my time and my client's money for the same end result. I'm sure that this would be the same for the "terrorists". Rather than deter attacks due to lack of information, this guy's forcing them to perform personal reconnaissance which will be 10x more useful than an aerial photo or satellite photo, and the result will likely be the same.

It's not a question of a job getting done, it's a question of how convenient it is to plan a job (job loosely defined).

Blurring Churches

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of the bible belt would be visible if we blurred all the churches?

Re:Blurring Churches

[dgatwood]

Given the poor image quality of most of the satellite photos of the rural South that I've seen, I'm not sure anyone would notice that they had been blurred. Buildings the size of a football field already look like a Rorschach test....

Re:Blurring Churches

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the rural South and can see my dog in the sat shot.

You'll have to take my word for it. I'm not giving /. the coordinates of my house.

Re:Blurring Churches

[dgatwood]

Odds are good that if you can see your dog and can tell that it is a dog (rather than a tan smudge), it is probably a shot taken from an airplane, not a satellite shot. Some rural areas are covered by those higher resolution images, but most aren't.

Sanity

[nurb432]

Apparently is optional now.

Idiots.

Why stop there?

[KDR_11k]

If we consider stuff like church roofs sensitive then what reason do we have to consider residential buildings not sensitive? People live there after all! What about infrastructure like roads and rails? Those are of vital importance in any war, better make sure google maps does not contain them.

Shhh

[nurb432]

Next they will ban blueprints and maps. Then cameras and drawings.

THis is just the beginning of GIS information restriction.

Re:Shhh

[rpresser]

Will it end with gouging out everyone's eyes? Or will it continue until spatial relationships themselves have been outlawed?

Re:Shhh

[Random BedHead Ed]

If it takes gouging out everyone's eyes to stop the terrists, then that's what we'll have to do.

Re:Shhh

[Digital Vomit]

It ends when the nation collapses in on itself from internal corruption, bloat, and rot.

Don't know why this is even contemplated...

[McNihil]

It would become even more trivial to search for stuff of interest if they were "blotted" out.

Direct from google map into real world GPS coordinates and blammo!

Why did this politician open his pie hole in any case?

One freedom fighter to another

[future assassin]

1. Look at the blury spot on the map. 2. Woo something important is there. 3. ?????????? 4. They Will Know Fear!?

Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[mangu]

Shouting fire has two common purposes:

1. To alert people of a real danger, in an effort to save lives.
2. To scare people into a panic by pretending there is a real danger when there is not. (for lulz).

Funny thing is, we keep seeing (2) as an exception to free speech.

However, let's reason this out. Is raising a false alarm illegal? Is it so wrong that it justifies an exception to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Maybe.

But then, shouldn't this be applied to *ALL* false alarms?

No shouting FIRE!!! in theaters. No shouting KIDDIE PORN!!! in the internet. No shouting TERRORISM!!! everywhere.

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[Dishevel]

Well put.

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[ndunnuck]

A prohibition on shouting FIRE (in any crowded place, not just a theater) is only constitutionally justified because it can induce a panic that results directly in the injury and death of others, e.g. by trampling. Otherwise, false alarms are protected by the First Amendment (libel and slander notwithstanding).

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[Dekker3D]

this guy is distributing KIDDIE PORN!!!
i saw so myself!

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[J3llym4n]

I don't think that's quite right. I would say that you have the right to free speech to shout fire in a theatre if you want, but that you would/should be prosecuted for the damage and injury caused in the ensuing panic and not for speaking freely.

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[mangu]

you would/should be prosecuted for the damage and injury caused in the ensuing panic and not for speaking freely.

Then what about the damage and injury for denouncing child porn and terrorism and copyright violations, etc, etc, where no such thing exists?

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[J3llym4n]

I hope I've read you correctly, are you saying that child porn, terrorism and copyright violations don't exist? (or at least don't exist in the majority of times someone says they does). If there is damage caused, either to society or to an individual, by falsely accusing someone of child porn, terrorism or copyright violation without reasonable grounds then yes they should be prosecuted for that. Sorry if I misunderstood you though.

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[mangu]

are you saying that child porn, terrorism and copyright violations don't exist?

No, I'm not saying that. Try going back to the very start of the thread. The subject is "shouting FIRE in a theater". This is an anecdotal situation.

OF COURSE there is fire in theaters. OF COURSE there is child porn, terrorism, and copyright violations.

But NOT EVERY ONE of those anecdotal situations actually happen very often in real life.

CAPICE?????

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[Logic and Reason]

It's pretty funny that you link to an explanation of a word most English speakers already know, and spell it wrong in the process.

Re:Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is, we keep seeing (2) as an exception to free speech.

It is not a "free speech" issue but it is brought up by people attacking free speech because they are trying to confuse the issue. You can say "Kill him!" in the play you are performing. You can say "Kill him!" to a professional wrestler in the context of a match. You can even say "Kill him!" to your thug underling standing ready to kill a potential informant. None of these are "free speech" issues but one of these is murder which the first amendment does not excuse. Whenever people bring up "fire!" to attack free speech, it is a good bet they mask or do not understand their true motives.

targeting database made easy

[hAckz0r]

In other news, kim jong il orders the immediate start of a brand new National North Korean fire control system which applies state of the art AI image processing to the Google Maps/Earth databases in order to identify all blurred image regions. He was overheard saying "No need to even aim the missiles any more, this completely automated approach can continue shooting even after the very last rice patty is scorched and vaporized.". When the rice patty farm workers themselves were asked about the new situation all they said was 'no comment'.

Re:targeting database made easy

[PitaBred]

A patty is what a hamburger is. Perhaps you meant paddy?

Re:targeting database made easy

[MrKaos]

in order to identify all blurred image regions

While this is a funny comment, this is actually what this does. It whittles down the targets and makes selection easier.

Re:targeting database made easy

[hAckz0r]

Very very true. I was trying to state exactly how absurd the reasoning was for doing the blurring in the first place. I understand the science clearly and quite frankly this concept scares me. A high school student could download and employ a similar image recognition on a publicly known image database, such as Google, and publish all the US target vulnerabilities in less than a days time, base solely on where the images have been 'doctored' up. There are already many available libraries/programs which will identify regions of an image which have been changed/modified. Without the proper statistical image map adjustments necessary to cover up such changes this would be point out what we are thinking that we are trying to hide. Its harder to hide them than to find them. Great work has been accomplished with recognising steganography and other methods of manual image manipulation for the very purposes of identifying those modifications. Making these changes to our countries published image maps could be painting one great big bullseye on all the places that matter most. Unfortunately, Congress never understands the technology that they mandate until it is pointed out to them by some covert INTEL on the other side of the fence. Pretty soon I would expect some three letter agency to knocking them up side the head and say 'wake up', how stupid is this?!!!

Re:targeting database made easy

[MrKaos]

Congress never understands the technology that they mandate

Unfortunately, as the political system make us victims of their great consequence of never being wrong, the likely out come is they would layer this stupidity with an even greater stupidity.

The establishment is the contrived, controlling voice imposed on our subjugated sleeping world, attempting to comfort us. For once in human history the net lets humanity speak. It's almost like the world is finding it's voice, testing it, and today, trying to describe itself. I'd imagine the status quo doing everything it can to silence that voice, even if it doesn't realise what it is.

Better watch out...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you make non-blurry maps illegal then only criminals will have non-blurry maps :-)

Here's his contact info

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Explain to him the error of his ways:

DISTRICT OFFICE
500 Fesler Street, Suite 201
El Cajon, CA 92020
(619) 441-2322, (619) 441-2327 fax

CAPITOL OFFICE
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 319-2077, (916) 319-2177 fax

email him At His Feedback Page

He's dork from the exurbs of San Diego. So be firm but polite.

Re:Here's his contact info

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain to him the error of his ways:

DISTRICT OFFICE
500 Fesler Street, Suite 201
El Cajon, CA 92020

...oh, and in case you're interested, here's what the top of his building looks like.

Legitmate purposes.

[Anachragnome]

My mother has recently been using Google Earth to look at the surrounding neighborhoods when considering houses to purchase for a planned move to my area.

I have to wonder what people will think when they see an area with all these blurred out areas.

Are they resources (schools, churches, government offices) or are they TERRORIST TARGETS? What is that blur at the end of the street? A toxic waste incinerator, or a library?

To be honest, I think this is all to promote a veil of secrecy from which our elected officials can hide things from US, not terrorists.

Re:Legitmate purposes.

[hguorbray]

Ditto,

I've also used it to find tennis courts when on vacation and things like that. Tennis courts are pretty easy to spot, unfortunately they're locked half the time and you can't determine that from the satellite (Maybe with Street view?)

'I'm just saying

Fire?

[owlnation]

I don't know about shouting "fire", but I do know that calling on Google to blur public buildings is the same as crying "WOLF!".

We need to ban phone books

[BoberFett]

Terrorists use Google Maps to look for targets? If they're looking for schools couldn't they just use, I don't know, the phone book? What does the detail level of the image have to do with anything?

The Internet was safer 20 years ago.

[ACMENEWSLLC]

Perhaps we just need to turn this Internet thingy off? Things would be safer without it. Damned progress.

Think about it like this...

[sempiterna]

Think about it. Terrorists have a very large supply of money. It would not be out of the question to go take your own damned pictures. Renting a cessna with a Plexiglas bottom for aerial photography only $150 an hour. If you can fly it yourself, $90 an hour. Obscuring online imagery sites will do absolutely nothing and this is just another reason why we should have sanity tests and age limits on politicians.

Re:Think about it like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

We must hobble organic lenses!

Cataracts for all!

Re:Think about it like this...

[CodeBuster]

just another reason why we should have sanity tests and age limits on politicians.

Apparently they don't help much if our current slate of politicians are anything to go by.

Re:Think about it like this...

[stephanruby]

Well technically, the terrorists that have been targeting schools in the US are usually the students themselves. So it's really the students you have to watch out for, don't let them memorize the layout of their schools. Blindfold them and hood them between classes. Chain them up together, so that you don't let one be able to go on a reconnaissance mission. Let the security guards lead them in and out of the school. Move furniture around and walls to keep them guessing. Remove all campus maps from the premises, especially those "Fire Exit" maps on all the doors, I don't have to tell you, those are the worse.

Re:Think about it like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the area they want to fly over is restricted, they will get shot down. Satellites can avoid that.

Re:Think about it like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on brother! Every single teachers meeting I bring these ideas up with the rest of staff. Yet they constantly get voted down. "blindfolding and hooding the students is cruel" they say, Pfff! The world is going soft, being chained to the wall between classes never hurt us as children.

I just don't know why I'm meeting such resistance in introducing such obviously necessary changes. Every parent I've talked to loves the ideas, good for discipline they think.

Re:Think about it like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh that's right. I forgot about the no-fly zone above the local high school.

Reminds me of a joke

[MarkGriz]

If pro is the opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress?

Sympathy for the Devil?

[sampson7]

I have some sympathy for the idiot proposing this legislation. Why does a people need clear satelite images of a school campus? How about a critical electric switchyard or natural gas facility? How about a large dam? How about a nuclear power plant?

The safety of critical energy infrastructure, using an example I happen to be familiar with, is a real issue and there is no doubt in my mind that Google Earth would make it easier for a terrorist. Want to black out a city? Detroy a dam? The first thing that I would do would be to study the project via Googe Earth. Sure, some detailed information is publicly available or on the internet, but a lot of has at least a veneer of confidentiality and particularly after 9-11 has been removed from the internet. It's not a coincidence that large power plants (which includes dams, nukes, etc.) tend to be out in the middle of nowhere. It is not inconceivable that someone doing physical reconisance of such a facility would be spotted prior to carrying out an attack. With Google Earth, you can do much of your work with publicly available and non-traceable data sets.

Do I support this legislation? No. I think on balance, the public's legitimate interests outweigh the fear-mongering. But do I think he has a valid point? Hmm... I think he might. I would challenge the geeks on /. to take on the substance of what his proposing. What are the legitimate uses of this technology when it comes to damns, power plants, switchyards, etc.? I look at them from time to time because they come up from as part of my job. It's cool to be able to "see" the power plant you're writing about. But does my interest in assuaging my curiosity outweigh the potential harm to the public if this information is mis-used? I'm not convinced it is.

On a personal note, I hate it when an idiot is somehow proclaimed as a spokesperson for an entire cause. Both conservatives and liberals do it -- and it really should stop. This particular guys is at best non-articulate in the defense of his legislation, and at worst a blithering idiot. It's tempting to discount the ideas he advances because of his idiocy -- but I think we would do a better job protecting the First Amendment and privacy if we address the substance of his ideas... and then make fun of him.

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[Fierlo]

I really doubt that a snapshot from a satellite of nuclear plant would increase risks. I mean, come on... it's not like their locations are secret to begin with. What would you gain from seeing the satellite image? You could see... a concrete dome. Fascinating. Lots of utilities have pictures of their nuclear plants available online.

Also, not all large power plants are out in the middle of nowhere. Three Mile Island isn't too isolated. Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (Google Maps link) is in a reasonably populated area, just outside of Toronto.

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[maxume]

I visited a big damn last fall. One that would flood a huge area. There were telescopes at the visitors center.

The 'need' for the info isn't the only issue, the cost of managing the blackout (and administering fines) are also huge considerations.

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a people need clear satelite images of a school campus?

I work for a large school district and use those images to accurately and effectively dispatch maintenance personnel to effect repairs. We have paper blueprints, but our district has over a thousand sites. Google maps has been a great boon to us. This Anderson jackass would have us throw away a valuable tool we currently use to prevent it's use by imaginary terrorists.

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[joe_frisch]

It is true that high resolution images pose some risk: terrorists might be able to use the images to plan more effective attacks, for instance through GPS guided weapons. BUT - almost any useful technology can be used to do harm. It is difficult to think of a technological advance that can't: Fire -> burn villages, Wheel -> war charriots, Metal -> swords, nuclear power -> nuclear weapons, genetic engineering -> engineered diseases. Whether we allow technologies to the public depends on the risk. In this case, the total damage from terrorist attacks in the US is very small - and as far as we can tell, none of it was related to high resolution maps. Why do we feel the need to fix this particular problem?

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a note, landscape architects and urban planners use Google Earth - and sat imagery in general - plenty, including switch-yards, power plants, dams, waste treatment plants, dumps, recycling centers, transit hubs, freeway overpasses, etc. etc. for urban development and visualizing environmental impact (as well as a host of other reasons). So yes, more than just curiosity.

Finding power plants, schools, government buildings, etc. through other means takes more time, so what's really being argued is making the "lowest hanging fruit" just a little bit harder to grasp. Hard enough to require removing such a tool for professionals, hobbyists, and the general public? I'm not convinced the reward justifies the effort.

Re:Sympathy for the Devil?

[Anonymous Coward]

"With Google Earth, you can do much of your work with publicly available and non-traceable data sets."

You can already do this. Buy topographic maps. No, that's too traceable? Go to a university library and use topographic maps and air photos (they often have collections if they have a geography department). Don't have what you need? Visit the USGS and look at their vast collections of maps and air photos in their library. It's slower, but there is no real obstacle to people getting whatever aerial photography information they want, either by traditional methods (pre-Internet) or on the Internet.

The guy is an idiot if he thinks restricting Google Earth in any way would stop bad people from getting the information they wanted, because people have been getting the same information by other means for decades prior to Google Earth's existence. Google Earth only makes it easier and free. Blur Google Earth? Well, they better blur Terraserver too. And blur every map and air photo every produced by commercial or government agencies.

What's the point of encumbering everyone else with a stupid and ineffective law? The bad guys will make do with whatever information they can get and the chances of getting caught are very, very slim. Worst case, they drive around until they find a church, government building, or school and hope for the best.

There's no good reason for unblurred imagery? Did this Anderson guy never look at a map or image for the sake of curiosity? I have sympathy for this guy only because he is living in so much fear that he has become irrational. I suppose he wants his house blurred out too, he being a legislator.

And the best part about this scheme is the fact that once it is implemented the terrorists will know exactly where the choice targets are located: in the blurry spots.

School Maps are Useful!

[duk242]

I work in a school, we sometimes use images from Google Maps to say "Here's what our school looks like from above" as well as occasionally showing kids how maps work. Not to mention if I'm going to other schools, I google map it to work out how to get there :) I don't know what this guy is thinking >.

How about

[Shivetya]

I paid for them I want to see my investments.

Whats next, hiding their grades too? Oh, wait some schools essentially do that.

I know his reason, but just because we are embarrassed by the state of our public education doesn't mean we need to hide the buildings too :)

Learning from the Soviets.

[Anachragnome]

An excerpt from Wikipedia...

"Soviet Maskirovka

An example of huge-scale maskirovka in the Soviet Union was false maps, with distorted locations of settlements, road forks, river shapes, etc. Public transportation maps of cities, while showing correct interaction of traffic routes, were distorted in general appearance.[2] What is more striking is that distance indicators on highway road signs gave false numbers. All this was supposed to confuse a potential invader."

The only problem was that it also created the exact same confusion amongst the residents of Soviet Russia. But then, that was probably an intended effect as well.

Bet I know what happened...

[Anonymous Coward]

He had his car parked out in front of a gay bar last time the satellite went over, and now he's trying to figure out how to hide the evidence.

The full text of the legislation will presumably

[RevWaldo]

The full text of the legislation will presumably require the blurring out of schools, churches, government buildings...

...and the residences of government officials.

He's absolutely right

[nsayer]

If I take off my glasses, all the bugs in my code go away.

aren't they

[ca111a]

blurry enough already?

I never understood blurring.

[Anonymous Coward]

From up there, you can sometimes hardly tell if a building is a church, school, strip mall, small plant, or govt bldg. Once you blur, you tell everyone it is something important, especially outsiders.

People who already live in said city know what that bldg is anyways. People looking to cause harm, merely have to look for blurry spots to have their suspicions confirmed.

Fire him

[Digital Vomit]

When a high ranking public servant says something this monumentally stupid, it should be grounds for an immediate investigation into his ability to properly carry out his duties.

The fact that idiots like this get into positions of power is bad enough; what's worse is that people keep the idiots in power after they outed themselves.

Blurring buildings will have the opposite effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely have certain buildings blurred when the surrounding buildings are unobscured will make them more of a target to potential terrorists?

"Ooo.. this building is blurred: it must be a great target"

Shouting "terrorism" in this day and age is tantamount to yelling "fire": it gets all those government types (as well as the public who don't know any better) into a panic. People who panic tend to make stupid decisions.

Bad idea for the same reason as profiling

[drinkypoo]

Doing this is going to reduce security. Want a high-profile bomb target? Just look for anything blurred! If it's blurred, it must be worth bombing! And the bomber won't even know until they arrive at the location that it's a school! THIS PLAN IS PERFECT!

Has anybody bothered...?

[rcrodgers]

Has any body bothered to point out to the nice Californian Representative that blurring the picture would be pointless because it would give a potential terrorist points of interest? Publicly requesting these items to be blurred because they could be threatened and then looking at the map will do nothing but make it easier to find them.

Tell me Mr Anderson

[Megahard]

How can you yell Fire when you have no mouth?

Why not simply blur out the whole USA

[thewils]

Seems to me that the "free" part of the "Land of the free" is getting blurrier by the minute.

I've never been happy with the "fire" thing.

[91degrees]

Falsely shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theatre. It's an age old example of a limitation of free speech from a Supreme court absolutely desperate to find a limitation on free speech. The argument was hokum. If you yell fire, then you may be ignored, or there will be an orderly exit of patrons. If you cause harm, then those to whom harm was caused will, of course, be able to sue you for damages. I guess if you do so with the intent to cause harm, criminal charges should be brought but there never seems to be any indication that this is the idea, but that's about causing harm. Not about the speech.

Even if we assume that it is so dangerous that we must apply prior restraint, this argument was initially used as justification to stop legitimate free speech. It was used as an argument against distributing flyers opposing American involvement in the First World War.

Re:I've never been happy with the "fire" thing.

[sexconker]

Correct.
Also, mega bonus points for using the word "hokum".

Speech must be free.
You must be responsible for the consequences of your speech, but your right to free speech must never be infringed upon.

Re:I've never been happy with the "fire" thing.

[DavidTC]

Bingo. People need to stop using this example. It was an absurd attempt to find some justification to limit free speech, and is not actually against the law, and thus any hypothetical law has never actually been tested in court.

Causing a panic, of course, is illegal. Which has nothing to do with speech at all..you could cause a panic by actually lighting something on fire if you wanted. Or whatever.

If you applied that sort of logic to the 2nd amendment, the example would be 'bearing arms with the intent to kill someone', which, of course, isn't illegal...taking actions intending to kill someone is illegal (As that is murder, or attempted murder), and the 2nd amendment is irrelevant to that.

Likewise, 'speech with the intent to cause a panic' is not illegal, intending to cause a panic via any means is illegal, or at least can be.

Just because the government can't ban X doesn't mean they can't ban Y, even if you do it via X. They can ban murder even if you do it via constitutional protected gun ownership, and likewise they can ban panics even if you do it via constitutional protected ability to say what you want.

However, there's a difference between that and banning X because you're doing Y with it, which they can't do. And often the 'shouting fire' is brought up exactly to confuse this difference.

Re:I've never been happy with the "fire" thing.

[BradleyUffner]

. If you cause harm, then those to whom harm was caused will, of course, be able to sue you for damages.

Except for the ones that, you know, died.

Re:I've never been happy with the "fire" thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yell fire all you want. The original case was largely overturned.

Mod parent up!

[John Hasler]

I've thought likewise for years.

So Nice to Live in the USA

[Greyfox]

Where anyone, regardless of race, creed, color or ability can aspire to a life of high-profile public servitude.

Agreed.

[sexconker]

And just like yelling fire, there is nothing wrong with it, and no one should prevent you.

Doing bad things with it will get you in trouble, sure. Just like yelling fire.

If i were a terrorist....

[evolx10]

Honestly if i were planning something, how much info could i really receive from a semi detailed and probably outdated image. what if the building was slated for demolition, and the google image is 3 months old. Ohh sorry Danny the terrorist you cant blow yourself up here, its a parking lot now. A child with a barbie usb camera can gather Danny the terrorist more usable intel than googl's sky eyes. Caution must be used though, evil Danny may use Google to determine the roof tile colors, and whether the front entrance faces, Toluene Ave or Morgan Blvd.

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

[russotto]

The original "fire in a crowded theater" case didn't concern a fictional proclaimed conflagration in a movie-house. It concerned people who were producing and distributing to potential draftees pamphlets asserting that the draft was a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment of the US Constitution (which is is, but that's another issue). The stretch Oliver Wendell Holmes had to use to get from "fire in a crowded theatre" to "pamphleting against the draft" is no greater than the stretch this Assemblyman is attempting. So yes, it's ridiculous... but it's ridiculous with precedent.

Re:FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

[mkarcher]

So yes, it's ridiculous... but it's ridiculous with precedent.

That's the worst kind of ridiculous.

The Irony

[negatonium]

By presenting a situation that in and of itself is not dangerous (clear maps) but presenting it as an imminent danger to life and limb, isn't the honorable Mr. Anderson doing exactly what he claims to want to prevent?

Blurred buildings ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to thank the gouverment (or those idiots forming it) for marking the important targets that clearly (sic). Now all that has to be done is to exclude all clearly visible areas, and the points-of-intrest will stand out quite nicely.

On another avenue, thank you for being inconsiderate to any person that could be a high-value target but is not a gouverment-related person. Somehow I thought it was the gouverments task to protect us instead for only looking out for themselves (shows you how gullible I am/the gouverment thinks I am).

Assemblyman Joel Anderson's push to force Google and other online mapping/satellite companies to blur out schools, churches, and government buildings

Lets guess : his (Joel Anderson's) home is ofcourse one of those "gouverment buildings" that should be blurred-out ?

The great neon sign...

[Phobos23]

So let me get this straight, he wants to protect these places that are obviously of more value than say, my house or my family's house by making them immediately obvious on a map?

What will this prevent? "You know Osama, I just think we're in the wrong place. See the building is all fuzzy on this picture, and that one looks normal! I'm just so confused!"

In the end, by altering the image of potential targets, you only make them more obvious.

What about my house?

[Anonymous Coward]

He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes.

I don't think there's any good reason for anyone to want to clearly see my house either, so can I petition to have it blurred as well?

Upside to 'satellite' imagery vis-a-vis schools

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually did some consulting work with a roofing inspection company last summer. They had to inspect the roofs of some 25 schools. It was exceedingly helpful to use the overhead imagery of the school buildings to generate a preliminary map of the roof sections of each school to give to the inspectors before they went out for an on-site inspection. In this respect, google maps is providing a service to expedite the maintenance of our public infrastructure.

I would think that phone book would be a more helpful source of location information for bad guys out to do mischeif.

Shhhh, lets not tell him about telephone books

[ydra2]

Child molesters could lookup schools or daycare centers in phonebooks and just drive right up and snatch them off the street. Oh wait... that already happens.

Well what else can we demonize? High school bake sale notices in the supermarket? Yeah, thats that one's golden, and car washes too, with those young high school girls.

But here's a brain teaser. Try to think of anything that isn't terrorist bait nowdays.

NOT just harmless idiocy

[Logic and Reason]

"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
--Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Librarian's Preface" [Alpha Centauri]

Fitting choice of words

[sbayless]

I just can't help but observe that the congressman is, himself, shouting fire in an attempt to incite panic.

What they don't want you to do

[sean4u]

I'd never done anything with Google Maps other than look for my house on it - until recently. Too few people are wondering why so few people are in the dock for the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu. I read one blogger asking where and when a photo of her was taken, and it seems like detailed overhead imagery is exactly what concerned citizens need:

http://isono.my/2009/03/where-in-the-world-was-altantuya/

As a citizen (temporarily living overseas) of the United Kingdom of Cameras and Background Checks, I would be almost happy to have my life captured by cameras, if the data was completely public.

Re:What they don't want you to do

[rtb61]

I actually like to cruise down streets in differing locations on street view, get a feel for the state of the infrastructure, check out architectural differences, get a feel for city planning ie. see new and interesting places with out all the hassle or cost of actually going there.

This particular poly (doesn't deserve a cracker) is just trying to get attention, just think about it, it is public space, you can just walk, ride or drive past it. What's next, if is is blurred in street view and google maps you must also obtain a special permit to walk or drive past the structure, and if you dare to take a photo you'll prosecuted for the illegal collection of protected photons. How about if you share a boundary with those special structures, black out all your windows facing them, perhaps banished from you own yard lest you accidentally look at them and will it just be made illegal for you to own a camera because you might take a non-blurry photo.

The idea is just grand standing combined with a element stupidity.

Stupid Idea

[rdebath]

I used Google Earth to print out nice images when I went to do Jury service. It meant I could use public transport to get there and actually reduced the costs as I didn't have to either (1) drive my car and park it at an extortionate rate every day or (2) take a taxi at the same kind of cost. Instead I was able to see an alley and a walking bridge across the river that was just a dotted line on a normal map.

This was a DIRECT cost, I expect there will be many indirect costs.

No More Public Watchdogging of Industry

[Anonymous Coward]

This bill would also result in taking away a watchdog group's ability to monitor the physical activities of industry. They would not be able to monitor if unpermitted smokestacks, tanks or wastefields were built.

This is a hugely negative consequence of this bill. The assembly person who wrote it should be ashamed.

So, what if I need to find a church?

[JSBiff]

Ok, so what about people who really need to find those public buildings? Maybe I'm going to a friend's or relative's wedding in a town I'm not familiar with. . .

"Honey, let's see, it looks like from Google maps, we can get there by taking I-193 to the Goshen Ave exit. Go East about a mile, turn left at Washington Blvd, follow that North for 1/2 mile until you come to Elm St. Stay on Washington, but look for the third blur on the left after Elm."

This guy's clueless

[RogueWarrior65]

Typical reactionary politician. These people know less than nothing about technology and military/police tactics yet they are zealously convinced that only THEY have all the answers. Bollocks. It's these same people who magically endow firearms with the ability to go off against common sense reason and kill an entire school. Any concept can simultaneously be used for both good and bad. Sure, the whack-job and the terrorist can use a gun to kill. But the hero can also use one to stop them. And if you think that job should be left to the police, re-read what I just wrote and think "Brown Shirts".

Geocaching is a terrorist training program

[stalker145]

Funny thing... maybe we should outlaw caching. The way I see it, GeoCaching is an excellent training tool for terrorist cells and a far better recruitment technique than any I have seen to date. 1. Jump on www.geocaching.com and look for cachers with a high find rate. 2. recruit them into a subversive terrorist cell. 3. Terrorize society. Cachers must routinely find hides that are in the open of public view without being noticed. Yup, they're evil. DISCLAIMER: I am a cacher as well, so please don't flame me for my statement unless you want me to point and laugh at you.

Republican pol has dumb idea. What else is new?

[echtertyp]

love it.

Fighting fires

[nbauman]

Why does a people need clear satellite images of a school campus?

The fire department fighting fires. Emergency services generally.

Mr. Andderson is Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only will blurring images make us safer, but blurring all those images will make the environment cleaner, provide an economic stimulus and stop music and video piracy. It will also eliminate drug and alcohol abuse and obviate the need for abortions. It will balance the California budget and eliminate homelessness and spousal abuse.

Give the man some credit!

That certainly simplifies targeting...

[Reziac]

... since now anyone with nefarious goals can simply look for blurred spots on any satellite view, and conclude that the blur is a target. No need for any further data.

Wait till he see's this story.

[Belteshazzar]

I'm sure we'll be hearing about this soon.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/16/lead_roof_thief/