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

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: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: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.