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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."
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/
-mls
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.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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?
/. 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.
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
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.
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.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
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.
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.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
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.