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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

Seriously people...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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

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.

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...

[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...

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.

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."

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/

Ya, I learned the hard way...

[tobiah]

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

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.

Counterargument

[Gat0r30y]

The only possible purpose for censorship is evil.

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.

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.

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...

[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.

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.