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Clear Public Satellite Imagery Tantamount to Yelling Fire

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the daily-dose-of-unbridled-stupidity dept.

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."

11 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. the real WTF? by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
    1. Re:the real WTF? by netruner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --



      DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
    2. Re:the real WTF? by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
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    3. Re:the real WTF? by redcaboodle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      -- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
    4. Re:the real WTF? by AmigaHeretic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?

  2. Seriously people... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  3. What I'd like to ask him... by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.

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  4. I suppose he would have a point by Gat0r30y · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
  5. Big arrows by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."

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  6. Shouting "FIRE!!!": reality check by mangu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Here's his contact info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.