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Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools

Posted by samzenpus on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

Officials in Riverhead, New York are using Google Earth to root out the owners of unlicensed pools. So far they've found 250 illegal pools and collected $75,000 in fines and fees. Of course not everyone thinks that a city should be spending time looking at aerial pictures of backyards. from the article: "Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC, said Google Earth was promoted as an aid to curious travelers but has become a tool for cash-hungry local governments. 'The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms,' she said."

15 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. They collected $75,000... by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but how much did it cost?

    --


    "Lame" - Galaxar
    1. Re:They collected $75,000... by Volante3192 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A swimming pool is a massive adjustment to the landscape, involving excavation multiple feet down. You don't know what pipes or wires might be down there. And what if you're on a hill and it breaks because it wasn't properly made, causing a landslide?

      Note, by the way, in the BODY of the article, the word 'license' never shows up. Instead they use variations on 'permit' which sounds much more logical. If you want a pool, you get an inspector, they ensure there's no rogue wiring or geographic problems, they tell the city, then you get your zone permitted to install a pool.

    2. Re:They collected $75,000... by jythie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Normally in cases like this the licensee fee (in theory at least) goes towards the local inspection framework. In most areas you need to have pools inspected so they meet both construction and safety guidelines.

      Much of this framework also comes from the assumption that one will not hold onto their property indefinitely.. and thus the next owners are assured that things were properly constructed to within certain guidelines. In the case of a pool this can be important since much of that information disappears once the pool is complete and a new owner can not verify without basically tearing up the pool again. Same with many of the regulations regarding home construction... without inspection and permits you really do not know if a house was built correctly without tearing into parts of it.

    3. Re:They collected $75,000... by nomadic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A common myth that public sector employees believe so that they don't feel bad about agitating for automatic raises.

      You are really comparing ALL workers in the private industry--including Wal-Mart greeters, janitorial staff, part-time construction workers, farm workers, etc.--against public industry employees who probably skew heavily towards college-educated? Why would you think this is a valid comparison?

    4. Re:They collected $75,000... by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, they would just lie. Like they already do about flooding.

    5. Re:They collected $75,000... by dsoltesz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Since using aerial photography to spot permit violations (construction w/o a permit) is an common activity that's been going on for a very long time, municipalities are actually saving money by using freely available data instead of buying it, paying for overflights, paying for image processing and mosaicking, paying for software that can do all this, etc. Since Google provides data collected from previous years, folks doing the work can easily do a temporal change comparison to spot new construction. Brilliant way to work on a shoestring budget... of course, I don't have an illegal pool.

    6. Re:They collected $75,000... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>>government employees typically have salaries a good bit below that in the private sector

      My engineering job with the FAA was the highest-paying job I've ever had ($55/hour). My second highest commercial/government contractor job was $7 an hour lower.

      I also made note that most of the government employees didn't actually do much work (surfing the net instead). It struck me that this FAA building's sole purpose was probably to help the Congressman/Senator get reelected every few years..... i.e. white collar welfare. In the private sector the building would have been closed and/or 75% of the staff laid off to more accurately match the human resources to the workload.

      Government is more efficient? Hardly.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    7. Re:They collected $75,000... by SpeZek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What gives me the right to tell you what you can do over there, presuming you're not poisoning my grass or shining a 10 kw laser though my living room?

      Because we all live in a club, called "society", where we make certain sacrifices to personal freedom to help everybody. As a society, we've decided that you can't be a jerkass by building unsightly properties next to others, because it takes too much away from property values and deprives others' of their own enjoyment of their property. As a society, we've decided that you should need a permit to build a pool, because it needs to meet certain standards that aim to keep others safe. You enjoy the services that society gives you, like the right to own your own property, so society expects you to play by the rules.

    8. Re:They collected $75,000... by NiceGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I love the libertarian answer for everything. Of course that answer doesn't prevent the problems from occurring or stop preventable deaths.

      Why don't we go ahead and trash the food safety regulations too? After a couple dozen deaths from E.coli the affected restaurant will be out business.

    9. Re:They collected $75,000... by The+Spoonman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm one of those crackpots that think land ownership should be meaningful

      And not much else...yes, we know. You fail to think critically about things like "improperly installed pools can leak and your neighbor'ss basement" or "are you putting that pool directly under power lines" or " did you bother to make sure there were no gas lines buried under the area you're thinking of putting your pool" or "did you know your property once used a septic tank...which is currently under the area in which you wish to place a pool" or "making sure there's proper fencing with locks to keep the neighbor's kids out of your pool when no one's watching so they don't drown". Yes, I went with the "won't someone please think of the children argument" because there's too many people who feel they should be allowed to be in a society and benefit from it without contributing too much personal responsibility as they do so.

      There's a reason other people call people like you crackpots.

      --
      Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
      http://www.workorspoon.com
  2. This is an appropriate use. by molo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is the government office saving money instead of hiring a plane to fly over the neighborhood and take pictures. Or are you going to say that you have a right to privacy from the air? Get real. A $300 fine ($75,000 / 250) doesn't sound excessive for a permit violation either. Now all those pools also need to be inspected for possible code violations. That is where it might get expensive.

    -molo

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
    1. Re:This is an appropriate use. by Mastadex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree. They are essentially DOING THEIR JOB but with the added efficiency of Google Earth. I don't see a problem here.

      --
      A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
  3. Oh no... by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...the government caught me in the act of doing something illegal using public information that's been available for years now! Bad Big Brother!

    Permits are hard to get around here to do anything though. Which sucks. But if you choose to break the law, you should be aware of the potential consequences and the chance of getting caught. Given the public images of homes it should not be too surprising that something like this would happen eventually.

  4. Talk about google privacy at defcon by socz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The speaker moxie said basically, what the gov't had been trying to do but would never be able to is what google is doing now. To put it in perspective, he asked: "Who do you think knows more about the people of Iran? It's government, or google?"

    So for all the good google does, this is one small way that it hurts some. That's not to say though, that the people who have these pools are innocent. Yes, we're a capitalistic society as many think, but no, you don't pay to have the roads you drive on to be paved, you contribute like everyone else does in small amounts. And without those small amounts almost nothing would be possible as we get much more and further by working together than alone.

    http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-18/dc-18-speakers.html#Marlinspike

    --
    My abilities are only limited by my imagination
  5. Re:Interesting by goodmanj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The tax you paid on the materials for your garage goes to the state, to ensure that you have a working highway and court system so you and the carpenter who built the garage can do business in peace and harmony.

    The tax you pay on the garage every year afterwards goes to the city or county, to ensure that when the garage catches fire, there's a fire department to save the rest of your house and the neighborhood.

    Stop looking at taxes as just "the Man wants my money", and look at what that money gives you.