Comments on: Current Event: California Politician Wants All Satellite Imagery of Schools, Churches, and Government Buildings to Be ‘Blurred’ http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/2009/03/13/current-event-california-politician-wants-all-satellite-imagery-of-schools-churches-and-government-buildings-to-be-%e2%80%98blurred%e2%80%99/ Mon, 25 May 2009 11:35:08 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Evil Rocks http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/2009/03/13/current-event-california-politician-wants-all-satellite-imagery-of-schools-churches-and-government-buildings-to-be-%e2%80%98blurred%e2%80%99/comment-page-1/#comment-8285 Evil Rocks Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:16:45 +0000 http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/?p=1261#comment-8285 In other words, it's okay for your local government to collect and store as much data on citizens as their exponentially expanding storage media can hold but lord forfend that private citizens have ANY ANY ANY data EVER about government activities, buildings or said data collection programs. Autocracies -> Representational Autocracies -> Observational Autocracies In other words, it’s okay for your local government to collect and store as much data on citizens as their exponentially expanding storage media can hold but lord forfend that private citizens have ANY ANY ANY data EVER about government activities, buildings or said data collection programs.

Autocracies -> Representational Autocracies -> Observational Autocracies

]]> By: jap24 http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/2009/03/13/current-event-california-politician-wants-all-satellite-imagery-of-schools-churches-and-government-buildings-to-be-%e2%80%98blurred%e2%80%99/comment-page-1/#comment-8217 jap24 Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:59:42 +0000 http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/?p=1261#comment-8217 If Google had to get permission from each property owner before showing any of his property online, then they wouldn't have anything on Google Earth except for the ocean and wilderness. While those can be very pretty, having views of those unpopulated or inaccessible areas is not particularly useful. Besides that, you don't need to be getting permission from property owners to show images of their property in other cases; imagine if you took a picture of the city skyline and you wanted to post it online, but first you had to track down the owners of all the buildings in the picture and ask for their permission first. It's not remotely practical, and it limits the usefulness of applications like Google Earth too severely. The idea that only "bad people" would want to use Google Earth's high detail images is ridiculous. (Unless all of Google Earth's users are bad people? Maybe Assemblyman Anderson should call for their arrest just to be safe.) In addition to simply being viewed for pleasure, the images can also be used as maps. If Google had to get permission from each property owner before showing any of his property online, then they wouldn’t have anything on Google Earth except for the ocean and wilderness. While those can be very pretty, having views of those unpopulated or inaccessible areas is not particularly useful. Besides that, you don’t need to be getting permission from property owners to show images of their property in other cases; imagine if you took a picture of the city skyline and you wanted to post it online, but first you had to track down the owners of all the buildings in the picture and ask for their permission first. It’s not remotely practical, and it limits the usefulness of applications like Google Earth too severely.

The idea that only “bad people” would want to use Google Earth’s high detail images is ridiculous. (Unless all of Google Earth’s users are bad people? Maybe Assemblyman Anderson should call for their arrest just to be safe.) In addition to simply being viewed for pleasure, the images can also be used as maps.

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