California lawmaker wants to blur Google Earth. Could GPS be targetted next?

Perhaps he's following the example of former Vice President Dick Cheney.....

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/what-is-google.html

This is censorship and should be challenged, if passed.

Don't these people have other things to do?

Who votes for these idiots. Has he ever look at the map programs of other countries? They have the same detail as the US. I agree this would be censorship but think about where it is coming from and the financial problems in CA. This could be a way for CA to collect money at 250K a shot.

what is wrong with these people. there are more important things for him to worry about.

A couple of years ago Google got sued over photoing up a driveway that had a "Private Road" sign posted. Google lost and removed the driveway from public view. The "private road" seems reasonable but then what about an aerial view?

Another situation in my state (TX) is the county appraisal districts have photoed the front of every house (as viewed from the public street) and made the photos available on the Internet. Our stupid lawmakers forced all districts to remove all photos from view on the Internet.

Any view from a public road should not be blocked or blurred from public view in my opinion.

Kind of odd to propose something like that while only a limited group in government have access to all of those street cameras they've been putting up everywhere.

tax dollars at work... seems they could tackle some more pressing issues.

Why not take it a step further and truly limit the level of detail available? Let's allow no more road names or address numbers, in the name of safety and privacy.

Let's ban stupid assemblymen.

Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren't Allowed to See on Google Maps, some have been cleared.

http://www.itsecurity.com/features/51-things-not-on-google-m...

:(|)

Hey, they need to come up with more fines to help this budget.

California has always been full of nuts. Thank God I don't have to live there.

I'm thanking God you don't have to live here either....

Second that!

The key words are California Assemblyman.

Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, it was a "sent to Siberia" offense for ordinary civilians to possess an accurate paper map of Moscow. Seems the Sovietski leadershipski wanted any invader to have to stop and ask for directions.

Maybe the Assemblyman could take a page from that era. Why stop at GPS/satellite imagery? Turn the map rack at every 7-11 into a crime scene. Unless, of course, the maps are inaccurate and misleading. Then they're off the hook.

Maybe Joel has something to hide on his property.

Some Assemblyman has way too much free time.

Perhaps he should go hunting with former Vice President Dick Cheney.

If we ban stupid assemblyman, then who is going to attend the assembly meetings? There will only be about 10 percent of the assemblymen left.

Just goes to prove you really don't need them after all.

I truly expected better from Californians. If lawmakers in liberal CA are so stupid, what would you expect from some other states...

Maybe Cheney should move to CA

They should fine those who use it.
Tool would not do the job.
It is people use the tool to do it.

Halliburton/Cheney already moved to Dubai.

david

I really hope that don't blur google earth. That's retarded. What an idiot. I think the California is full of stupid Lawmakers.

And to think that he got more votes than his opponent. I would assume his opponent must have been dumber than two boxes of rocks.

this might get more traction if they just blur the naughty bits, or put pasties over them.

I work for a government agency. I can assure you that brilliance is not the norm........

i will reserve my thoughts on that being that it would open up a big controversy.

Just another reason to dislike California.

Hi,

California has nothing to do with it. Just some politician that has nothing better to do.

Amazing, with everything wrong in the world, I find it troublesome that someone elected into office actually has nothing better to do than ban quality imagery from Google Earth.

If that's what this politician believes is important in today's time of crisis, I think its time he stepped down from office.

Mike

It was less than 10 years ago that GPSr for civilian use, was saddled with a thing called "selective availability" aka SA.

It diluted the accuracy of civilian GPS while allowing the military to have much greater precision for targeting things like smart bombs and guided munitions.

SA was removed from civilian GPS use only about 10 years ago and there are still lots of (paranoid) folks who think that was a mistake.

I am sure the military still has tricks up its sleeve with GPS that we civilians haven't begun to dream of: i.e.
"Soldier! Fire that missile right up that terrorist's nose!"
"Sir!! Which nostril?"

National security, of necessity, restricts certain "liberties" in order to protect "freedom." But privacy? Get over it, Assemblyman. Real privacy doesn't exist any more. The only people who have real privacy in this world are those untouched or unreached by communications technology.

I wonder if Joel plans to ban the arial photos that code enforcement and city zoning departments use???? I know one SMALL city here has them going back to at least 1948. The city of Sanford Florida told a friend of mine to clear cut his heavily wooded lot and he tried to fight them. But according to local zoning laws if a lot has ever been cleared then you have to keep it cleared. He has lived in this city since the 1950s and said that the lot had always been wooded but he lost because the city found an old arial survey from 1948 that showed it cleared. However even at that time (1948) it already had large woody plants taking it over so it hadn't been farmed in a number of years.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.

Dadgum gubmint needs to get out of my hair.

Good point. In my job I have to look at properties my employer insures, and I frequently include an aerial view from the local tax database. They are often much more detailed that what Google Earth shows.

I don't think I'd worry about what some knucklehead from California has to say, Arizona is just one more good quake from being the West Coast.

If you want to care about something some nutcase in California is saying, pay attention to that Nazi Sheriff in Orange County, she is on the verge of taking your 2nd Amendment rights away. That's how they work, they start with one of them, the most important one, the one that helps you defend yourself from them taking the rest of them, and continue until you have zilch.

Some people are idiots.

Oh how correct you are. I have never meet a group of people with less common sense than those that make a career of politics. I can say I have meet a large enough segment of the group to make this judgment with a very high degree of confidence.