Google Pulls Map Images At Pentagon's Request 217
Stony Stevenson alerts us to a little mixup in which a Google Street View crew requested and was granted access to a US military base. Images from inside the base (which was not identified in press reports) showed up online, and the Pentagon requested that they be pulled. Google complied within 24 hours. The military has now issued a blanket order to deny such photography requests in the future; for its part Google says the filming crew should never have asked.
I'm trying to discover... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we think there should be street level maps inside military installations on Google Street View?
Whether someone "screwed up" in the meantime, at Google, the installation, or both, is beside the point of whether the imagery should be removed.
The issue of how/why the crew was granted access, whether it was a gated or "open" installation, etc., are all unanswered.
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:2, Insightful)
The asshat that said "Sure Google, film our military installation all you'd like..." is bad.
Pulling it from google is not bad.
I'm pretty sure that's what you meant. I don't think the poster was trying to imply that google pulling it was a bad thing, merely noteworthy that it got shot in the first place.
Re:really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Picture this. You're a gate guard at on a military base. Your instructions are to allow people in with the proper credentials, deny those without, salute officers and be on the lookout for questionable activity. You do this 10-12 hours a day and get absolutely no respect. You see an odd looking contraption in a car that, through the mind-numbing tedium of your job, you may point out to the guy you're working with, but probably aren't going to do any more. Of course, you're supposed to say something, but at this point, you don't give a shit.
Now you're the colonel in charge of security on your base. You never know this happened. You continually tell people they are supposed to report or investigate this kind of thing, but they don't listen to you because their job is 100% useless 99.9% of the time, and identifying the remaining
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I agree this is noteworthy, but the tone of the article is likely to be interpreted by many here as somehow negative; i.e., that a private company is "censoring" content at the request of the "government". Other posters have already said, essentially, "What's the big deal? This is all stuff I can see with my own eyes anyway!" Read through the rest of the posts and see for yourself.
Also, it seems very likely this was an ungated, or open, facility (as many large/urban installations are, which then have other levels of restricted access for controlled areas). Google probably formally asked permission to drive around, was granted it, and was allowed to drive around (since in this type of facility they are streets that are effectively accessible to the public). I find it very unlikely that this was a closed/gated/restricted facility that Google was just granted access to simply by asking. In fact, that is almost certainly NOT the case.
let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
Are citizens less equal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider it a threat that anyone can scout my home for robbery (ie. the best approach and exit) without even driving by.
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hollywood politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ITS NOT CENSORSHIP (Score:3, Insightful)
Just pushing their luck. (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds to me that the guys that were filming just wanted a challenge, see how far they can get waving a "google-film-crew" badge. Or just try for giggles, who knows.
Anyway, it seems to me the military is the erroneous party involved here, if you just let a citizen drive up your base and let them film, something is definatly wrong with your security
Re:ITS NOT CENSORSHIP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are citizens less equal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hollywood politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Google compromising mission statement (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ITS NOT CENSORSHIP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ITS NOT CENSORSHIP (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every scandal in the last 7 years has been accompanied by a chorus from the right telling us that public exposure to incompetence (Walter Reed) or malfeasance (billions of dollars lost to contractors in Iraq) or law breaking (torture and warrantless wiretaps) are giving "aid and comfort" to the enemies. But, it is obvious that the real desire for secrecy is not to protect America but to protect the careers and reputations of the people who fucked up in the first place.
Re:the US military may not be doing its job (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't disagree that there was likely no "national security" reason to take the images down, but think of the long term strategic possibilities or even personal safety concerns. The Presidio of Monterey, for example is an open base. It's where the Defense Language Institute is and all services send their soldiers/airmen/marines/seamen there to learn languages that typically are then used in Intelligence collection of one form or another. Aside from the personal safety of the individual servicemen and women, think of the long term strategic advantage gained by targeting a particular area there. One school perhaps, that covers a particular asian or middle eastern language. You can hamper intelligence collection significantly by one well placed attack.
Sure, it's highly unlikely that someone would do such a thing, but it's certainly a viable target even though it isn't considered such by most folks. Many "open" bases are similar in that they support an infrastructure that is key to the military but not an obvious target.
I don't disagree that our government has lost its sense of decency with respect to oversight and we should try to take some of that back, but denying world-wide access to potential military targets shouldn't be part of that, in my opinion.
CYA (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with that statement, it implies that in non-democracies things should be something other than open.
But your last paragraph is really bad logic. You say that every scandal in the last 7 years of exposure to incompetence, corruption, or illegality has been decried as giving aid and comfort, which is largely true. That's because exposure of bad things does give aid and comfort to our enemies. The argument for exposing them anyway is that it's worth the price. It is incorrect and self-deluding to claim that there is no price to be paid.
But it is not "obvious" that covering for the people who made the mistakes is the real desire for secrecy, since that lumps all three of your categories together. The real desire for secrecy is in fact to hide our inner workings from our foes. Hiding them from ourselves is just a bad side effect that secrecy proponents are willing to accept, while you are not. And it's not the case that all revelations are met with equal cries of disdain from the Right nor glee from the Left. Lumping them all together is useful for creation of a bogeyman, but it's not an accurate picture.
Re:I'm trying to discover... (Score:5, Insightful)
You acknowledge that secrecy and classification systems have a purpose, but then go on to say that "every scandal" in the last "7 years" (interesting choice of timeframe; poilitical much?) have used secrecy arguments as an excuse. You then seem to make the logical leap that any use of secrecy in the last 7 years has been to cover up corruption (and this has never happened at any other time in US history...?).
Consider this: gathering foreign intelligence outside of the United States on non-US Persons has ALWAYS been allowable without any form of court oversight or warrants. As it should be. Now, there are two issues:
1. Some exclusively foreign traffic between foreign individuals can now travel through equipment located physically in the United States. Why should that be off limits? Indeed, if telecommunications operators are willing to assist, we should absolutely leverage the fact that we have direct access to the traffic.
2. Capturing communications of a foreign individual outside of the US -- even if the other end of the conversation ended on US soil or was a US Person -- is also always allowable without court oversight or warrants (however, the identity and conversation content of the US Person may be masked for legal reasons). Again, since warrants protect individuals, why shouldn't telecommunications operators be allowed to voluntary assist in the interception of such traffic via much, much easier means?
Foreign intelligence is a necessity, even for free nations. It always has been. Any denial of this is the denial of reality. The Constitution only applies to US citizens or persons with a legal status within the United States. It does NOT apply to foreign persons outside of the US; any argument that it does flies in the face of the very notion of nation-states, borders, and international relationships. This is precisely why the surveillance of such persons does not require a warrant. In the past, there was no earthly reason to conduct any such surveillance within the United States. Now there is.
I'm not saying taking such surveillance of non-US Persons within the United States' physical borders isn't rife with controversy, much of it valid. But can you see how it's possible for this to not be so clear cut when you just throw out the blanket statement that it's "illegal"? Can you actually envision a scenario in which the Intelligence Community is trying to aggressively leverage all of the foreign SIGINT capability it possibly can given the circumstances? I know that certain folks can only see this as an obvious plot to destroy the Constitution, strip away civil liberties, and create a police state. However, where I live -- aka, the real world -- this was simply an aggressive attempt to make a lot of foreign intelligence collection, especially when one of the endpoints is in the US, a lot more practical. That doesn't mean it's not controversial.
And Walter Reed [wisc.edu]...I try watching the "exposés" on Walter Reed, and you know what? Kill me for saying this, but water damage on some ceiling tiles and peeling paint? Is that really affecting the level of care? This is what people are up in arms about? Granted, there are a wide variety of other problems with military medical care and facilities, but they're not classified.
This isn't to say that secrecy has never been used to cover up for corruption or illegal behavior. But you're making some sweeping statements and coming to conclusions that aren't warranted. There is a compelling national security interest to not have easy-to-use street level photography of US military installations available globally. Basic principles of operational security and defense in depth would easily validate that. Does that mean some
Re:omg facism (Score:3, Insightful)
Dover AFB has always been C-5 focused. The C141s have been/are being put out to pasture, replaced by C17s.