Public Satellite Imagery and Terrorism

[Rensa]

Oooh, can't wait to see tongues wag over this!
Petition to Bombay High Court says Google Earth aided terrorists in Mumbai attacks
The Daily Telegraph | December 11, 2008 01:29am

POLICE released pictures of the Mumbai terrorists yesterday as an Indian court protested that Google Earth should be banned because it aided their rampage.

A petition entered at the Bombay High Court alleges that the Google Earth service, "aids terrorists in plotting attacks".

Advocate Amit Karkhanis urged the court to direct Google to blur images of sensitive areas in the country until the case is decided.

The gunmen who attacked Mumbai on November 26 appeared to use complex GPS systems to navigate to Mumbai by sea.

They communicated by satellite phone, used mobile phones with several different SIM cards and may have monitored events as the siege unfolded via handheld Blackberry web browsers.

Police in Mumbai have said the terrorists familiarised themselves with the streets of Mumbai's financial capital using satellite images, the sole gunman captured alive said.

[more] (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24781348-2,00.html)
Topic time! What implications does the freedom of information have for global security in the technology and information age?

[Smokey]

I thought that sensitive areas were already blurred. Maybe that's just in the US.

Basically, I don't think you can limit who gets technology without depriving innocents. You can't tell who is a terrorist and who isn't. With that said, I really don't understand why people would fight to keep Google Earth accessible to the public. In fact, what do they use it for, besides spying on neighbors and seeing who has a swimming pool in their back yard?

[Tanooki]

Very helpful in finding out where you're going doing google maps because the imagery it supplies, in particular at street level helps give landmarks so you don't get lost.

India wants to ban it, that's they're loss, but it won't help a damn thing because well gee those guys were from Pakistan, and they can just login and get imagery off the network before entering closed areas, oh and yah proxies.