No more sunbathing – is privacy dead?

This came home to me a few days ago when my 14 yr. old daughter had me watch it – she showed me the street we live on, and crystal clear views of our house, our driveway, the ladder leaning on the fence, and even my Chevy Cavalier that had been totaled. The picture was taken last summer, but it was eerie to “drive” up and down your street, the street of my ex (and my ex-house), and even up to the gates of my ex’s mother’s gated community – even though the gates were open, they apparently can’t enter such a place. It was rather unsettling – just like the satellite images I saw when I placed our address in the search bar – a friend from Germany could identify it by the parking lot behind out fence, the car in front, etc. And what if I had been sunbathing – not a pretty sight at my age and weight, but I have the “illusion”, the operative word here, of complete privacy in my backyard, surrounded by 6-ft fences. Now I wouldn’t go top-less, but I still wouldn’t want anyone to see me in a bathing suit, or similar revealing apparel! So here is the story behind this, first from my local news:

GOOGLE PUTS PICTURES OF YOUR HOUSE ONLINE

04:10 PM MST on Saturday, February 16, 2008

KTVB.COM

See how it works

BOISE – If you live in Ada County, chances are a truck loaded with computers and camera gear has roamed past your house snapping pictures as it goes along.

Google launched its Street View service last May to a few select cities – and now the program has hit the Treasure Valley. A vehicle went slowly down many streets in Ada County, methodically taking pictures and recording the precise location of the image.

Engineers at Google take all the images and data and translate it to an easy-to-use overlay on the company’s popular Google Maps site.

The Boise images became available on Tuesday, along with Albany, NY, Salt Lake City, UT, Juneau, AK, Kansas City, KS, Milwaukee, WI, San Antonio, TX, Raleigh, NC and Manchester, NH. The latest cities bring the count to 33.

The photos appear to have been taken this summer – with lush green grass and full trees.

Users can even scroll from photo to photo, giving the sensation they are walking down the street.

Most areas in Boise, Eagle, Star, Meridian, Garden City and Kuna are covered – though there are sizable gaps in southeast and northwest Boise, and a few spotty areas mixed in.

Some are concerned about privacy and Google told the New York Times that it allows a user to request an image be removed. Google also noted to the newspaper that it only features imagery taken on public property.

Click over to Google Maps. Once there, type in Boise, ID – and click the “Street View” button in the upper right hand side of the map. You can type in an address, or use the map to navigate to a location – then click the Street View link. Click and drag the photos to move around.”

http://www.ktvb.com/sharedcontent/newslink/thumbnail/ktvb/087/googlemaps_3181-t240.jpg

Picture of car and camera

Now all are NOT happy in the land of Googleville:

Get ready for your close-up

Google’s acclaimed, criticized Street View bears down on Boston

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff / December 11, 2007

Google Inc.’s controversial Street View feature, which offers 360-degree, street-level images of urban life so clear that passersby often can be identified, is set to make its Boston debut this morning.

Starting at around 10 a.m., Internet users who click on the “Street View” box on Google Maps (maps.google.com), will be able to peek at images from streets in Boston and surrounding communities. The views were stitched together from images taken by Google employees over the past year from cars and vans equipped with cameras.

The feature, which already captures street scenes in 15 cities across the country, has become popular among people planning vacations, searching for shops or restaurants, or checking out landmarks such as Wrigley Field in Chicago or the Empire State Building in New York. But it drew howls of protests from privacy advocates when it was launched last May in San Francisco, where people complained about everything from photos of recognizable men entering adult bookstores to an image of a cat in a window.

“We take privacy concerns seriously,” said Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Maps. “All these images are taken on public streets. It’s exactly what you could see walking down the street.”

But while Google has developed technology that can obscure faces and license plate numbers in Street View images, the Mountain View, Calif., company has said it will blur faces and plate numbers only in countries where it is required to do so, not in the United States.

Street View’s rollout in Boston is part of a larger debut of the feature today in eight more cities, including Providence, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Google officials yesterday said they could not specify which Boston or suburban streets would be visible. The service covers only certain streets and neighborhoods in the cites where it’s now available, although in some locations, such as San Francisco, the majority of streets have been photographed. Google plans eventually to extend Street View to cities and towns of all sizes worldwide.

Google is also introducing a “mashup” service today that will enable Internet users to import Street View panoramas from particular streets or neighborhoods to their own websites or blogs. The service is intended to make it easier for people to use Street View to recommend sights, locate coffee shops, or design cyber-walking tours.

While those might be legitimate uses of Street View, the feature also has the potential to be used for more questionable pursuits, such as compiling digital dossiers on individuals, critics warned.

“As Google gets closer and closer to its stated goal of indexing all the world’s information, more and more issues arise,” said John G. Palfrey Jr., executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. “In the privacy realm, Google is asking people for a lot of trust. The ball is really in Google’s court to prove they’re not going to violate people’s privacy.”

A sample of Google’s Street View feature. The company says it will not blur faces and plate numbers in its US street images.

Other companies also have released products in the drive-by image space, including EveryScape Inc. in Waltham and Povo Inc. in Boston. EveryScape moved up its launch to the same day as Google’s to capitalize on the publicity generated by the larger company.

Street View does what it’s intended to do very well,” said Jim Schoonmaker, the EveryScape chief executive. “But they’re focused on streets. We’ve been up and down ski mountains, on beaches, and in and out of businesses like restaurants and dental offices.”

Images from Street View and similar services are not live. They capture a point in time when sections of city streets were photographed, typically over a period of months, by small teams of Google employees driving in company cars with roof-mounted cameras equipped with global positioning technology that digitally matches the images with their locations on a map. The company hopes to refresh its images to document changing streets, but its highest priority has been expanding to new cities, Chau said.

Internet users visiting Street View are shown a map of the United States and can click on icons shaped like cameras to view cities Google has photographed. From there, they can type in a street address or call up blue-outlined streets to view images that can be rotated and zoomed in.

Google, in refusing to blur faces in US cities, has faced a chorus of critics in cities already catalogued in Street View, such as San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, who have called on the company to install technology that will make people pictured more anonymous. One of Street View’s critics, Kevin Bankston, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public interest group focusing on technology issues, was photographed on Street View smoking on his way to work in San Francisco.

“That was of concern to me because not all of my family knew I smoked,” Bankston said. Google ultimately removed the image at his request, but Bankston said the incident demonstrated the potential for worse abuse if other people were photographed going to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, health clinics for sensitive procedures, or other places that could compromise their privacy. He said he felt the Google feature was part of an ominous trend that included people taking pictures of others with camera phones and posting them on the Internet.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/12/11/get_ready_for_your_close_up/

Protests accompany Google’s expansion of Street View

By Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe, December 11, 2007

Despite protests from privacy advocates, Google on Tuesday introduced its Street View feature for eight more U.S. cities, offering 360-degree, street-level images of urban life so clear that passers-by often can be identified.

The feature is available on Google Maps, which had captured street scenes in 15 American cities before the expansion Tuesday.

It has become popular among people planning vacations, searching for shops or restaurants, or checking out landmarks.

But it drew protests from privacy advocates when it was introduced in May in San Francisco, where people complained about everything from the clear photos of men entering adult bookstores to an image of a cat in a window.

“We take privacy concerns seriously,” said Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Maps. “All these images are taken on public streets. It’s exactly what you could see walking down the street.”

The views were stitched together from images taken by Google employees over the past year from cars and vans equipped with cameras. But while Google has developed technology that can obscure faces and license plate numbers in Street View images, the company has said it will blur those images only in countries where it is required to do so, not in the United States.

The eight new cities are Boston; Dallas and Fort Worth in Texas, Indianapolis; Detroit; Minneapolis; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Providence, Rhode Island. The service covers only certain streets and neighborhoods in the cites where it is available, although in some cities, like San Francisco, the majority of streets have been photographed.

Google said it would extend Street View to cities and towns of all sizes worldwide.

Google is also introducing a “mashup” service Tuesday that would enable Internet users to import Street View panoramas from particular streets or neighborhoods to their own Web sites or blogs. The service is intended to make it easier for people to use Street View to recommend sights, locate coffee shops, or design virtual walking tours.

Critics warn that while those might be legitimate uses of Street View, the feature also has the potential to be used for more questionable pursuits, like compiling digital dossiers on individuals.

“As Google gets closer and closer to its stated goal of indexing all the world’s information, more and more issues arise,” said John Palfrey Jr., executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. “In the privacy realm, Google is asking people for a lot of trust. The ball is really in Google’s court to prove they’re not going to violate people’s privacy.”

Images from Street View and similar services are not live. They capture a point in time when sections of city streets were photographed, typically over a period of months. Small teams of Google employees take the pictures from vehicles with roof-mounted cameras equipped with global positioning technology that digitally match the images with their locations on a map. The company hopes to refresh its images to document changing streets, but its highest priority has been expanding to new cities, Chau said.

Internet users visiting Street View are shown a map of the United States and can click on icons shaped like cameras to view cities Google has photographed. From there, they can type in a street address or call up blue-outlined streets to view images that can be rotated and zoomed in.

Google, in refusing to blur faces of individuals in U.S. cities, has faced a chorus of critics in cities already catalogued in Street View, including New York, and Chicago, who have called on the company to install technology that makes people pictured more anonymous.

One of Street View’s critics, Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public interest group focusing on technology issues, was photographed on Street View smoking on his way to work in San Francisco.

“That was of concern to me because not all of my family knew I smoked,” Bankston said.

Google ultimately removed the image at his request, but Bankston said the incident demonstrated the potential for worse abuse if other people were photographed going to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, health clinics for sensitive procedures, or other places that could compromise their privacy. He said he felt the Google feature was part of an ominous trend that included people taking pictures of others with camera phones and posting them on the Internet.

“Rather than a Big Brother scenario, we’re looking at a Little Brother scenario where more and more of us are surveilling each other,” Bankston warned. “That is a trend that is fraught with a level of privacy risk that we as a society have not yet come to grips with.”

Google’s Chau, however, said that while Street View critics have been vocal, the company has received no more than a couple of dozen requests from people seeking to remove pictures of themselves since the Street View feature was launched last spring.

“This hasn’t been a big concern among our users,” he said. “The biggest complaint is the service isn’t available in their city yet.” http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/11/technology/street.php?page=1

GOOGLE COMES TO TOWN, ALONG WITH SOME PRIVACY CONCERNS

2/1/08 by Stu Woo, Brown Daily Herald

Minsuk Kim ‘08, seen here on Google Street View, walks down Williams Street with a friend. Media Credit: Courtesy of Google, Inc.

One day last fall, Minsuk Kim ‘08 put on a teal sweater, gray pants and black shoes. He and a friend then walked east on Williams Street, around the corner from Kim’s apartment.Kim doesn’t recall this particular incident. But Google does.

On Dec. 11, the search engine giant introduced a service called “Street View” to Providence. The feature, integrated with the popular Google Maps, allows Internet users to get a panoramic view of most Providence street addresses.

Google says that Street View is a practical tool allowing users to, say, see if parking is available around an address or to find the name of a business they passed by. But critics complain the product is invasive and smacks of “Big Brother,” since Street View takes such clear photos – many of which include distinguishable shots of unsuspecting passersby.

Like Kim, who didn’t notice anyone or anything photographing him. He didn’t even know his likeness was on Street View until a friend sent him a text message over winter break, telling him to check out Williams Street.

So Kim went online. There he was, walking toward either his friend’s house or a liquor store, he says. He laughed when he saw the image, which was clear enough for any acquaintance to recognize him.

“I just think it’s funny,” Kim says. “I also wasn’t doing anything incriminating, but I could see how it could be a problem.”

“Don’t Be Evil”

When Google first introduced Street View last May, the Mountain View, Calif., company imagined it as a way to further “understand the world through images.”

“With Street View, you can virtually explore city neighborhoods by viewing and navigating within 360-degree scenes of street-level imagery,” wrote Stephen Chau, Street View’s product manager, in a Google blog entry introducing the tool. “It feels as if you’re walking down the street!”

With Street View, which debuted in five cities and is now in 23, Google introduced a technology that seemed unfathomable just a few years ago. Though Amazon.com and other companies have attempted similar projects, Street View is by far the most advanced, since it seamlessly stitches images together to create a virtual street.

Google uses regular cars, equipped with “imaging technology,” to collect images and location data as they drive down public streets, wrote Elaine Filadelfo, a Google spokeswoman, in an e-mail. Filadelfo added that the vehicles have the “Google Maps” logo on them.

Street View is simple to use. Users enter a street address in Google Maps and, if the feature is enabled for that particular location, click “Street View.” They will then see a panoramic shot of that location and can virtually move up or down a street using the arrow buttons.

Filadelfo wrote that Street View images are usually a couple of months to a year old when they are uploaded. Google plans to update its Street View images in the future, she added, and is currently working on adding high-definition photos in a “wide variety of cities.”

Those high-definition photos may not sit well with critics who say Street View already intrudes too much on individual rights. Though the product breaks no laws for the most part – after all, the images are shot from public property – it raises serious ethical questions, says Rebecca Jeschke, spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group.

“Something like Google Street View really is the first step in a feeling that we’re being recorded in everything we do,” Jeschke says. “Generally, we can expect a certain amount of anonymity (in public places). This shows a real change to that, and that’s disturbing.”

Street View can be potentially embarrassing. When the feature debuted last year, bloggers posted some of their favorite images: of sunbathers, of people entering or leaving strip clubs and even one of a man who appears to be breaking into a house.

“You shouldn’t have to think about whether or not you’re on camera when you’re going to the doctor or perhaps going to drug treatment,” Jeschke says. She adds that a journalist found a Street View image of Kevin Bankston, one of Jeschke’s co-workers, smoking, “a habit that he’s not proud of.”

Bankston, a lawyer for the EFF, has urged Google to make it easier for people to remove photos of themselves on Street View. Jeschke says this still doesn’t totally solve the problem, since most people wouldn’t know where they would have been photographed. She believes Google should make it a priority to blur faces or remove people from photographs. The company should have the technology to do that, she says, since it has the “best programmers in the country.”

Filadelfo wrote that Google “takes privacy very seriously.” The company has set up a simple, online process that allows clearly-identified individuals to request that their photos be removed.

Google, whose informal corporate motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” currently doesn’t have any plans to automatically blur faces in Street View, Filadelfo wrote, though she added that the laws may “vary by country to abide by local laws and cultural norms.” Social networking blog Mashable.com reported on Nov. 30 that Street View will blur all faces and license plates in its European version when it launches.” http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2008/02/01/Features/Google.Comes.To.Town.Along.With.Some.Privacy.Concerns-3183023.shtml

And From Wikipedia:

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps introduced in 2007 that provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007, only five cities were included. It has since expanded to 23 cities, and includes the suburbs of many, and in some cases, other nearby cities.Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated using either the arrow keys on the keyboard or by using the mouse to click on arrows displayed on the screen. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles. Lines that are displayed along the street that is shown indicate the direction followed by that street.”

“This feature of Google has raised privacy concerns, with views found to show men leaving strip clubs, protesters at an abortion clinic, sunbathers in bikinis, and other activities. Google maintains that the photos were taken from public property. Before launching the service, Google removed photos of domestic violence shelters, and allows users to flag inappropriate or sensitive imagery for Google to review and remove. The process for requesting that an image be removed is not trivial. Images of potential break-ins, sunbathers and individuals entering adult bookstores have, for example, remained active and these images have been widely republished.

In Europe, the creation of Google Street View may not be legal in all places. While the laws vary from country to country, many countries in Europe have laws prohibiting the unconsented filming of an individual on public property for the purpose of public display.

Google has delayed the release of its street views of Washington, D.C. and other nearby areas of Virginia and Maryland (including Baltimore) out of concern from the United States Department of Homeland Security that some of the images taken may be of security-sensitive areas.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

Google Fails Privacy Study, Criticizes Watchdog Group

By Luke O’Brien, June 11, 2007

When Privacy International, a UK-based watchdog group, released a study on Friday ranking the privacy practices of major internet companies, Google may already have known it would wind up dead last, saddled with an overall “hostile to privacy” rating that took into account Google’s data retention policies and recent purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick. Privacy International, for its part, already knew that ranking Google last and below a company such as Microsoft would cause a backlash:

“We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google’s approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy. This is in part due to the diversity and specificity of Google’s product range and the ability of the company to share extracted data between these tools, and in part it is due to Google’s market dominance and the sheer size of its user base. Google’s status in the ranking is also due to its aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies and techniques.

The view that Google “opens up” information through a range of attractive and advanced tools does not exempt the company from demonstrating responsible leadership in privacy. Google’s increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user’s life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook. Neither of these elements has been demonstrated. Rather, we have witnessed an attitude to privacy within Google that at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ambivalent. These dynamics do not pervade other major players such as Microsoft or eBay, both of which have made notable improvements to the corporate ethos on privacy issues.”

Of course, the watchdog group was right. Google immediately cried foul, claiming that Privacy International has a conflict of interest because one of its board members works for Microsoft. Privacy International responded yesterday with an open letter to Google, explaining its position. (the member of its 70-person board in question has been working with Privacy International for six years before taking a job with Microsoft, at which time he offered to resign from PI.)

Does Google have a legitimate beef or do its actions, as PI suggests, “stem from sour grapes that [it] achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants?” Decide for yourself.”

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/google_fails_pr.html

A Race to the Bottom:
Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies

A Consultation report

“Why Google?

We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google’s approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy. This is in part due to the diversity and specificity of Google’s product range and the ability of the company to share extracted data between these tools, and in part it is due to Google’s market dominance and the sheer size of its user base. Google’s status in the ranking is also due to its aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies and techniques.

The view that Google “opens up” information through a range of attractive and advanced tools does not exempt the company from demonstrating responsible leadership in privacy. Google’s increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user’s life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook. Neither of these elements has been demonstrated. Rather, we have witnessed an attitude to privacy within Google that at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ambivalent. These dynamics do not pervade other major players such as Microsoft or eBay, both of which have made notable improvements to the corporate ethos on privacy issues.

In the closing days of our research we received a copy of supplemental material relating to a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission concerning the pending merger between Google and DoubleClick. This material, submitted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and coupled with a submission to the FTC from the New York State Consumer Protection Board, provided additional weight for our assessment that Google has created the most onerous privacy environment on the Internet. The Board expressed concern that these profiles expose consumers to the risk of disclosure of their data to third-parties, as well as public disclosure as evidence in litigation or through data breaches. The EPIC submission set out a detailed analysis of Google’s existing data practices, most of which fell well short of the standard that consumers might expect. During the course of our research the Article 29 Working Group of European privacy regulators also expressed concern at the scale of Google’s activities, and requested detailed information from the company.

In summary, Google’s specific privacy failures include, but are by no means limited to:

• Google account holders that regularly use even a few of Google’s services must accept that the company retains a large quantity of information about that user, often for an unstated or indefinite length of time, without clear limitation on subsequent use or disclosure, and without an opportunity to delete or withdraw personal data even if the user wishes to terminate the service.
• Google maintains records of all search strings and the associated IP-addresses and time stamps for at least 18 to 24 months and does not provide users with an expungement option. While it is true that many US based companies have not yet established a time frame for retention, there is a prevailing view amongst privacy experts that 18 to 24 months is unacceptable, and possibly unlawful in many parts of the world.
• Google has access to additional personal information, including hobbies, employment, address, and phone number, contained within user profiles in Orkut. Google often maintains these records even after a user has deleted his profile or removed information from Orkut.
• Google collects all search results entered through Google Toolbar and identifies all Google Toolbar users with a unique cookie that allows Google to track the user’s web movement.17 Google does not indicate how long the information collected through Google Toolbar is retained, nor does it offer users a data expungement option in connection with the service.
• Google fails to follow generally accepted privacy practices such as the OECD Privacy Guidelines and elements of EU data protection law. As detailed in the EPIC complaint, Google also fails to adopted additional privacy provisions with respect to specific Google services.
• Google logs search queries in a manner that makes them personally identifiable but fails to provide users with the ability to edit or otherwise expunge records of their previous searches.
• Google fails to give users access to log information generated through their interaction with Google Maps, Google Video, Google Talk, Google Reader, Blogger and other services.”

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-553961

REQUEST FOR URBAN STREET SIGHTINGS: Submit and Vote on the Best Urban Images Captured by New Google Maps Tool

By Ryan Singel, May 30, 2007

Google’s new Street View, a new Google Maps feature that uses vehicle-cameras to take 360-degree street level views of major urban areas, captured all sorts of urban ephemera in the process from tabbies in windows to red light runners.

Help Wired News capture the best inadvertent urban snapshots. Submit and vote on your favorite urban scenes — be they citizens flaunting the laws or hot dog vendors rocking a sweet style. You can find some inspiration and examples here, New York shots here, and the well named streetviewr.com has some good links, too.”

“Maybe the guy just forgot his keys. Or he’s practicing for the free climbing contest. Hey, is that a lockpicking set dangling out of his pocket?”

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/request_for_urb.html

Domestic Access to Spy Imagery Expands

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, February 12, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — “A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns.

The charter and legal framework for an office within the Homeland Security Department that would use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it….

Domestic agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Interior Department have had access to this satellite imagery for years for scientific research, to assist in response to natural disasters like hurricanes and fires, and to map out vulnerabilities during a major public event like the Super Bowl. Since 1974 the requests have been made through the federal interagency group, the Civil Applications Committee.

These types of uses will continue when the Homeland Security Department oversees the program and becomes the clearinghouse for these requests. But the availability of satellite images will be expanded to other agencies to support the homeland security mission. The details of how law enforcement agencies could use the images during investigations would be determined in the future after legal and policy questions have been resolved, the official said.

It is possible that in the future an agency might request infrared imaging of what is inside a house, for instance a methamphetamine laboratory, and this could raise constitutional issues. In these instances, law enforcement agencies would still have to go through the normal process of obtaining a warrant and satisfying all the legal requirements. The National Applications Office also would require that all the laws are observed when using new imaging technology….”

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gM4mwPQcU0j446qIew8P7ZmifwNgD8UP4GG03

GOOGLE’S STREET VIEW UPSETS PRIVACY ADVOCATES

By Josh Gerstein, Staff Reporter of the Sun June 13, 2007

Google’s new Street View service, which allows users to pull up street-level, 360-degree photos of addresses in major urban areas, is cool and more than a little creepy, but is it legal?

The Web site’s high-tech photo vans have captured and posted shots of a pair of scantily clad sunbathers on Stanford’s campus, a man entering an adult bookstore, and a woman’s thong underwear being exposed as she climbed into a truck.

Privacy advocates are in an uproar over the service, but Google and its defenders have declared confidently that the firm is in the clear because anyone has the right to publish photos taken from public streets.

“The images in Street View are lawful. The Street View feature only contains imagery gathered on public property,” a spokeswoman for Google, Megan Quinn, said in a statement sent by e-mail to the Sun. “This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.”

Legal experts say there is no hard-and-fast legal rule that blesses all public photography. “Privacy laws vary from state to state, but there have been instances where legal liability was found even for photos taken in public,” an attorney urging changes to Street View, Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said.”

Usually, people doing things in public, even foolish or embarrassing things, are deemed to have waived their privacy rights. The situation becomes more complicated, though, when a person is put in an embarrassing position through no fault of his or her own. Crime or accident victims often feel violated by news photos, but courts almost always throw out suits over such episodes on the grounds that the images were newsworthy. Even when news value is debatable, judges tend to side with the press.

However, the woman whose so-called whale tail was posted by Google for all to see was not part of any newsworthy event. The episode is almost identical to one of the best-known cases punishing a newspaper for a photo that invaded privacy. In 1961, an Alabama woman, Flora Graham, was visiting a county fair’s funhouse with her young sons when air jets blew her dress up, exposing her panties. Unfortunately for Ms. Graham, a photographer snapped a shot at that very moment and the image showed up on the local newspaper’s front page.

A jury gave Ms. Graham $4,166 for her anguish, and the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the verdict. “One who is part of a public scene may lawfully be photographed as an incidental part of that scene in his ordinary status,” the court wrote. “Where the status he expects to occupy is changed without his volition to a status embarrassing to an ordinary person of reasonable sensitivity, then he should not be deemed to have forfeited his right to be protected from an indecent and vulgar intrusion of his right of privacy merely because misfortune overtakes him in a public place.”

Of course, four decades later, social mores and technology have changed. “Anything done almost anywhere can be captured as an image on someone’s cell phone and uploaded to the Internet,” the dean of the University of Richmond law school, Rodney Smolla, said. “That genie can’t be put back in the bottle. I think the law would be reluctant to fight against it.”

Still, just last year, a lawyer for Lindsay Lohan, cited the funhouse case while threatening a gossip Web site with legal action over a photo in which one of the actress’s nipples was exposed. “Just because a wardrobe malfunction occurred and Ms. Lohan’s right breast was inadvertently and very briefly revealed and someone was able to photograph her in this intrusive manner without her consent or knowledge does not justify or legitimize publication or display of the photo or justify this violation of Ms. Lohan’s right of privacy at a most basic level,” the attorney, Martin Singer, wrote.

Google does offer a link to request removal of inappropriate Street View photos. The thong shot is no longer on the Web giant’s site, though it is now readily available elsewhere, which makes its deletion from Google of little moment. “The privacy harm may very well have occurred by the time you are aware of it and ask that it be taken down,” Mr. Bankston said. “We would have preferred that Google develop some technology to obscure the pedestrians in Street View before debuting it.”

http://www.nysun.com/article/56475

Now it’s up to you to decide if this is helpful, interesting, or a step towards “Big Brother.” It all depends on the usage.

Odds and Ends – 2/4/08 (NASA, the Space Program and the Space Elevator)

I’ve decided to intersperse my long posts on books, movies, SciFi, etc., with some “shorter” or “odd” ones – a place to put my “junk” so to speak.  So here goes the first one:

On one of my book groups we’ve been discussing a post I found that showed the cost of building a space elevator vs. the Iraqi War.  The figure was 10% of the cost of the war.  What is a “space elevator you ask?  Here’s the basic concept:

“To build “an elevator to the stars,” you start building from a location on the Earth’s equator … rising vertically until you reach “geosynchronous orbit” — some 22,300 miles out.  Then, you send payloads up and down this structure via “climber cars” — which would be electrically powered and, on their ascent, being also accelerated by the increasing centrifugal forces of rotation of the planet with increasing height, would ultimately achieve tangential velocities above 22,300 miles capable of launching payloads directly into orbit (below) ….  

Or, as science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once remarked, “Once you’re in Earth orbit … you’re half way to anywhere!”

 

Compared to current, highly primitive methods of getting off this planet – expendable rockets, the Space Shuttle, etc., which can cost up to $10,000 per pound of payload launched! – Arthur Clarke once calculated that one could send a fully grown man to geosynchronous orbit (and his “22 pounds of carry-on luggage …”) via such an elevator, for about “a dollars’ worth of electricity …” — a saving of ten thousand fold over current rocket-based propulsion systems (not counting the ~ $10 billion-dollar development costs …)!”  http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon5.htm; see also: http://seattlewebcrafters.com/nsecc/?q=node/view/115. (National Space Society’s Space Elevator Special Interest Chapter) 

I thought it was a no-brainer, as some of the people on the group had expressed the idea that if we were ever going to make it into space, we needed to do it in “baby steps,”;  like in one of my favorite movies, “What about Bob?”  I use the term baby steps, as used in the movie, a lot – the character, Bill Murray, a patient of psychiatrist Richard Dreyfuss, was having some deep issues.  The movie focuses on what happened when the psychiatrist tries to go out of town on vacation, and Murray is left without his “crutch.”  But one of the tools the psych used was “baby steps.”  In order to overcome anything, you need to take small steps, not just leap over the hurdle.  It’s like “chunking,” as used in the reading process – taking words apart into “chunks” of sounds, and working on those, and then recombining them back into one word; or attacking what seems to be an insurmountable problem by breaking it down into manageable pieces.

So, back to my space elevator.  Some one had suggested taking small steps in the space race, like building a space elevator rather than working on FTL (faster than light – superluminal) travel (versus our current theoretical STL or subluminal methods of space travel).  Which would cost the least, have the fastest results, and show the most promise in terms of getting people excited about space again?

Many of us on the group think back to the early days of the space program – I was born the year Sputnik went up; a true child of the space age – and fondly recall the promise of those years and the enthusiasm of President Kennedy. 

In his historic speech to a joint session of congress on May 25, 1961, to lay out his proposal to “preserve freedom and protect the American way of life.”

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” http://www.space.com/news/jfk_speech_040114.html

Will the next president share that dream?  Or will it crumble under the weight of bureaucracy and lack of funding, and a cohesive, baby steps plan?  One look at NASA’s web site (http://www.nasa,gov) will disabuse you of that – they are working on small steps, not FTL.  Although they do have a few “public interest” projects, such as the latest one, beaming a Beatles’s song, “Across the Universe,” today, 2/4/08 at 7pm EST, to Polaris, reaching it in about 431 years.  Across the world, people are invited to play the song at the same time as NASA beams it out.  Response from the Beatles was enthusiastic: ”Amazing!  Well done, NASA!  Send my love to the aliens. All the best.” said Sir Paul McCartney, and Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow (who was the principle writer of the song) said: “I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe.”   The song was beamed out to commemorate a number of anniversaries, including the 40th of the song’s recording, and the 50th anniversaries of NASA’s founding and the launch of the first satellite, Explorer I.

And are we, as a people committed to what, as outlined below, is an important part of that vision for the future of America? 

But back to the space elevator yet again.  In responses to the space elevator post, and my comment that it was a no brainer, several people replied that the public wouldn’t see it that way, that they didn’t care about space, or science even – some went so far as to predict the death of pure mathematics and any pure scientific research.  Pessimistic responses to my comment, from very educated, science minded people.  Are we all that ready to dismiss science and junk it?  IS that our priority?  We all have a list in our heads of those things we set our priorities on when it comes to government spending – education, military, welfare, health-care reform, social security, the environment, global warming, new energy sources, and space.  But many of these priorities, such as the environment and new energy sources, depend on science, mathematics and research.  I believe that most people fundamentally understand that, and are not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, even if they put space low on the list of priorities.

But think of it: would you rather spend $40-$50 billion dollars on something that could easily bring payloads to space without the cost of the space shuttles, and without presumably the danger, OR would you prefer to spend it on a futile war, another “Vietnam,” that would cost astronomical (pun intended) sums.  In a Washington Post article from 11/18/07: “A report released last week by the Democratic staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee put the war’s 2002-08 tab at $1.3 trillion.” The author also counts the “real” cost of the war: the dead (38,00 U.S. soldier), the number of bullets fired for every Iraqi insurgent killed (250,000 – a fairly poor accuracy rating – you’d never pass a law enforcement class with those numbers!), the fact that we still aren’t safe from terrorism and that “[t]he $1 trillion we’ve probably spent on the war could have funded the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security 28 times over” and that ”governing Iraq has, so far, been a fruitless investment.According to 2006 figures, U.S. war spending came out to $3,749 per Iraqi — almost as much as the per capita income of Egypt. That staggering sum hasn’t bought a lot of leadership from Iraq, or much of a democratic model for its Arab neighbors.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111600865.html

So, you can probably guess my stance on this issue – but when you break down, or “chunk” the war into baby steps or small figures that actually mean something to people, rather than a large amorphous sum of money – who really understands how much a trillion is worth?  In a New York Times Business article from 1/17/08,

“The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

The War has been estimated to cost around $1.2 trillion ($700 billion in direct military spending, the rest in related costs).  “In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.”

So, what can you do with $1.2 trillion dollars?

“For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html

or:

The above chart is the initial estimate of the cost of the war v. preschool costs.  But with the actual estimated figure so much higher, we could have done so much more.  So for all those nay-sayers who say that space is a waste of time, let me point out to you a page that shows what NASA and their space explorations have done to improve our daily lives: 

“Breast biopsies – Mammographies are essential for the detection and treatment of breast cancer. As a result of technology developed through the Hubble Space Telescope program, biopsies can be performed with a needle instead of a scalpel.”

“Lifeshears – This powerful hand-held rescue tool can quickly cut through cars or other enclosures to free persons involved in an accident or other dangerous situation. The tool, which was developed through the joint efforts of the Hi-Shear Technology Corporation, firefighters and NASA, uses the same power source used to separate solid rocket boosters from Space Shuttles.”

“Linking the World’s Telephones – When friends and family call from other parts of the country or overseas, they sound as if they are right around the corner. The scope, clarity, and reliability of our long-distance telephone system is the result of communications satellite technology developed by NASA.”

“Vital Signs for Critical Moments – The monitoring systems used in intensive care units and heart rehabilitation wards were developed from  the systems used to monitor astronauts during the first space missions in the early 1960s.”

“Food Safety for Astronauts Sets the Standard – The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture credit NASA with developing the comprehensive food safety system, referred to as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) that the nation uses today.”

“S.O.S. to Space Provides Global Rescue Capability – NASA’s research in developing and demonstrating pace-based beacon locators was used to create an international, satellite-based search and rescue system that has helped save almost 13,000 lives worldwide (as of January 2002).”

“New “Fields” and Better Yields for Agriculture – NASA-sponsored researchers working on methods to grow plants in space have produced world-record crops on Earth.”

“Big Functions in a Small Package – Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) are extremely small devices and sensors (comparable to the size of a human hair ) … [that] measure changes in speed of small objects or activity levels of people or animals. … MEMS technology is used now in consumer products to trigger automobile airbags, regulate pacemakers and even keep washers and dryers balanced.”

“Wildfire Management – Wildfires are a continual concern for communities in the western United States. NASA has worked with the U.S. Forest Service to develop a rapid-response capability for wildfires based on data broadcasts from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.”

“NASA Develops Science Curricula with Educational Publisher – NASA and Pearson Education … develop new science curricula for 100 million elementary and middle school students. The new curricula will be designed to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and space exploration.”

“Cleaner Cars – Space flight research is changing our understanding of how and why things burn … A hydrogen experiment on board Columbia’s final mission produced the weakest flames ever created—100 times weaker than a birthday candle. This research could lead to cleaner-burning cars in the future by helping scientists improve the burning of hydrogen and other fuels in engines and furnaces.”

and perhaps, most valuable or all, as an inspiration:

“Inspiration and Innovation—A NASA Story – At NASA, extraordinary goals inspire exceptional minds. As a boy in Pakistan, Dr. Rafat Ansari was first inspired to pursue scientific research when he saw astronauts walk on the moon. This inspiration eventually led Dr. Ansari to become a researcher at NASA, where his work with fluid physics has produced an unexpected and valuable medical care innovation.”

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/index.html; http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/hits2_flash/index_noaccess.html (which can be also be accessed from the NASA Life link: go to the NASA Hits: Rewards from Space)

Judging from the large interest in my blogs that deal with SciFi books for adults and teens, and those on the Singularity, cyberpunk, etc., v. the lesser interest on those ones that deal with more mundane subjects, and even the political ones, I don’t think the public (perhaps this is more of a slice of the “educated” public?) is that ready to dismiss science, space and dreams.

Are you?

Politics and me: growing up at last

Politics used to be a dirty word to me.  I grew up with very politically left leaning parents, and there were arguments (ahem…discussions) at the dinner table growing up, and discussions (not always friendly) with friends and colleagues.  Since my Dad was an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, our house was always filled with ivory tower types, grad students, and other worldly adults.

The “discussions” made me sick, since I hated conflict, and always wanted to stand up for the underdog.  I even found ways to support Nixon!  So, my apolitical stance throughout the years was a reflection of that slice of growing up.

Later, when I married, my husband was somewhat forceful and controlling and he decreed that we would be Republican (he forgot his earlier degree years in the nature area) and wanted to concentrate on amassing his doctor’s fortune, and not being taxed.  Out with welfare – they were just lazy people lying around, having kids and contributing to the population problems.  Out with social services of any kind – we didn’t need them – let the states take care of their own, etc.

After our divorce, about 20 years later, I began to come to my senses, and form an opinion of my own – yes a revolutionary idea!  I discovered that I was a bleeding heart liberal.  I wanted to help the “unfortunates,” the homeless, the mentally ill, those without health insurance, and the environment (recycling became paramount), and I own now a “green” car as certified by the EPA.  Education became important as I watched my children become less and less educated in many subjects as the years passed.  I have a 14 yr old that can’t spell, or add simple strings of numbers to keep score in Scrabble!  At least she can read, and her science instruction has been well done.  It’s the social sciences, geography, world history, and english that suffers.  I am growing up, 50 years late.  But this election is critical for me, and the well-being of my single-parent family.

So, now the first election comes around after changes in my life where I’m really in tune with some of the issues.  Because of health problems of my own, and becoming disabled in my last year of law school so I couldn’t finish, I had to go on “welfare”.  So I am now one of the “unfortunates.”  I got Medicaid for myself and my daughters, and eventually got SSI, the low income disability from Social Security.  It causes dilemmas for me, as I get my $637 a month (yes, we’re supposed to live on that! – and that is with a COLA) , and my Medicaid that pays for  large bills in health costs (without it I couldn’t afford one doctor, let alone all the tests, specialists and medications I have now).  I can work up and make up to $800 a month (to supplement the meager amount of SSI) without losing my benefits, but if I go over, or work too much at low pay, I show that I can work, and lose my benefits, including the medical insurance.  So I’d have to be able to find a largepaying job instead, that had great health benefits, in order to make up for what I lost – a Catch-22 if you will.  I lose a lot if I don’t stay on disability (I don’t think I could work a full day, maybe not even a half-day at almost anything), but I don’t “make” enough to live on.  If I try to supplement, I risk losing it all, and then having to try and find something with much higher pay and benefits, so that I can have medical insurance to pay for my costs (and even then, it would cost quite a bit out-of-pocket due to co-pays).  But if I stay on disability and don’t work, as my body tells me too, I will have to live on $637 a month after my daughter reaches 18 and I lose my child support.  I made some grievous errors in my divorce – I tried for peace, instead of taking him to the cleaners – my settlement was law school, which turned out to be useless.  So no alimony.  I can go back and try and fight for it, but that’s a stretch.

So my issues for this election are healthcare, Medicaid changes, the world, the environment, and education.I looked at the candidates available, and the two Democratic front runners caught me eye: Clinton and Obama. 

 

After Clintongate, I swore I’d never vote for Hillary.  I disliked her.  She seemed cold, and lied to protect her husband, when he was a scumbag (sorry, but in the White House!!! – keep it zipped).  So here I am faced with a choice of possibly going back on my sworn oath.

Obama seems a likely candidate, and he did just win Iowa in the caucus there, but although he is smoothly spoken, and personable, he’s young (so was JFK, but sorry, he’s no JFK), and untried in the arena of world politics, which will be a touchstone for this election.  Hillary Clinton tried before (under Bill Clinton) for a universal healthcare system,  so I know it’s a priority, and she is well versed in world politics, as I suspect she was the puppet behind Bill Clinton’s throne.

So, I believe that I will vote for Hillary Clinton, a woman!  What a wonderful choice – the Democrats might win based on the war and the wishes of the people to bring it down, and we could have either our first African-American, or female president.  What a glorious year this might be!

On a Yahoo group I belong to, I have seen political battles wage (and this is a book group!), and America comes out bloody – many on the group are international, and the image others have of America (excuse me, the U.S. – we’re not the only “americans”) is appalling.  I was surprised by the vitriol that comes out of many against the U.S. and what it stands for.  Many of these highly intelligent people can’t separate the country and it’s policies from the people.  They also see the U.S. as a land of “ganstas,” violence, and murder, and say they would be deathly afraid to live here.

Explanations that “Americans” are not their country fell on deaf ears – as did explanations that what you see on Law & Order or CSI and the movies is not real life – that most Americans live quiet, rather boring little lives, concerned with their jobs, their families, their communities and perhaps their churches.  That the KKK does not rule, that we are not all bigots, and we do not see ourselves as the rulers of the world.  To these people we are despots.  I had never seen such hatred before, and it startled me and made me think.  In past discussion groups back in the mid 90s, with international members, such topics rarely came up, and if they did, were generally mild.  I think this war has polarized the U.S. from much of the world, and it’s time to end it now!  Right now!  Before we end up with our reputation in the gutter (well, that may already be true), but perhaps we can drag ourselves out of it with a more inclusive global policy, rather than one that we basically rammed down the throats of the U.N. and the Europeans and South Americans, who are the ones that seem to feel the strongest (other than the Arab world, which is a different story – I’m talking about countries which are not directly involved in the war).

I believe Hillary Clinton to be that person who can guide us out of the pit we’ve dug, and do so with grace and style, and bring us into the global limelight with good PR.  If there’s anything Hillary understands, it’s the need for PR.  And the U.S. needs good PR badly right now.  We are on the cusp of a major paradigm shift in global political linkages and power if we don’t do something, in my opinion.  It may already me too late, but we can still salvage something, if the right person is at the helm.

So, will having a woman or ethnic minority president help us in the image market across the globe?  Yes, I believe it might.  America could lose it’s old boy political network feel, and look like it’s actually moving out of the 19th century and into the emerging 21st.  We will have skipped a century in politics.

I could go on more about their platforms, and probably will in coming months, but right now, I am merely basking in the idea that we might show that we are growing up.