Google Earth faces terrorist target airbrush bill
Concerned that international terrorists are prepping their attacks with help from services like Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and Google Street View, a California lawmaker hopes to airbrush certain structural details from countless public buildings pictured on these web-based virtual landscapes.
San Diego-based Assemblyman Joel Anderson recently introduced a California bill that would bar "online mapping services" from serving up overly-revealing images of schools, hospitals, churches, and government buildings.
"This bill does not impact people's ability to go from one location to another on these services," Anderson tells The Reg. "But the current level of detail invites bad behavior. So we're asking these services to limit the level of detail. There's no reason they need to show where all a school's air ducts are and the elevator shafts and all the entry and exit points...
