Remote Sensing Tools

Nikolas Schiller makes an interesting observation on the redactions present between archived aerial orthophotography metadata, distributed by the USGS, between the year 2002 and 2005 distributions. Although this is a practice that I don’t find surprising, as I’ve observed this since September 11th as well, I do have a general opinion on the paranoias associated.

I’ve felt in the past that it might be imprudent on my part to comment my opinions regarding the current trend of censorship by government agencies, to censor various landmark areas of interest in high resolution imagery. The very strange ironies that I almost always observe, however, lead me to wonder several things associated with the practice.

I do understand the cause for concern relating to public and authoritative areas of interest since what occured on September 11th of 2001. But the problem I see associated, is that while newer imagery archives are censored in this way, it makes absolutely no sense that former archives are not also censored in the same ways. How difficult would it be then, to download both datasets and incorporate both to complete a map that contains relatively accurate details and coordinates? How difficult is it for anyone to understand the paranoias associated, when one only has to think in terms that — if anyone were prepossessed with utilizing the information contained in mapping source data, then the parties who would be looking to benefit from such strategic analysis would look for sources elsewhere? How difficult is it for us to assume that other sensors are just as capable of providing coordinates and visibility of these areas of interest, without any control by our own agencies, if that becomes their use?

The paranoia, to me, is absolute and mind-bogglingly ridiculous. Although I understand the concerns that we as American citizens have had since being “attacked” — the idea that an opponent to our safety wouldn’t simply seek out alternatives to what’s freely available to us, the tax-paying citizen and mapper, is cause enough for concern of the thinking within those agencies or anyone who has sold these decisions to our highest levels of government. If this is the only prevention they’ve deemed appropriate, then why is redaction only provided in the most current releases? Where is the absolute implementation across all dates and sources, if this is an actual concern?

It seems to me, that if our agencies were so concerned as to protect us from something due to the information contained in our maps, then they would execute the same thinking with every dataset available to the masses. Is it really suspicious to want to view our national landmarks as citizens in a unique way that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to? For many of us, living and breathing through the advent of the Internet and all the benefits we have in being able to visit these remote locations all over the world — we ultimately miss-out on the uniqueness that this provides if we censor ourselves from the beauty they represent.

Could I be completely wrong in this thinking? Could it be that I don’t understand the very simple tactics that terrorists incorporate in order to meet their objectives?

Perhaps the terrorists truly did win, as we’ve become so accustomed to our paranoias, that we stand to gain less of our own “Great Society” and everything we set out to make available to the masses to provide us with what we’ve been more currently sold of a truly democratic and free society for all. Could I be completely wrong in this thinking? Could it be that I don’t understand the very simple tactics that terrorists incorporate in order to meet their objectives? It seems to me that the very kind of resourcefulness that has shaped the remote sensing and GIS world, in attempting to work-around all the imcompatibilities associated with modern technologies, is the exact same kind of simple resourcefulness that terrorists incorporate into acheiving their objectives.

Maps have been utilized in warfare for centuries — Leonardo Da Vinci arguably being considered the grandfather of developing modern practices in utilizing mapping for war strategies — and because existing maps were not available to enhance intelligence on the battlefield. But while we censor very localized areas of interest within the reaches of public access to visualization, we also limit the ability for maps to hold any positive (and potentially healing) meaning to us as a society — serving more to heighten our paranoias, and distrust in the rest of the world, let alone the paranoias that are a subsequent result of a suspicion toward our very own government (”What are they hiding from us?”).

Are we so paranoid now by the actions of outsiders who have far less access, and make themselves seen more clearly by anyone with just a hint of concern, that we’ve forgotten of the very minimal reactions we had when one of our own committed a similar action? Should we redact every address in the Yellow Pages because one of our own committed acts of terrorism against his own perceived targets? I don’t actually recall these individuals seeking to download coordinate or visual datas, when they could easily pick-up an atlas at the local gas station to figure out where they needed to go — or, just ask for directions from the clerk. One of them was actually even pumped-up by our own authorities as a possible mathematical genius. Not to mention, why would coordinate datas be at all valueable for any kind of low-tech “attack” strategy? Are we concerned they might somehow, miraculously develop a handheld weapon that allows them to target a specified geo-coordinate — even when our own military and contractors can barely make such a device affordable to our own government (cost overruns and “unforeseeable project delays” included)? In the meantime, we’re training armies in other parts of the world, in the use of lower-grade weaponry left over in surplus from previous wars in the region.

It seems to me that it might also encourage those who seek out to challenge themselves toward malicious actions against us, with the idea that whatever’s hidden must be considered sacred and important to us as a society and government, so they should then find-out a way to hit it no matter how they coordinate the effort — whether a map is used, or whether the area itself is planned out by simple ground intelligence missions. As a designer, this was the kind of psychological and sociological premiss that every point of visual awareness is pain-stakingly attempted to provoke such a viewer response — by manipulating the psychology associated with forcing a viewer’s own perceptual awareness, in order to draw a viewer’s attention to an area of interest! The same simple resourcefulness that makes a good mapper who he or she is, has nothing to do with the ideologies that cause someone with malicious intent to use such resourcefulness to gain information for offensive practices.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. It seems to me that there are even more simple ways of accomplishing the goals they seek, without our needing to point them directly to a possible source that has, “Here, hit me!” written all over it. Did we lose sight of the example that was presented to us on September 11th, and have we become so radically paranoid that we’ve set ourselves up for allowing their very basically-executed actions to alter our sense of freedom in such irrational ways? Are we only serving to distribute maps that now have an actual discernable target painted on it, so that it makes it simpler to locate and analyse the position as valueable for them as a result?

It’s truly fascinating to me the way that things have “progressed”. I can only sit back in total astonishment in wondering what the initial conversations must have sounded like when these issues were being discussed. And I can only wonder if perhaps it’s not the metadata and imagery that needs to be redacted as a result of that thinking.