Thanks to Google Earth, We're All Big Brother Now

Who needs spy satellites when you've got the Internet? Tech Crunch reports on an entrprenuerial blogger who recently used Google Earth to pinpoint the exact location of a CIA missile strike in Pakistan:

 

The leader of Pakistan's Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, may or may not be dead after a CIA missile hits his father-in-law's home in the remote "Zangarha area" of the country. But now we can see exactly where that missile hit, and we don't even need access to a spy satellite. Thanks to Google Earth, we get the image above.

Stefan Geens pinpointed the location on his blog Ogle Earth using location information gathered from news accounts. He also figured out where the supposed burial ground was. A decade ago, only a handful of people would have had access to such satellite imagery. Today, anyone can download it for free. CIA and military satellites are still higher resolution, but it makes you wonder how fast the geo-information gap between governments and citizens is closing.

The last question is important: As Google Earth (or some other web-based satellite-viewing technology) evolves into a sort of Internet-powered version of Sauron's All Seeing Eye, it's going to make it much more difficult for governments to conceal large-scale action, military or otherwise. Of course, it's also going to cause privacy complications for individuals too. Still, I'm inclined to see it as a good thing: It seems far more likely that it will prove a lot more useful at tracking large-scale government actions than actions by individuals.    

In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on the cover, and Declan McCullagh wrote about the way online databases are changing the way we live.