Earth Web Sites

On the other hand, fedworld.gov is still posting these images, which thoroughly invalidates the premise of my previous post. 

Nevermind.

University of Wisconsin-Madison has stopped serving my favorite desktop wallpaper, which were weather satellite images of the US (one of the east coast and another of the west coast). 

I suppose if enemies of America want to know what the weather was (or more specifically, the cloud patterns, not the actual weather) on May 11, 2001, this photo will help.  If they want to know what the weather is today thay can still go here.  News flash to the government: Just because it's a satellite image doesn't mean it qualifies as intelligence.  And just because we do it out of fear does not mean it is intelligent. 

I am wide open for attack here; what possible benefit is there in having an image of my planet on my desktop, from a satellite in geostationary orbit, updated every 30 minutes?  None, of course.  There is no value to the comfort of seeing us as a single earth from an impossible altitude, no advantage to observing -- as if removed from it all -- the peaceful countenance of our strife- and hate-riddled world, and of course no gain in preserving (as much as possible) the way we lived our lives before September 11 -- including such frivolities as a desktop with panache. 

If they are looking for Florida or Texas, they know where to find them without this image.  Concealing information that might be useful to terrorists is not the purpose of removing these images from the Internet.  This image has a resolution of about a mile -- objects smaller than that do not appear as discreet objects, rather they are melded into their surroundings.  Furthermore these images remained available up until October 18, 2001, a full five weeks after the WTC attack.  Even as uncharitable as is my opinion of governmental competence, I think if these images mattered, they'd have been gone sooner.  There could be a lot of reasons that this view has been blocked, the misconception that it has a strategic value not least among them.  Forgive my cynicism, but five weeks after the fact is about when I would expect the newly assembled iron fist of Homeland Security to start tightening, and the place where oppression -- however well intentioned it may be -- first occurs is at educational institutions where free thought and dissent are nurtured and cultivated. 

Shame on the University of Wisconsin for not protesting.  It may be politically impossible to sustain such a protest in this case, since public access to satellite images is pretty much doomed these days, no matter how useless they might be to our enemies.  But the truth of the matter, both technically and morally, is that government should keep its hands off when compelling and legitimate government interests are not at stake.  The thing I fear is that the government today does have interests which are threatened by academic autonomy, as such those interests are illegitimate. 

Where did the free world go?