Palestinian Militant Use of Google Earth

Palestinian Militant Use of Google Earth
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

The Guardian reports that Palestinian militants have relied on Google Earth for their attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets:

Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes. "We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian. Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets. The Guardian filmed an al-Aqsa test rocket launch, fired into an uninhabited area of the Negev desert, last month. Despite the crudeness of the weapons, many have landed in Sderot, killing around a dozen people in the last three years and wounding scores more.

Google's response to this revelation was predictable. In a statement, the company said: "We have paid close attention to concerns that Google Earth creates new security risks. The imagery visible on Google Earth and Google Maps is not unique: commercial high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery of every country in the world is widely available from numerous sources. Indeed, anyone who flies above or drives by a piece of property can obtain similar information."

This is not the first time that militant use of Google Earth has been alleged. Back in January, the Telegraph reported that in raids of insurgent homes in Iraq, British soldiers found printouts and photographs taken from Google Earth. From these finds, the soldiers concluded that insurgents were using Google Earth "to pinpoint their attacks." It is quite obvious how terrorists could find Google Earth a useful tool, as it contains an enormous amount of information about such appealing targets as nuclear reactors, military bases, government installations, and much more. Other countries have voiced their concerns about the possible security implications. DMEurope.com reported in late 2005 that Dutch politicians were "concerned that certain locations in the Netherlands, such as the port of Rotterdam, the royal palace in the Hague and Amsterdam Airport, already potential terrorist targets, could be made more vulnerable to terrorists thanks to the detailed images created from satellites and aircraft within the last three years available via Google Earth." The operators of Australia's nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights were so concerned that they asked Google to censor images of the reactor.

As has often been the case with Google, the company's defense of the images is fatuous. Google's statement that "anyone who flies above or drives by a piece of property can obtain similar information" is true enough, but most people can't just hop in a plane and fly over a nuclear reactor. Those who stop to scope out likely targets will often attract authorities' attention. In the Guardian's latest story, Palestinian militants themselves speak of Google Earth's utility to them.

This highlights one of the tensions of the information age, between freedom of information and security. Google Earth is a useful tool for many people, terrorists among them. Terrorists have been adept at exploiting the West's liberties and technology in their war against us, and Google Earth is no exception. There aren't easy answers to the conflict between freedom of information and security, but to pretend that no problems exist -- as Google does -- is not helpful.
October 26, 2007 07:58 AM