-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: Lying Maps that Just Lie There
Date:   Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:29:27 -0500 (CDT)
From:   Linda R Zellmer <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Air Photo Maps, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>



Hello,

I thought that I would chime in at this point, as I was on the advisory committee that developed the guidelines for release of spatial information after 9/11 (http://www.fgdc.gov/policyandplanning/Access%20Guidelines.pdf). If you want to see some U.S. Government cartographic disinformation, look at the older topographic maps of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and/or Hanford, Washington (late 1940s through the 1990s). We all knew there were buildings there, but they were not shown on U.S. topographic maps.

After 9/11, the White House and Naval Observatory were pixellated in some online aerial photography, and blanked out on other photography, as was the Old Executive Office Building near the White House (they aren't now, BTW). When I gave talks about my experience on the committee, and what should/should not be released, I used a quote from Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, as I thought that J.K. Rowling said it best:

”To keep foreign wizards from finding it, they’ll have made it Unplottable- ” [said Hermione].

“Come again?” [said Ron].

“Well, you can enchant a building so it’s impossible to plot on a map, can’t you?”

Linda Zellmer

--
Linda Zellmer
Government Information & Data Services Librarian
415 Malpass Library
Macomb, IL 61455
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Phone: 309-298-2723
Fax: 309-298-2791