Bill would censor online maps

Yet another public official seems eager to appease terrorists by cutting and running.

In California, far-right State Ass. Joel Anderson (pictured here) has a new bill that would censor Internet mapping sites. Anderson's bill would require sites like Google Earth and Virtual Earth to blur aerial and street-level photos of schools, hospitals, government buildings, and houses of worship.

His excuse is that terrorists who plotted attacks in India and Israel used mapping sites like these.

Except they didn't. That story has already been debunked.

It takes a real idiot to force the public to mortgage rights just because Bush couldn't capture a terrorist even if he had a map leading right to their hideout. Bush probably doesn't know how to read a map that's more detailed than the world map that used to be printed on soda cups at Long John Silver's.

The First Amendment protection of the free flow of information is pretty clear. Not like that's stopped the Republicans before from nibbling away at it.

Anderson reportedly appeared on Fox News Channel to defend his bill. He declared that nobody - not even law-abiding citizens - has a right or need to view the aerial photos provided by Google Earth or Virtual Earth. Nice to know some clod in the California legislature thinks he can decide what my rights and needs are.

If this bill does pass, it's not as if Google won't just lay down and take it. Google has already complied with undemocratic governments of other countries that have demanded yanking photos.

What's next? Banning computers? Banning breathing?

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ic3Izr3wpXcWAV3Ka0Dn0Wd8oS6AD96MO2300)