Thank goodness for congressional committees, and the committees’ subcommittees. To think, Google almost got away with the crime of the century.
ABC News is reporting that “A congressional subcommittee accused Google on Friday of ‘airbrushing history’ by replacing post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its popular map portal with images of the region taken before the storm’s devastation.”
According to ABC News: “’Google’s use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history,’ subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., wrote Friday in a letter to Schmidt (Google CEO).”
I will assume that “airbrushing history” is a felony, if not a capital offense. I cannot thank Miller enough. The only reason I can sleep soundly at night is that Miller and crew are manning their posts 24/7.
But, wait a minute. It gets even more sinister. AOL News is reporting that “Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery.”
A full-blown scandal!
The premise was so bizarre that I first thought it had to be an April Fools’ spoof. Sadly, it isn’t. It’s one more example of those wonderful, and watchful, public servants in DC. What would we do without them?
