Slashdot | High-Tech Burglars May Get Longer Sentences In Louisiana
Burglars and terrorists should be careful not to use Google Maps if they plan on committing crimes in the state of Louisiana … a bill approved 89-0 by the Louisiana House will require that judges impose an additional minimum sentence of at least 10 years on terrorist acts if the crime is committed with the aid of an Internet-generated ‘virtual map.’ The bill, already approved by the Louisiana Senate, defines a ‘virtual street-level map’ as one that is available on the Internet and can generate the location or picture of a home or building by entering the address of the structure or an individual’s name on a website. If the map is used in the commission of a crime like burglary, the bill calls for the addition of at least one year in jail (PDF) to be added to the burglary sentence.
Because you have to case a joint the old-fashioned way, dammit, sitting outside in a sketchy van with binoculars! Not using this cold, heartless, new-fangled Internet!
I … hmmm … uhhhh … I don’t know where to start with this one. Nothing else of import on the legislative agenda? Conducting a terrorist act isn’t bad enough, you get 10 years, y’heard, 10 WHOLE YEARS EXTRA for using the series of tubes for reconnaissance. That the Louisiana legislature should encourage the use of Google Maps for such activity because it will most likely send the would-be criminal to the wrong location? The bill was approved 89-0 in the LA House after passing the Senate; are all of the state’s elected representatives tech-illiterate geezers?
For the love of justice, David Vitter is giving away the keys to the castle and you’re worried about common criminals and imagined terrorists using digital cartography?
I suggest an amendment to the bill that jails people for geolocating their home addresses for others and then blasting to the world when they’re away from home. If you’re that stupid, you need to be put away for your own good.
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While its idiot politicians waste taxpayer money, the rest of Louisiana fights the good fight in the throes of deep, horrifying, sickening despair. From Charlie Mac and His Junk Shots, a remake of the musical classic Jambalaya (On The Bayou):
Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me o my o
Oil slick come and it’s as big as Ohio.
BP says they gonna clean the mess but they lie-o
Son of a gun, oil by the ton on the bayou.
St. Bernard gonna take it hard, and that’s a shame-o
Plaquemines just can’t win, and who’s to blame-o?
Big oil slick make the little fish sick, kill the game-o
Son of a gun, they got us on the run on the bayou.
This may or may not be appropriate. But a NY Times journalist asked us if we knew anyone he could talk to who isn’t ‘official’ but knows more than officials about the BP Oil Blowout Crime and how it is working its way through the systems involved. As you work in geoscience, according to what I’ve noticed on the BOT Blogging Treme forum, you seemed like the perfect person (along with a few others who I actually know like Louis Maistros).
I don’t twitter, but if you would be interested in learning more and having the man, John Leland, get in touch with you, if you’d send me an e-mail with some contact info for John, maybe it could be useful for the reporting of the situation.
Isn’t it amazing it’s taken nearly two months before the primary media is starting to see that this may be the worst man-made environmental disaster ever?
Love, C (Foxessa on Back of Town)
Hi Foxessa,
Thanks for your interest and vote of confidence. I worked in the oil industry for a decade and, while it’s true that I ingest the news with a more nuanced filter, I see the same news that everyone else does, especially from The Oil Drum, RigZone and The Oil & Gas Journal.
I do have some educated _opinions_ not inside information, so if Mr. Leland would like to talk with me, he is free to contact me via email.
The best thing BP can do right now by the media and public is to be more transparent and forthcoming about their activities and shut up their CEO, who seems to make one stupid statement per day, only adding insult to injury. He seems to have a case of the Nagin.