Google Serving More Lies & Disinformation

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262621,00.html

Google Replaces New Orleans Map With Pre-Katrina Images
Friday, March 30, 2007

NEW ORLEANS - Only a few mouse clicks away, a total revision of the recent
history of the Big Easy is on offer from Google Inc.'s popular map portal.

The company has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with
pictures taken before the storm, and it's left locals feeling like they're
in a time loop.

Chikai Ohazama, a Google product manager for satellite imagery, said the
maps now available are the best the company can offer. He said numerous
factors "go into the databases, everything from resolution, to quality, to
when the actual imagery was acquired."

He said he was not sure when the current images replaced views of the city
taken after Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, flooding an estimated 80 percent
of New Orleans.

In the images available Thursday, the cranes working to fix the lethal
breach of the 17th Street Canal are gone. Homes wiped off their foundations
are miraculously back in place in the Lower 9th Ward. So, too, is the
historic lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain.

Scroll across the city, and across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and
everything is back to normal: Marinas are filled with boats, bridges are
intact and parks are filled with healthy full-bodied trees.

"Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the Lower 9th Ward
Economic Development Association. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google don't
pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine."'

In the Lower 9th Ward, the truth isn't pretty 19 months after Katrina.

"Everything is missing. The people are missing. Nobody is there. We still
have no idea what's happening," Henry said.

His pharmacy is still closed, the washateria next door hasn't even been
gutted yet, and the church across the street is in bad shape, he said. None
of that shows up on Google's satellite imagery.

Walter Stone, a local land surveyor, said he uses Google in his work and was
surprised to discover the new (ergo old) imagery.

"For a while you could go look at the damage that was done, you could see
the blue roofs on houses," he said.

Google has become a go-to service for people looking for a quick and easy
way to get up-close satellite imagery of the world.

"I use it on a regular basis in my class," said Craig Colten, a geographer
at Louisiana State University. "I teach a course about North America and I
usually have it up constantly when I am teaching. I usually have a Google
Earth image up behind me to zoom in on Manhattan or the fishing villages of
Maine, whatever I'm talking about."

Colten, who has written extensively on New Orleans, called Google's switch
"unbelievable."

"I'm sure the mayor is thrilled," he quipped, a reference to the slow pace
of recovery of New Orleans and attempts by city leadership to paint a rosy
picture of New Orleans.

After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles
and hurricane victims anxious to see if their homes were flooded or damaged
by the storm.

Pete Gerica, a fisherman who lives in eastern New Orleans, said he printed
pictures of his waterside homestead from Google to use in his arguments with
insurance adjusters.

He'd love for the "new" Google images to be real. "Take a magic pill and go
back into the past," Gerica said, laughing.

The virtual Potemkin village is fueling the imagination of frustrated
locals.

"I think a lot of stuff they're doing right now is smoke and mirrors because
tourism is so off," Gerica said. "It might be somebody's weird spin on
things looking better."

"Is Google part of the conspiracy?" Henry asked, alluding to widespread
feelings among many New Orleans blacks that they are being neglected in the
rebuilding effort. "Why these images of pre-Katrina? Seems mighty curious."

Ohazama, the Google product manager, said he "personally" was not asked by
city or state officials to change the imagery, but he added that Google gets
lots of requests from users and governments to update and change its
imagery.

David Gisclair, chairman of the Louisiana GIS Council, a consortium of state
agencies, said he would try to get some answers from Google when the company
shows up on April 19 in a bid to sell the state some new technology.

"Maybe we can strike a deal with Google to put the 2005 imagery of the city
in ruins on the Web," he said.

"If we represent something," Gisclair said, "we should represent reality."



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