[Infowarrior] - Terror Plot + Google Earth = OMFGSCARY

[Richard Forno]

The current DRUDGE REPORT headline:

"JFK TERROR SUSPECT: USE GOOGLE EARTH FOR DETAILS"

Ummm.....would there be such hysterics if the bad guys had used Rand McNally
road maps or AAA travel guides?  Give me a bleepin' break!    Yet as always,
once the Internet is found to be involved, the sensationalism level of any
terror-related story rises exponentially.

But not to be undone, the Drudge links to this site for more details:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0604071google1.html

Google As Terror Tool?
JFK terror plotter directed cohorts to use satellite mapping service

JUNE 4--One of the plotters behind the alleged scheme to explode gas
pipelines at John F. Kennedy airport directed his co-conspirators to use
Google Earth to obtain detailed aerial photos of the targeted facility. In a
federal criminal complaint, an excerpt from which you'll find below, one of
the accused, Abdul Kadir, reportedly told cohorts to use the popular
satellite software after he determined that surveillance video shot by the
men was "not sufficiently detailed for operational purposes." Kadir, a
Guyanese citizen and former member of that country's parliament, made the
Google suggestion during a February meeting with an alleged co-conspirator
and a government informant (Kadir and three other men have been charged with
planning the terror attack). According to the complaint, the snitch followed
through and obtained the Google aerial images of JFK, which the men code
named the "chicken farm." At a May 11 meeting in Guyana, Kadir was shown the
surveillance video and the Google Earth maps of JFK by the informant and
Russell Defreitas, one of those charged in the airport attack plan.
Defreitas, the complaint notes, "identified, among other things, the fuel
tank locations and air traffic control tower." For his part, Kadir "asked
many questions about the maps, including the distance between the street and
the fuel tanks." (6 pages)