[OSM-legal-talk] Warning about not mapping military areas

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 22.12.20 10:09, Edward Bainton wrote:
> Unnecessary: anyone in a country that makes it illegal to map military
> sites knows about it (or ought to know).

...

> I don't
> recall anyone saying "I've just been interrogated for mapping this base
> without realising that was illegal - please don't do it!"

I think you might be having a too optimistic picture of how clever human
beings are ;)

I could, for example, perfectly well imagine a hapless western mapper
armchair-mapping Syrian military installations under their real name,
and years later being arrested when they enter the country as a tourist.

Would a warning have helped them? No idea. But it is a serious issue and
creating awareness for it will make our mappers safer. Yes, it might
come across as paternalistic to those who have decided to break the law
after careful consideration - but I'd rather be seen as paternalistic
towards those (whose decision I respect) than be seen as endangering
people by egging them on. A wiki page about how to record the details of
military installations can very well give a thoughtless newbie the
impression that it is of course totally ok to map all these things.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"