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

Mateusz Konieczny matkoniecz at tutanota.com
Tue Dec 22 20:45:48 UTC 2020




Dec 22, 2020, 19:02 by frederik at remote.org:

> 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.
>
+1 I am perfectly fine with fact that I should not visit China, India,
Russia or Noth Korea after repeated comments that I support going against their laws,
made under my real name.

But I can easily imagine someone being surprised and having unexpected
trouble - with mapping military installations it seems more likely to
run into some trouble.

So I support making situation fully clear, it seems to be possible and
serious risk, rather than spurious and unnecessary and obvious warning.
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