Pentagon obscures Google Street View

7 March 2008

The US Department of Defense has barred Google from filming inside military bases, after detailed photographs of a Texan base became available online.

The images, of Fort Sam Houston, were available through Google Maps' Street View feature, which provides rotatable, zoomable ground-level views of key map areas in the US.

Google spokesperson Larry Yu told BBC News that Google had made "a mistake" by surveying the base, and added that detailed study of such sensitive sites was not Google policy. Images taken from within the base have been removed, but views from the street outside remain available.

Meanwhile, The Register reports that an attack on Pentagon computers nine months ago resulted in the theft of data that could pose a threat to US security. "This was a very bad day," it quotes Defense Department chief information officer Dennis Clem as having said.

"We don't know when they'll use the information they stole, [which was] an amazing amount."

Category: Miscellaneous