{"id":1259,"date":"2007-08-25T10:53:32","date_gmt":"2007-08-17T10:04:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-17T10:04:22","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1259","title":{"rendered":"Google Earth maps may be out of date; but use them for surveying crime scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/blog\/index.php?blog=1&amp;title=wi_sheriff_uses_google_earth_to_locate_m&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\">post from October 2006<\/a>, a Wisconsin sheriff used a <a href=\"http:\/\/earth.google.com\/\">Google Earth<\/a> or Google Maps satellite photograph as probable cause in a marijuana grow operation.<\/p>\n<p>Be cautioned that Google&#8217;s satellite images can be really dated. I looked at a crime location on Google last weekend, trying to get an overview of nearby buildings and streets, and it said it was &#8220;copyright 2007.&#8221; This is a useful tool for any lawyer or investigator in investigating a crime or defending or prosecuting a case. <\/p>\n<p>It was easy to move the image to my house, and I can tell from the image of my own house that the image was at least two years old because of a certain car parked in the driveway. Then I moved the image over a construction site about a mile away, and that confirmed it was two years old because the construction of the existing building had not even started. Also, the city maps are taken in winter to avoid foliage that would block views of streets and buildings, as if it is not obvious from the length of shadows.<\/p>\n<p>If a Google satellite image is used in an affidavit for probable cause for what it shows, it should be presumptively stale.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update:<\/strong> August 25: In United States v. Stewart, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61715 (E.D. Va. August 22, 2007), the court cited Google Maps in its opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1259\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}