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Ten Places Google Maps Won't Let You See

Huffington Post UK  |  By Posted: 22/03/2012 11:54 Updated: 22/03/2012 11:56

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Ten Places Google Maps Doesnt Want To You See
Ten Places Google Maps Won't Let You See

We are all used to searching Google Maps for everyday locations, but there are a number of top secret locations Google Maps doesn't want you to see.

Areas blurred out to protect residents' privacy, or to preserve state secrets, include airports and industrial facilities, royal residences and universities.

The Minami Torishima Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport are blurred out as are oil tanks in Vlissingen, Netherlands and the Keowee Dam in South Carolina.

Buildings blocked from view include the Michael Aaf Building, Utah,The Royal Residence, The Netherlands, Cornell University

An entire city has been hidden from view too. The city of Babylon, Iraq, is just a blur on Google Maps, and it's name is nowhere to be seen.

Babylon is the location of a US army base, which was criticised by the British Museum Near East department's Dr John Curtis, who said that the army "caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

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We are all used to searching Google Maps for everyday locations, but there are a number of top secret locations Google Maps doesn't want you to see. Areas blurred out to protect residents' privacy...
We are all used to searching Google Maps for everyday locations, but there are a number of top secret locations Google Maps doesn't want you to see. Areas blurred out to protect residents' privacy...
 
 
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Jacob Ruark
0 Fans
02:25 AM on 09/19/2012
I think most of these are blurred out as a safeguard. Like why would you want to give people the ability to plan an attack on a power plant? Why let them know where all the weak points are in your defense (military base & royal residences)?

We've become too much of exhibitionists. I say the less that people know, the better.
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Nick Swarfega
2 Fans
02:10 PM on 06/18/2012
Some of the locations that are blurred out are most odd. Like the one in siberia. What could possibly be out there.
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Riverman
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
721 Fans
02:20 PM on 03/23/2012
I remember the cold war and back then we proudly claimed that an open just society would ultimately win out over intellectual tyranny. We went on and on about the differences like due process vs. simply picking people up that would never be seen again etc. One of those differences was that in the west maps were common place things where as in the Soviet Union maps were secret documents and even simple street maps just didn't exist for the general public. Seems to me that since the end of the cold war we have moved closer to the tyranny as they have moved closer to openness. Perhaps we need the other to compare ourselves too so we can be clearer about what we don’t want to be.
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trailerguy
161 Fans
04:47 PM on 03/25/2012
The end of the cold war left us without a clear enemy, except the people. The US govt keeps shopping for new threat to justify our huge expenditures in defense.
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