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Erroneous San Juan River boundary as depicted between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. (graphic: Google Maps)
There’s a disappointing lack of research by media outlets into the recent dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, attributed to a misunderstanding about the location of the border between these two nations — and blamed erroneously on Google Maps.
Politico’s Laura Rozen, whose work is generally solid, makes the same mistake today by relying on a report by ABC News and failing to validate ABC’s work. Apparently it’s very easy to buy into the “Google is Evil” mantra and replicate a bad meme far too many other media folk have already replicated rather than vet the information first.
Where did Google Maps get the data on location of the Nicaraguan/Costa Rican border?
From the U.S. Department of State.
Why hasn’t anyone bothered to find out why Department of State is giving out bad border data?
For that matter, is it possible that the Morocco/Spain dispute also stems from bad data provided by a governmental agency? How is a U.S. corporation supposed to vet what its government tells it is the legitimate location of a nation/state border?
7 Comments
*heh* Should be interesting to see how the ’67 I/P borders are defined…! Whose stats do you use…?
Obviously we should be applying for jobs in whatever State Dept. function doles out border information, huh?
I’m game…! My Dad was a head Surveyor for a large Mining Corp, and, I learned the tricks of the trade at an early age…! Something that served me well during all my Land Nav courses that Uncle Sam had me take…! Aced them all, btw…! ;-)
Perhaps between outsourcing this work and MERS type improvements to the process no-one knows where any borders are.
When raising questions like this one must remember to not be shrill.
Click through the google link provided in the OP above to this link.
According to this explanation of the situation Google has nothing to do with the situation on the ground other than to be a convenient excuse. The circumstance of an apparently corrupted or incorrect data set, in a location where there is long established controversy, perhaps indicates a fault both in the U.S. State Department data set and in whatever verification procedures Google uses.
At a time when increasing reliance is made on nontraditional providers of geographic data, the possible consequences of ‘mistakes’ of various types is obvious.
Yes, and my point exactly on the I/P issue…! 8-(
Right off the bat I think of two times the US used “faulty” or changing official map data to deadly consequence:
In May 1999 NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia. Press all over said it was an accident due to the CIA’s outdated map. Salon picked up the story:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/05/12/cia/print.html
Five months later, the Guardian revealed that the map story was cover. NATO had long suspected and/or detected China’s alliances with the independent Communist governments of Yugoslavia and Albania, and decided here was and opportunity to correct that, by bombing a huge building and killing the people inside it “by mistake”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/oct/17/balkans
The other time was Gulf War II (not Gulf War III in which the US is now involved): The 1991 Gulf War I lasted a couple of months of bombing and press censorship, then a quick invasion that left Saddam Hussein in charge. Hidden in the ceasefire agreement was fine print moving the border between Iraq and Kuwait a few hundred yards into what had previously been Iraq, on the second anniversary of the initiation of the US bombing campaign there, January 15-16, 1993, just days before President George H.W. Bush’s term was due to end. When the anniversary arrived, people in Baghdad celebrated and demonstrated vociferously, which the news told us we should find very offensive. The day after the border moved, the US and the UK jointly announced that Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and the UN hastily passed a strongly worded resolution condemning the invasion. What we didn’t learn then (when we needed to know it) was that Kuwait had been “invaded” by an Iraqi building that now stood in Kuwaiti territory, with the new border arrangement. Iraq scrambled to remove the offending building by sending Pakistani workers whom it contracted to disassemble the building. When the contractors arrived to remove the “invading” building, the English spokesman for the US-UK alliance announced that Iraq had stepped up its invasion and had launced an invasion force during the night. The spokesman told us this was a “very serious” violation of International Law, and the TV news reporters didn’t set us straight. With the time scheduled for his Presidency ticking away, Bush’s armed forces began bombing Baghdad. One prominent target was a huge Western hotel that hosted most of the US journalists in Baghdad. Bush at first denied that the bombing was happening, but as he was denying it live on CNN, the split screen showed the blown-out building and injured reporters. It was a terrifying time for activists watching it unfold. Was Bush imposing this international emergency while he still held all the cards to force President-elect Bill Clinton to cede control of the Military to Bush? In any case, the Military greatly reduced the hostilities against Iraq quickly under Clinton.