Not too smart to not cover up if you're doing something illegal.

If this was Mitt Romney building an illegal add-on to his house, would it still be a bad thing for police to look at Google Earth?

would it still be a bad thing for police to look at Google Earth?

I say yes.

Same argument as the electronic spying on Americans. Right to privacy. I like to sunbathe nude and I don't want my picture on the internet or being ogled by some horny cops.

I think that word is going the same way as Nazi!

I've smoked MJ virtually every day for 42 years, so, no you got it wrong.

And Google is giving up what he knows to the bad guys.

I would do my best to disguise it. But there's really no need. Technology has improved and continues to improve. You can grow all you need indoors, in a closet or basement.

If you're doing a large-scale operation with hundreds of plants, you're running a much higher risk. But you can produce quite a bit of marijuana using HID lights indoors. You can have one or two 1000 watt lights without attracting undue attention and as far as "thermal imaging" - they can't see through your walls. They can see heat escaping from your house. Maybe an excessive amount of heat coming from the attic would be unusual. And the cops don't go flying all over the place looking at various homes' heat signatures unless they've already got a reason to go there.

If you're really paranoid, you can stagger the times of light and dark periods - not turning your lamps off/on at the same times every day.

It's very safe to grow indoors. The people who get caught do so because they're stupid and let someone else know about it.

And the neighbors down the street will smell it.

Although I hear growing it in an unplugged fridge...with lights and a fan, works pretty well.

Now they'll be looking for people buying old fridges.

the neat rows stand out from the air.

IOW, attach blue or white fake flowers to the outside of your plants.

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A few years back I was experimenting with Google's "streetview" -

just curious what old neighbourhoods I used to live in look like today.

Surprised to see someone I recognized, then went up and down the same street,

only to see more pictures of the same person as they progressed up the street.

If this is what is publicly available ( and it is), then NSA et al got MUCH more.

"Streetview" is a sporadic thing, but it does prove the technology is very sophisticated.

If NSA, FBI, CIA, our own RCMP et al want to target surveillance on any one person;

your privacy is totally gone.

GONE.

(sigh)

CC

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I did recheck the address - a new series of pix is up from 2011 -

The ones I saw/captured were from around 2008-9.

Face was perfectly clear then, new pictures don't show the person I saw back then, but NONE of those pix, there were about 4 of them as he progressed up the street, had his face blurred.

He was sort of shocked way back then when I sent him the link, and my screenshots . . .

I suspect Google changed its policy as a result of complaints when they first initiated StreetView.

And, as you mentioned, and I noticed, all the new series of pix have licence plates blurred.

CC

Last edited Thu Oct 24, 2013, 09:14 PM - Edit history (1)

I was involved in an outdoor operation, and we were subjected to regular fly-overs (not targeting us, but DEA "fishing expeditions" in our rural area). But were never once suspected, even though they flew low enough to see our property.

1. No rows. Randomly placed plants instead, spread out across the property.

2. Styrofoam balls (small ones) painted red and attached to the plants with Christmas tree ornament hooks. (Don't use anything shiny, like actual Christmas tree ornaments.)

How'd that work?

...they didn't look like pot plants.

Even though they would buzz the property at low altitudes, they still only had seconds to scan the ground, and that allowed just enough time to try to spot a grow operation. It didn't allow enough time to analyze the plants. (But they definitely didn't look like apple trees. The area was full of real apple orchards, so if they thought anything, they probably assumed the red balls were berries.)

It helped that we were two families living on the property, in residences that were very domestic in appearance. (The homes weren't a "cover" for our op; they were our actual homes.)

It also helped that, as soon as we heard a plane in the distance, we were doing anything other than tending plants.

Also, we made a point to wave at the planes as they passed. We wouldn't have wanted to appear inhospitable. Good Christian folk would never raise a middle finger to a government plane.

This is a political issue. They were doing nothing wrong, in my opinion, and the opinion of the majority of Americans.

Whether they were selling the plants or just having a good time, it is wrong to be swooped down upon, have property seized and time stolen from them. It's not Googles fault, they just got in the middle.

Pot is relatively therapeutic from many perspectives for both the healthy who just need more happiness and chronically ill. It is wrong, and I'd even say it's evil, for government to intervene here.

and he violated the terms of that license.

This is exactly the excuse the DEA needs, and why they are busting medical MJ operations.

If you agree to walk the line, walk it.

I'm unaware of any other medicine that authorities say you make make too much of. Marijuana is the exception to the rule because it is at the center of political persecution. Not only are they wrong for applying their personal opinion on others, but recent polls say they are in the minority.

Again, if a law is unjust it should be broken. Still applies here even if the growers were asked to sign a paper to do something they should be able to do anyway.

"Croft was registered to grow medical marijuana for five people, which amounts to 30 mature plants, but police raid in September seized 94 plants, according to authorities."

I'm as pro-legalization as anyone, but he wasn't doing this in defiance of an unjust federal law. He was doing it in violation of an OR citizen's initiative passed through DIRECT DEMOCRACY. You're trying to make this into something it's not.

WA and CO have non-medical legalized MJ just coming online, but watch; some people will violate the terms of the law, not in pursuit of liberty, but in pursuit of profit.

for those who follow the law and provide medicine legally.

and never be allowed to legally grow again.

Unless one is giving it to a minor, there should be no punishment.

I'm a bit uncomfortable applying the language of civil resistance to it, though. This guy wasn't fighting segregation laws or something, he was just trying to make a buck/get high. While not particularly heinous, it's not exactly noble, principled resistance either.

I have found wild MJ plants growing, as weeds, in my garden. All Poppy flowers, even the ornamentals, have some amount of alkaloids used to make morphine. Many a wild mushroom can make you high. So, should we arrest all those who have weeds, flowers and mushrooms growing on their property?

This is NOT a war on drugs but a war against common sense.

1984 has arrived.

The NSA bastards listen to my phone calls, read my emails, and anything else they feel like doing.

Google Earth are taking aerial photographs of me.

Google Street Map are taking pictures of my house.

The effing CCTV cameras are following every move I make around my local town.

Complete Surveillance is now a given.

What people should now be considering is how to make life as difficult as possible for the bastards.

that sells itself to the world as a protector of individual rights,

doing most of it.

I'm in total agreement that marijuana should be 100% legal, but until that happens, the only person at fault here is the grower. He knew the game rules and was willing to risk the consequences. Now he's paying for it.

I see to reason to place any blame on Google (or the police for that matter).