[Freegis-list] Some hard earned free data...

[Adrian Custer]

Hey everyone,

Sorry if this has already made it to you through other channels. It's
hit me a few times already.

After our discussion on a GPS depository, I starteg looking again at
using the US Freedom of Information Act to get access to VMAP level1
from the government. (it turns out parts of it are available and the
data is not terribly good.) There was a web site trying to get access to
this data posted in 1999. It turns out this site was posted by a guy
called Ian Thomas.

Ian Thomas, is the scientist at the United STates Geological Survey who
recently lost his job for posting some maps of the calving areas of a
heard of caribou in Alaska/Canada! This is sensitive information now
because the US ?president? wants to open up a wildlife refuge for oli
drilling.

Anyhow his site is at http://www.maptricks.com Since it's political
data, that's being threatened, I would hope that we could link to it off
the web site. I realize that this offers potential to have tons of links
to tiny datasets but part of Freedom is the risk of it being taken away,
so it might be useful to have links to sensitve data.

cheers,
adrian