Prova

de Ingls TEAP Modelo 1

Cartography
1- Although a few academic cartographers accord the map mystical powers, it is
merely a tool, useful for good, evil or both, which citizens can resist or render - up to a
point. The question is not whether e-maps will restrict where we go and what we do,
but to what extent. Property maps are at least as old as Roman times, and boundary
maps no younger than kingdoms and nation states. What is new, however, is the
substantial increase in both the number and diversity of restrictive maps.

2- Since 1900, we have used maps to exclude industry from residential

neighbourhoods, ban new construction on alluvial plains, to set boundaries that
constrain a homeowner's choice of paint colour or replacement windows, restrict
travel by foreign diplomats and journalists, prevent sex offenders from living near schools and playgrounds, and keep
aircraft a nautical mile away from a vice-president's weekend retreat. The public tolerates these cartographic
restrictions because many, if not most, are not only benign but essential. Environmental protection, for instance, relies
on mapping as a regulatory instrument to safeguard water resources and wildlife habitat. Property maps show rights of
way that might impede a buyer's plan to enlarge a home or re-configure an access road. Government officials publish
restrictive maps because they assume the boundaries will be respected.

3- In 2012, however, restrictive cartography is close to more invasive applications, as electronic technology replaces
graphic lines requiring conscious interpretation with invisible fences, erected by proactive, self-enforcing geographical
restrictions. The most impressive examples, and the most frightening, reflect the integration of geographical
information systems (GIS), the Global Positioning System (GPS), and wireless telecommunications. A tracking device
can instantly report its location to a GIS that determines whether the person, car or ship under vigilance has entered a
prohibited area. Depending on circumstances and severity, a future system might be able to debit an offender's bank
account, transmit a vocal warning or electronic signal, notify the police or military, disable an engine, or even release a
soporific drug into the violator's bloodstream.

4- Because the public is willing to trade control over their lives for convenience, the cell phone already doubles as a
tracking device, and raises the possibility of "spatial micromanagement": of employees by employers, of children by
parents, of elderly parents by grown children, and of suspected subversives by the authorities. Threats to privacy and
personal freedom are well known and obvious. However, geospatial tracking might be equally efficient for enforcing
restraining orders on those who abuse their partners, especially in the name of public safety or national defence. Once
in place, a national geospatial surveillance administration can accommodate an wide variety of electronic boundary
lines, and offer unhappy taxpayers an alternative to costly incarceration. For many crimes, an electronic map makes
more sense than a prison, which may well reinforce antisocial behavior and allow criminals to exchange tricks of the
trade.

5- Efficient, but hardly fail-safe, electronic cartography is vulnerable to incompetent technicians, malevolent hackers,
cyber-terrorists and lobbyists for "special interests". Like traditional maps, e-cartography invites manipulation by
government or corporations, often in the guise of national defence or free-market capitalism. While maps on the
internet can advertise prohibitions and justify new delineations, this apparent openness is easily compromised.
Particularly portentous is the way online mapping blurs details presumed useful to saboteurs but which are in fact
easily viewable, after a little research, elsewhere on the internet. Boundaries developed for one purpose are too easily
adopted for another, as when postal codes (designed merely to speed up mail delivery) are used to set rates for car
insurance.

6- More troubling are the discrepancies that might arise from mixing maps compiled from different sources. For
example, it's risky to transfer boundaries from a detailed property survey into a generalised highway map on which
curves have been smoothed out or symbols shifted to avoid clutter. But restrictive mapping is a natural part of social,
political and cartographic evolution. In the end, then, we must hope that fear of litigation or other pragmatic issues may
prove more influential than concerns over privacy in limiting the growth of restrictive cartography in an electronic age.

Adapted from an article by Mark Monmonier

Glossrio

To ban: banir, proibir

Boundaries: limites, fronteiras

Fences: cercas

Tracking: rastreamento

Restraining: restritivo

Fail-safe: prova de falhas

To blur: embaar, tornar difcil de ver

Survey: pesquisa

Clutter: desordem, confuso