Surveying, Mapping and GIS

I am scheduled to leave for Atlanta, to attend the NCEES Board Presidents' Assembly this afternoon... although with just shy of 2 feet of snow that just got dumped on us, the interstates shut down, and a state of emergency that was declared through this morning, it will remain to be seen whether I am actually able to get to the airport or not...

The flight still shows as on-track, whereas most of the flights yesterday and early this morning show up as cancelled - so I will be in touch with the airport to confirm, and will leave myself plenty of time.

I must have put in 5 hours of solid snow shoveling yesterday...

At any rate, I am looking forward to this trip - it will be an opportunity to touch base with all of my fellow Professional Board presidents from across the nation to feel them out on several issues burning of late - Continuing Professional Competency for Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists first and foremost, the "B+30" initiative for Engineers, and the MAPPS lawsuit and Brooks Act.

Jeff Thurston at Vector One has posted a great article on geospatial data and the interplay of security, restrictions, and censorship versus freedom, citizen-centric government, and the ever-dynamic geospatial industry. I agree wholeheartedly with him on many aspects of his argument and perspective. I believe that, in an ideal world, access to data should be transparent.

However, I do think that there are more things at stake than just military and homeland security's wishes for data to be controlled. There is also an aspect of protection of the public from accidental misuse of data, and intentional abuse of data. Where harm to the public may be an issue, typically professional licensure, security clearances, or other safeguards come into play.

There are many datasets that can fall into this category - for example, there have been several publicized cases involving the misuse of GIS tax parcel mapping to attempt to enforce such things as building setbacks and other ordinances, to the harm and detriment of property owners who may in retrospect have actually turned out to be in compliance with the ordinances - though in some instances only through costly litigation and/or demolition of a structure. In some instances, actual surveyed boundaries were rejected by undereducated GIS staff or other bureaucrats, in favor of digitized-and-rubbersheeted GIS parcel boundaries or misused COGO routines in the hands of people who do not have a solid understanding of surveying. Clearly this is unacceptable misuse of GIS data.

Among other things, I work extensively with GIS data for facilities, which may contain toxic or hazardous materials - certainly agencies which regulate their activities and emergency responders need to have ready access to what is onsite, and what the consequences of a catastropic event at one of these facilities might be on the community - but aside from keeping this data from the hands of would-be agents of terror, certainly that facility's competitors might be able to gain some competetive edge from knowing what this facility is working with. This is generally known as "Confidential Business Information" (CBI). It is a classified data category apart from the usual Governmental Secret or TS/SCI classification hierarchies.

Another area with tremendous potential for misuse is in traffic incident data - Departments of Transportation collect information on reported accidents and incidents, and plot them on roadway maps - the analysis of this can help the DOT in triaging, prioritizing, budgeting and sequencing improvements to the roadway for safety. However, in the wrong hands, this type of data can also lead to litigation - "you knew this was a bad intersection, yet you didn't do anything". Often a DOT is aware of problems for many years, but given budgetary or organizational constraints may be unable to act on them in as timely a fashion as would be liked - and a multimillion-dollar court award or settlement is generally only going to take away money from being able to address the problem properly.

Another example from personal experience comes from some of the Emergency Response work we had done in conjunction with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Here, GIS data on accidental spills and contamination relating to the flood event must be captured, however given Agency issues with cost recovery, along with civil litigation and other issues, often this data must be tightly controlled, to avoid misuse which might undermine cleanup and remediation in the future.

These are just a handful of examples - many more come to mind. GIS is, at the end of the day, just a tool. The ever-emergent plethora of geospatial data and the ubiquitousness of GIS tools available to the public is certainly wonderful, however data and a tool in the hands of one, either without the adequate domain expertise to use the data properly - leading to unintentional harm; or the intentional abuse by one who wishes to exploit the data toward personal gain at expense of the public, or toward the outright, intentional harm of the public, can be a dangerous thing.

On the lawsuit by MAPPS et al. v. United States of America, to pursue an interpretation of the Brooks Act as it pertains to mapping and geospatial activities, with the trial date to have been today, little news of what may or may not have transpired today has been reported.

Elsewhere in the geospatial community, Adena at All Points Blog relays some information that a settlement was being pursued, presumably prior to litigation.

She also provides a link to GIS Monitor, which has an excellent rundown on the issue from the MAPPS side, based on a conversation with John Palatiello, executive director of MAPPS.

Additionally, as of late yesterday, GeoCommunity Spatial News posted a position statement by the URISA Board of Directors, one of the parties wishing to block the MAPPS litigation via an Amicus (Friends of the Court) Brief.

I will, in the meanwhile, pursue a few other avenues to see if I can gain some insight on this.

The battle is coming to a head. MAPPS versus the Federal Government on what the Brooks Act means, with regard to definitions of surveying and mapping, and to what extent federal contracting activities must be Qualifications-Based Selection (specifically meaning, with the implication the work will be performed under the responsible charge of a licensed professional).

For me, fortunately this is no problem, as not only am I a GIS practitioner in the Federal arena, I am also a Licensed Professional Land Surveyor and Licensed Professional Engineer. I can also say I know of quite a few firms doing GIS work, which have similarly licensed professionals on staff. However, I also know of quite a few firms which do not have licensed professionals on staff. In some instances, they have managed to skirt state laws and the Brooks Act by virtue of the work being generally unrelated to land surveying, however in instances such as topographic mapping, the lines become more blurred, and in the instance of cadastral mapping, quite often are crossed outright.

As such, AAG and others have teamed up to file an Amicus Brief and are acting to stop this lawsuit.

I can certainly understand the concern of the GIS practitioners and the organizations listed. However, many of the organizations represented only have a very limited number of members who actually do federal contracting. And of these members, many do have licensed staff in-house. Those that don't, certainly could consider retaining licensed professionals as well, if so much is actually at stake. But I certainly don't agree with the "end of the world" characterizations that have been raised.

What I do, however, find disturbing is the marginalization of professional licensure during the course of this. Essentially, statements have been made, that licensure doesn't really protect the public, or that licensure doesn't ensure perfection. No, it doesn't, and nobody ever claimed it did - in fact, licensure is the mark of minimal competency to take responsible charge of a project. In essence, the starting point upon which a true professional is built.

It isn't perfect, and that is why we have investigations, enforcement, E&O insurance, and other safeguards and remedies in the professions - as opposed to the complete lack of similar infrastructure which exists in the unlicensed community.

Oddly, these same statements marginalizing licensure and professional status would also tend to undermine GISCI and other efforts toward promoting professionalism in the unlicensed GIS community.

Further, it has been stated that it would be impossible to devise an examination to ensure the competency of GIS professionals as they do in Engineering and Land Surveying. Thoroughly untrue.

This demonstrates fundamental misunderstandings of professional licensure. Professional licensure is similar to a three-legged stool - the key elements are not just an examination, but also educational requirements and experience requirements. No single one of these can ensure an adequate yardstick. The stool does not begin to have balance without all three.

And with regard to examinations, certainly not every aspect of engineering or land surveying is adequately covered by their respective examinations, either - the exams present a microcosm of the universe of each profession, intended to gauge basic breadth and depth of understanding. The same most certainly can be done for GIS or Computer Science. I say this from experience, as one who straddles all of these.

I do have mixed feelings on this entire lawsuit - I have concerns about Land Surveyors being thrust into new areas of practice beyond their familiarity, in which they are not competent to practice, and yet at the same time, see the need to curb some of what amounts to unlicensed practice in the GIS community, particularly with regard to cadastral and other issues.

Another issue is that state laws governing what does and doesn't constitute land surveying vary from state to state - and in many it is not just boundary surveying. Certainly states do not intend to give up their sovereignty to Federal Government, so there is some interplay to be realized here as well.

Fortunately, I can cast stones in either direction, and do not have to pick sides... My only hope is that some clarity will emerge from all of this.