Google Street View drivers haven’t exactly had the best rep recently, what with that whole collecting-private-Wi-Fi-data debacle and their general propensity for photographing naked women, defecators, murders and mid-coital couples, just to name a few. And now one almost got arrested by a group Thai villagers.
The northern Thai village where the incident took place, Sa-eab, apparently has a long history of protesting dam-building, so when the Google Street View car came poking around, they became “extremely worried” that “someone was trying to survey the area in disguise,” according to the Associated Press. So what do you do when those dam-building bastards come around? Why, get a small mob together, detain the driver in a citizens arrest, and drag the perpetrator to the nearest temple so he can swear on Buddha that he’s not a spy, of course.
After questioning him and forcing him to swear on Buddha’s likeness, the villagers released the driver and promptly apologised to both him and Google for their slightly overeager brand of vigilance. In a public statement, the villagers wrote:
[We] apologise to the official, to Google, as well as to the Thai people throughout the nation and to the citizens of the world.
So children of the world, hopefully you can find it in your heart to forgive them. And for god’s sake, never try to build a dam in Thailand. [The Guardian]