Vo.4-Moshirnia-Final

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2013 / Valuing Speech and OSINT in the Face of Judicial Deference 446 the town at the epicenter of the earthquake, was essentially obliterated, with ninety percent of its buildings collapsed. 324 The infrastructure of Haiti was severely compromised, with the country’s UN headquarters, presidential palace, parliament, and the great majority of ministries destroyed or otherwise heavily damaged. 325 The human infrastructure was also tragically crippled, as the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti and 100 members of the UN staff were killed in the earthquake. 326 The extent of the devastation engendered a rapid international commitment of aid. 327 However, the traditional international aid system could not easily integrate data from the Haitians themselves. Existing aid information was inadequate; for example, there was a noted lack of accurate road maps and poor understanding of existing Haitian infrastructure. 328 In a particularly telling example, local Haitians were unable to enter the UN logbase, the informational hub of the UN relief effort, without first registering and obtaining a security badge. 329 Even if granted access, Haitians were not included in high-level action meetings. 330 One prominent Haitian aid organizer noted, “International aid groups compare notes and discuss strategies for distributing aid at ‘cluster meetings’ from which 324 Christian Fraser, Leogane: Haiti's 'Neglected' Quake-Hit Town, BBC NEWS, Feb. 12, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8511762.stm. 325 HEINZELMAN & WATERS, supra note 320 at 5. 326 Neil MacFarquhar, U.N. Honors the 101 Who Served and Died in Haiti, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/world/americas/10nations.html (noting that the loss was “the largest one-day toll in the history of the organization”). 327 Sara Miller Llana, Haiti Earthquake: With Aid Groups Already There, Relief Efforts Ramp up Quickly, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Jan. 13, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0113/Haiti-earthquake-With-aidgroups-already-there-relief-efforts-ramp-up-quickly. But there has been great criticism that much of this promised aid was never delivered. Tom Phillips & Claire Provost, Haiti Earthquake: Two Years on, and Just Half of Promised Aid has Been Delivered, THE GUARDIAN, Jan. 11, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/11/haiti-earthquake-promisedaid-not-delivered; see also Sharyl Attkisson, Haiti Earthquake Aid: Nearly $15 Billion in Donations, CBS NEWS, Apr. 22, 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20003180- 10391695.html. 328 Another thing that has slowed down the relief effort is the lack of reliable maps of Haiti. See Clark Boyd, Online Mapping Helps Haiti Relief Efforts, THE WORLD, Jan. 22, 2010, http://www.theworld.org/2010/01/online-mapping-helps-haiti-relief-efforts/. 329 HEINZELMAN & WATERS, supra note 320, at 3. 330 Id.
447 Harvard National Security Journal / Vol. 4 ordinary Haitians are in effect banned. . . . Discrimination against Haitians in their own country seems more prevalent ever since the earthquake.” 331 The inability to incorporate data from local Haitians created an informational vacuum that increased the threat of violence on the ground. International media had reached some areas before the aid organizations and sensationalist reports of violence prevented the delivery of aid. 332 Several aid providers disputed the validity of these reports, 333 but the delay in aid delivery served to create a frustrated populace, which in turn increased the likelihood of violence: “[o]ur team on the ground reaffirms that the reports of violence in the streets of Port-au-Prince have been grossly exaggerated and have become a major obstacle to mounted the response needed to save tens of thousands of lives each day.” 334 The Ushahidi-Haiti map was deployed within two hours of the earthquake. 335 The team drew on social media (Twitter, Facebook, blog posts) as well as traditional media in generating actionable reports. 336 Critically, the team established a direct SMS text messaging system, which allowed Haitian households, approximately 85% of which have mobile phones, to submit alerts for analysis and mapping. 337 Because of the large amount of information submitted, volunteers from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University were asked to assist live mapping. 338 The team eventually grew to over 1,000 volunteers (largely members of the Haitian diaspora) in the United States and Canada, who translated and geo-coordinated incoming messages. 339 A report on the deployment noted the importance of volunteers: 331 Id. 332 Id.; Lucia Sepulveda, Haiti: Narrative Analysis of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake in the Conservative and Mainstream Media (Jun. 2, 2012) (unpublished Masters thesis, California State University Northridge) (on file with CSUN ScholarWorks) available at http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1134?show=full. 333 See HEINZELMAN & WATERS, supra note 320 at 6. 334 Id. 335 Id. at 6. 336 Id. at 6–7. 337 Id. at 7. 338 Id. at 6. 339 Id. at 7.
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