Where can I find public domain (copyright free confirmed) photos of
current politicians?  More specifically, I would like photos of George
W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld,
John Kerry, Ralph Nader.  Pics of any other current political figures
would also be useful.  I already know of state department and federal
websites so I am looking for websites other than the obvious.  Any
links to businesses that sell public domain databases offline or
anywhere else.  Doesn't need to be a web based service.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 16 Jul 2004 11:43 PDT

I know you're familiar with government sites, but are you aware of how
to harvest them for images...?

For instance, here' link to a number of government photos -- virtually
all of them copyright-free - of Condoleezza Rice:

http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=condoleezza+site%3Agov


I'd be glad to provide similar links for the other names on your list,
if that would serve as an answer to your question (I'm sure everyone
would show up, but I rather doubt that any Nader photos would be
public domain, since he is not a government employee).

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by zumpango-ga on 17 Jul 2004 03:10 PDT

thanks for the reply.  it had been a while since i posted.

the link you've posted is very useful and if you can provide similar
ones for the other politicians, that would definitely be helpful.  in
addition, if you can document the method to pull pics from the .gov
sites in a search method, that would also be helpful so that i can
continue to search in the future.

thanks.

Hello zumpango-ga,

Happy to be of help on this one (and sorry it took so long to spot your question).

Google has a search site specifically aimed at finding photographs and
other images on the web:


http://images.google.com/


Obviously, searching on a name of interest -- George Bush, for
instance, -- will result in a lot of pictures of the President,
however, most of these will not be public domain.

There is a trick for restricting the results to only government sites,
however, and most of the government photos are public domain (although
it is still necessary to double check, as there are exceptions).

Just include the syntax command [ site:gov ] in your search, and only
images from government sites will be returned.

I've provided links, below, to government-site images for the names in
your question, along with some explanation of how the searches were
constructed:





http://images.google.com/images?q=%22george+bush%22+OR+%22president+bush%22+OR+%22pres+bush%22+site%3Agov&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

Results for the search on:

"george bush" OR "president bush" OR "pres bush" site:gov

Note several things here:

--I used several variations of how Bush's name is likely to be used,
to cast a broad net in retrieving pictures.

--I used quotes around the name -- e.g. "George Bush" -- to specify
searching on an exact phrase -- necessary when names are particularly
common (like George) or are also common words (like Bush).

--I used the OR connector (which always must be capitalized!) to
specify that Google should look for any of the phrases used in my
search

--and of course, the [ site:gov ] restriction turns up only government site results

For George Bush, you wind up with pictures of both Sr. and Jr.  You
could also do a search on "George W Bush" for just the current
president:

"george w bush" site:gov

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=%22george+w+bush%22+site%3Agov&btnG=Search



Here are the other names you asked about:


"dick cheney" site:gov
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=%22dick+cheney%22+site%3Agov


Condoleezza site:gov
[first name only is sufficient, since it is such an unusual name]
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=Condoleezza+site%3Agov&btnG=Search



Colin Powell site:gov
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=Colin+powell+site%3Agov




Donald Rumsfeld site:gov
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=Donald+Rumsfeld+site%3Agov&btnG=Search



John Kerry site:gov
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=john+kerry+site%3Agov&btnG=Search
[NOTE: for some reason, a non-governmental result is included here
from countrystore.blogspot.com -- do not assume this is public
domain!]



Ralph Nader site:gov
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=ralph+nader+site%3Agov&btnG=Search
[Reminder:  these are probably NOT public domain, since Nader is not a
government employee]


If you need any assistance in constructing other image searches, just
let me know by posting a Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy
to help.

pafalafa-ga