Google Justice: From George Clooney's Efforts in Sudan to Drug Busts in Wisconsin

Search giant Google has already revolutionized the the way the world looks for stuff online, but now George Clooney and the United Nations are hoping it may be able to help curb genocide.

The Hollywood star is funding the Satellite Sentinel Project, a joint effort involving Google, the U.N. and anti-genocide organizations to train satellite cameras on areas where violence is likely to erupt when southern Sudan votes on a secession referendum Jan. 9.

"This is as if this were 1943 and we had a camera inside Auschwitz and we said, 'OK, if you guys don't want to do anything about it, that's one thing,'" Clooney told Time. "'But you can't say you did not know.'"

Whether you're a Sudanese warlord or just a petty thief, it seems there's no hiding from Google. Here are three other real-world crimes that were brought to light using Google's mapping technologies.

1) Google Street View trucks have captured dozens of shady actions, from assaults to public urination. But such instances rarely end in formal charges. That wasn't the case for six drug dealers in Brooklyn, N.Y., who were arrested and convicted after an investigation that included photographs taken by Google Street View. The men were loitering outside a store in an area that people had described as an "open-air drug market."

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2) The indigenous Surui tribe in Brazil, led by Chief Almir Surui, have a plan to protect their ancestral homeland. Almir Surui's father may have fought against settlers with a bow and arrow, but according to a report by ABC News, the Surui and Google are using satellite imaging to monitor illegal logging and gold prospecting in an area they fear could see up to 30 percent deforestation if they don't fight back.

3) Police routinely use helicopter flyovers to monitor hot spots for illegal marijuana growers in places like Humboldt County, Calif. But satellites are in the air 24/7, and they can see more too. That fact became all too real for a man in Racine, Wis., who was arrested for a felony drug possession while wearing a GPS unit around his neck. Police plugged the coordinates from the device into Google and found the man's growing operations.

"If you can't remember where your own stashes are, you should think of that as a sign, not an indication that you should buy a GPS device," wrote Ryan Singel at Wired.

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