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The Seventh Court of Appeals in?Illinois has ruled that the surreptitious placement of GPS tracking devices is consitutional — even without a warrant.?I’ll be keeping an eye on this issue in the coming months. It would really surprise me if an appeal wasn’t brought to the Supreme Court on this issue.? I imagine the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the ACLU will jump on this opportunity.?

Which begs another question in regards to privacy in the geographical realm.? Do we, as private citizens, have a right to privacy, especially with the use of high-resolution satellite imagery and sky images? MSN’s “Bird’s Eye View” option has gotten so close to the action, that you can punch in the city of San Francisco and look?into peoples’ windows.

With the use of cell phones, GPS, and OnStar, we would be naive to think that our every move is not being tracked, but could the government potentially use this information for nefarious purposes a la 1984?

I only pose the question. I have a pre-conceived opinion on this matter, but I won’t tell you. I’d like to hear your opinions.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Geography in the Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.