Found by way of a note on Tech Dirt Wireless, C|Net has a good article on a judicial ruling that allows police to drop a GPS transmitter on someone's car without a court order.

A federal judge in New York ruled last week that police did not need court authorization when tracking Moran from afar. "Law enforcement personnel could have conducted a visual surveillance of the vehicle as it traveled on the public highways," U.S. District Judge David Hurd wrote. "Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway."

Kudos to Declan McCullagh for a very even-handed article. Not falling for typical hysteria -- on either side of the fence -- that GPS technology is the slippery slope to a technology totalitarianism, or that GPS or location-aware technology is the *next*big*thing. Declan covers the many positive uses of GPS for business, for crime fighting, etc., and notes that the ruling will probably hold up in court, as according to Dan Solove, a law professor at George Washington University, "The court has a very narrow and crabbed understanding of privacy. If something's not totally secret, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

The article goes on to cover GM's OnStar system, which has a built in GPS system as well as on-board communications. Reminds me of the Tony Soprano comment about "ripping OnStar out" of his truck (so the Feds couldn't track him), or his use of coins on the Garden State Parkway in the opening (no EZPass, also trackable).