The state House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban the use of GPS devices to secretly track people. The bill would make such tracking illegal someone without a court order.
This was a bill that seemed destined to disappear: in committee it was voted 14 – 0 to refer it for more study. With an election coming up, that would almost certainly mean that the bill would never be seen again.
But the bill’s sponsor, representative Neal Kurk from Weare, pulled it back from the brink. He opened his comments with a cautionary tale about a jealous boyfriend tracking his ex.
"He had to work too, so he couldn't follow her everywhere. The $30 GPS device that he bought online from Amazon would do it for him," he said, "frightening? It’s not science fiction, tracking is real and its happening now."
The bill through by a margin of 25 votes, though it will face a second committee before its final vote.
Opponents say in an age when GPS devices in cell phones are ubiquitous, the bill doesn’t address the technical challenges and unintended consequences of prohibiting such tracking.
