"Big Brother is Searching You":

Let's say a small town wanted to crack down on swimming pool permit violations. If local police went house to house, telling people they were going to look for swimming pools in everybody's backyards, nobody would accept this because it would clearly violate the 4th Amendment. However, if you do exactly the same thing using cameras in space, it's somehow OK.

The town of Riverhead on Long Island used Google Earth to search all back yards in the town for swimming pool transgressions.

They found about 250 pools built without permits and collected about $75,000 in fines. Critics say they did it for the money, but city officials said they're concerned mainly about safety...

I'm sure it's all about the safety...