Surveillance is the key to, well, yes, to what actually? In Germany you would probably say it is the key to fight terrorism, I guess in the US it is the same. Seems like Palm really likes to know what you are doing, as an every Pre sends out a little message every day including the following information:

{ “errorCode”: 0, “timestamp”: 1249855555954.000000, “latitude”: 36.594108, “longitude”: -82.183260, “horizAccuracy”: 2523, “heading”: 0, “velocity”: 0, “altitude”: 0, “vertAccuracy”: 0

Although it is techie terms I guess everyone is able to figure out what this means. Although there are many reasons to buy a Pre, this is certainly one to push the successful start in Europe, rumored to be this Christmas, far far away. Especially considering the susceptibility to data security in Germany will blow this.

Plus: Palm guys, responding to the article in a comment like this is really lame:

My god. Hasn’t anyone at Crunchgear or anyone here actually power on a Pre and try one out before? It’s very very very very explicit in the initial setup of the device that YOU have to enable this, and YOU have to agree to this or you won’t be able to use location based services. (and you have to agree to Palm’s terms and coniditions).

As someone who has walked about 200 people thru the initial setup of a Pre, this is something explained to every Pre owner at the time of purchase. You can use the phone without allowing location based services and or enabling auto locate. You however, can not use the phone without agreeing to Palm’s T&C’s and THAT is your option.

Thank you Joey Hess for figuring this out.