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Steve Wilson on 'Pine Belt Daybreak' with Michael Pol and Ted Tibbett


Steve Wilson is the investigative editor at Mississippi Matters. He appears weekly on Wednesday mornings on WMXI 98.1 FM's "Pine Belt Daybreak" program in Hattiesburg with Michael Pol and Ted Tibbett to talk about his work and Mississippi politics.

BANNED: According to a Mississippi regulatory board, drawing lines on satellite images is tantamount to surveying without a license. Image from Google Maps, photo illustration by Steve Wilson

On Wednesday, Wilson discussed the case of the Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors trying to shut down a mapping startup called Vizaline LLC. The board filed suit last year in Madison County Chancery Court seeking to shut down Vizaline — which provides community banks with property diagrams using publicly available plat information overlaid on satellite images — for what it terms the "unlicensed practice of surveying."

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm that takes on cases involving economic freedom, private property rights, educational choice and the First Amendment, filed a counter suit on behalf of Vizaline Tuesday.

The counter suit is based on First Amendment grounds and says that the board is standing in the way of the Vizaline's right to provide information to willing consumers.

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