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Google Won't Pull Checkpoint Evasion App
RedEaredSlider writes "Don't expect Google to remove apps that help users avoid DUI checkpoints — the company says it is leaving the controversial apps on its Android Marketplace. A source said the company only removes apps that violate its Android content policies and the apps in question do not appear to violate these policies." We'll see if Apple caves to pressure to remove them.
I wonder if they ever consider that this may actually be persuading people to not drink & drive. They check their phone, see that there are some drunk driver stake-outs, and they take a cab home instead. I'm sure it doesn't happen in all cases, but if it helps in a few, that's a good thing.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Apple is practically obligated to pull the app, given the fact they're willing to act as the morality police for their users, though it might take them awhile because they like to pretend they 'think different'. RIM is a lily-livered chicken with no willingness to take any kind of stand for fear of offending anybody. It's also not a surprise they pulled the app. And Google is standing by their principles, and won't pull the app unless its actually illegal.
The world is acting according to my expectations in this regard. And once again, its Google I have the most respect for.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Why should they? Police in most (all?) areas are required to publish the locations of checkpoints ahead of time, so these apps are just making public information easier to find.
If you're rational enough to pull out an app and plot a route home that avoids all the checkpoints, you're probably sober enough to drive. The problem with drunk drivers is that they DON'T think straight.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The app just collects publicly posted information about DUI checkpoints. It could be easily replicated in a for pay website which uses the browser API to grab GPS coordinates and fetch the relevant information. What happens then, are we going to come up with a mobile application website list?
Then chances are you're too drunk to use the apps. I can't imagine some drunk driver trying to use some Google Maps mashup on a phone to navigate around police roadblocks, let alone have the mental aforethought to consider using it. People don't drink and drive because they're evil-doers, they do it because they lack the sober rationale to realize they're not capable of driving in their current condition.
"Where is my mind?"
This application just allows users to enforce their constitutional rights.
Americans once had a right under the constitution to protection from illegal search and seizure. Now even someone who is driving in total compliance with the law is subject to being interrogated by the police and having their blood forcibly taken from them.
Personally, I'd rather not have the police stick me with a needle in violation of my constitutional rights.
This app will be very useful until unconstitutional police checkpoints can be banned.
obviously, this app should be banned. if you really have to wonder why, consider yourself amongst the fundamentalist idiots of the world.
A bit hypocritical, wouldn't you say? You're the one spouting fundamentalist FUD.
Its not Google's job, or even moral responsibility, to police our streets nor our people. They didn't create the app, and even if they banned it people could still get a hold of it (easily, and legally). In this respect, its imperative for Google to stand by its principles and avoid starting down the path of "morally superior control freak."
A real solution to the drunk-driving problem is autonomous cars. DUI checkpoints are simply a profit generator for the police and, IMO, have very little consequence on the amount of accidents.
People pay taxes. Corporations consider taxes part of their costs, and pass them along to the customers in the sales price, or deduct them from employee's wages -- economists support both POVs, but no economist says that corporations pay taxes.
Sales taxes are widely understood to be regressive, that is, having a larger effect on the poor than the rich. Corporate taxes on food and drug suppliers are equally regressive.
As for 'cheating', there is a serious distinction between tax avoidance and 'cheating'. Most corporations are strictly within the law wrt taxes, and Google is merely taking advantage of the laws as they are written.
Generally, tax avoiders have the same advantage as black-hat hackers, and for the same reason : writers of laws and regulations are fewer and dimmer than the people looking for loopholes.
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
We'll see if Apple caves to pressure to remove them.
Knowing Apple, they'll cave to whoever screams loudest.
So the possibility that a completely sober driver might want this information in order to avoid a pointless traffic stop, just doesn't cross your mind? I drive sober, period. I'd love this app. I'm not fucking obliged to drive through checkpoints if I can avoid it.
All they need is the first person to die in an accident that happens after someone uses one of these apps to evade a checkpoint, and the lawsuits and bad publicity will push them to remove them. Hopefully they get smart before that happens. "Don't Be Evil" - risking innocent death vs. whatever theoretical argument? Be reasonable, and pull those apps.
What if it was an app that helped people avoid hate-crime checkpoints?
That might be the case, if it weren't for the fact that the time and location of DUI checkpoints generally have to be published ahead of time. So they're simply redistributing already-public knowledge.
From what I've seen the past few years, the federal government seems to be able to do what it wants, constitutionality be damned. I'm sure Apple and Blackberry find it easier to comply than to try and fight city hall (as the saying goes). Furthermore, if they throw them a bone, less likely it is to see Washington attempt to come in and meddle in their businesses. You make certain congress critters mad at you and they'll go on an almost holy crusade if they think it will buy them points for the next election crusade.
And they don't have to pass laws to do it. Let's say google refuses, depending on the congress critter, they could decide to hold hearings on say Google's online advertising monopoly or privacy or whatever topic makes for a good witch hunt and do so in public. That costs google time and money (lawyers) and costs shareholders (at least in the short term).
Those who play politics see it as a game.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
That's kind of like saying the 4th and 5th Amendments are "aiding and abetting a person to break the law".
You're free to speak and to associate. That's what this app does. You're free not to incriminate yourself. That's what this app does. This is true whether you're committing a crime or not.
It's the responsibility of the police to observe you doing it, not the privilege of the police to make you prove it. And if it weren't for the ridiculous "driving is a privilege not a right" rulings, police checkpoints of any kind would be entirely unconstitutional stops, as they are based on no reasonable suspicion.
How is it illegal for me to want avoid these checkpoints? I'm not doing anything illegal. I just don't want an officer stopping me with out probable cause and I like to avoid all attempts other wise.
By law in my state at least this is all public information that has to be posted before such a check point can take place. My understanding is that this is true in most states.
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I find checkpoints annoying, and I don't drink and drive. Seems to me if I want to know how to avoid them, I should be able.
It is common knowledge where I live that certain municipalities stop drivers at checkpoints, and then will not release them until they have found some reason to give them a ticket. They aren't DUI checkpoints. They are the modern version of "highwaymen". A few coins to keep the kings peace....
not drinking and driving is not driving at all
You're a fucking idiot.
Granted, I really don't know a lot about this story, every article on it is a little hazy, but one issue, two really come to mind.
Why isn't the bar tender locked up when he says, "Be careful, there is a traffic stop 3 blocks away." I mean technically that is two counts of being an accessory to attempted homicide.
The other, how does the app maker obtain this info? Some states require that check points are made public, others do them at random. Using public information really isn't that different than owning a police scanner to know who is getting locked up, only the maker was too stupid to word their product as a "Tobacco pipe, only for tobacco, not crack, pot or opium; did you say something other than tobacco, sorry, you'll have to leave".
If the data is user reported and this is really that big of an issue why isn't someone like MADD downloading these apps like crazy and reporting that every street corner in America is a traffic stop?
In no way do I think that is a conservative position to take. I think its a retard position to take.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
A real solution to the drunk-driving problem is autonomous cars. DUI checkpoints are simply a profit generator for the police and, IMO, have very little consequence on the amount of accidents.
Autonomous cars seem excessive, when there are safe, already available alternatives, like taxi service. Furthermore, in some cities there are FREE taxi service options such as this one for major occasions when folks are likely to be out partying.
Yes, and while standing shoulder to shoulder with drunk drivers and Google, we are also standing shoulder to shoulder with our local news papers, radio stations, municipalities, and police departments, seeing as how they are REQUIRED BY LAW to advertise the location of these check points.
It is unconstitutional to search or sieze an individual or their car with out reasonable cause. Being on the road after bar time is not reasonable cause. The only way that these check points have been able to pass constitutional muster is by advertising their existance (including the when and where) to act as a deterrant.
I loathe drunk drivers. I lost a girl friend and another close friend to drunk drivers. I left a company after the finding out that the CEO had been arrested for his 4th DUI. I'd love to see much harsher penalties for multiple offence drunk drivers. But the posting of these check points is a matter of constitutional law. If the senate were to forbid media industries from distributing this information, the check points would fail to pass the constitutional measure and would have to stop.
As much as I hate drunk drivers, I love the Constitution far more.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
What law does this kind of app aid a person in breaking?
I do not jest when I ask this, because it is NOT illegal to avoid contact with the police. Driving is not a right, but rather a privilege. However, you DO have the right to travel from one place to another free of undue and unwarranted harassment. Because of the way that DUI checkpoints are conducted, they absolutely qualify as undue and unwarranted harassment. You personally may not mind being the presumption of guilt that hovers over you at a DUI checkpoint, but most reasonable people resent the mindset of police who are looking for any excuse to slap you with a ticket--or worse. I consider the ability to avoid unnecessary interaction with an agency that does not have my best interests in mind to be a legitimate use. If you don't, then you really need to get a clue.
Furthermore, the locations of DUI checkpoints are published beforehand. Would you also take newspapers to task for publishing this information? You could certainly use it to get plastered and then avoid the cops. The checkpoint locations are intended to be public knowledge, and trying to restrict that knowledge is not too good an idea.
Yes, it is illegal to drive when drunk. Here's the thing, though--as soon as you get behind the wheel of a car you can't control (for nearly any reason) and start driving it, you've already broken the law. Once you're truly drunk, you don't have the mental capacity to take a route home based on where the police aren't. If you can think ahead and plan out your trip home based on a DUI checkpoint alert program and actually stick to it, then you probably aren't the danger to the driving public that MADD and the police say you are.
I haven't even gone into the inaccuracy of breathalyzer readings, nor the fact that field tests are designed to be failed. I could, but I trust that I've made my point.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
He said that Google Said That "..the apps in question No Not appear to violate these policies.." Which is a double negative, which in turn means Google is going to pull the app right? RIGHT?
Lol, but seriously, how many DRUNKS, I mean genuinely DRUNK Drunks, do you know who can even use their cell phone whilst inebriated? Let alone operate an app that helps them avoid DUI Check Points?
I do not, nor shall I EVER, condone Driving While Impaired. However, I think a lot of people misunderstand the significance of this post. The point is that Google did not bend to the will of the Government and preserved the rights of the developer. I am proud of them for this move. Though the application is incredibly useless, people die from various means every single day. It is not important what the application is or is not for. It is important that Google did not give in to the Government Request and continue to set incredibly dangerous, and freedom reducing precedents.
Understanding isn't necessarily reflected in actions; but in this case I think flogging the censorship horse is a bit out of touch.
I think Apple bans apps based on brand positioning rather than morality or deference to authority. In short, they identify their products with creative, intelligent, well off people. They want people to envision their products fitting in at a well lit coffee shop with too many plants.
They don't want people to think iphone==mini porn device, or imagine a "fondle slab" in a trench coat.
Will they ban it? Depends what they view the net effect of banning it will be on their brand. In this way, they aren't different from other businesses.
If you take exception to their practices, nobody has impinged upon your freedom to not be their customer.
About 6 years ago GreenPeace did an article decrying the excess packaging of Apple products. Apple rejigged their packaging almost instantly. Not necessarily due to morality, certainly due to an image issue important to their base.
It seems to me that if you were sober enough to actually remember to use this app that you probably aren't drunk enough to get arrested for drinking.
Wanting to avoid having your 4th amendment rights violated is not a crime, yet.
No matter how many cops you see in front of you, make sure and talk to the one in the middle.
That is most likely the real one.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sorry, should have put a YMMV tag on that.
As another example, in Wisconsin, sobriety checkpoints are illegal.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
the problem is that people like you are so self deluded that you think you can drive after downing a few and expect the rest of us to suffer the consequences of your self serving attitude.
Everyone keeps referring to these apps as "Checkpoint Evasion" apps, implying their primary purpose is to help drunks dodge DUI checks. Both PhantomAlert and Trapster are primarily built to identify SPEED TRAPS, not DUI checkpoints. They just happen to allow users to tag checkpoints as well. I've been a Trapster user pretty much since it came out and have never seen a checkpoint listed. The "Buzzed" app seems to be focused on DUI checks and thus could be much more questionable, but again at least the other two are not explicitly for DUI checkpoint evasion.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
If you have even a single drink, your reaction times go down and you're a little more likely to cause an accident.
More likely than whom? I've been playing car simulation games ever since the first force-feedback wheels were launched in the 1990s. My reflexes are probably much faster than those of the vast majority of drivers on the street. They could be impaired and I'd still drive more safely than many people who never drink.
Perhaps the law should not aim for a given alcohol content in the blood, but for the reflex times. Instead of a breathalizer, cops could carry equipment to measure reflex times or other factors that impair driving safety.
However, I have no illusion that some rational law like this could ever pass. There are fanatics who like controlling others, there are governments depending on money from tickets, there are too many people who are swayed by propaganda such as the one you mention: "drink a drop of alcohol and you become an incontrollable murderer" .
I read your comment as "Google is setting the bar high for other companies to stop being such dicks." I get it now though, pass the drinks.
You don't need an app at all. In Rio de Janeiro, where DUI checkpoints have become a daily occurrence and where there is a zero-alcohol policy for drivers, people have been using a Twitter feed to keep track of checkpoints. Any device that can access Twitter can be used, and it is free.
Scrooge had captured a Leprechaun and got him to show him where the gold was. He tied a scarf to the tree and had him promise not to take it off. With help from the boys, the Leprechaun was able to circumvent the promise by tying scarfs to all the trees.
Couldn't the cops just log into the apps and put in false info?
Wow, all this iphone stuff sure getting lots of interesting stories and I don't have an iphone. I feel like I'm missing all the action. I hear lots of it on the scanner, I have yet witness a 23103 (CVC for reckless driver) vehicle that's announced on CHP freq.
I drove by a DUI checkpoint, in opposite direction, on a late night. I was thinking about making a u-turn just to see what's it all about. but it was late and I just wanted to get home to sleep. oh well, missed the action on that one as well.
mfwright@batnet.com
dui checkpoints a re not just used for dui. they will write people up for any voliation. yes they might catch a few drunks in the prosses the relly drunk ones but most where warned to avoide it aruldy. its just pulling people over without couse witch is illagle but using the dui hotwords lets them do it anyways. take it to court and you win easly.
yep untill we go on a holy cursade to get these duchbags out of office it will stay this way. and im not talking replacing him with the same type of duchbage over and over again like we do now. we cant fix anything untill we remove the corprations from the goverment.
conserding the checkpoints are also braking the law your not ading them to brake any law. the dui law was broken thew second they started driving. if they relly whanted to stop dui they wouldent ticket farm they would remove there liance etc. then if they are cought driving at all its a mutch harsher sentence. and nobody whants to lose there liance being you cant do shit without one.
Checkpoint awareness promotes drunk driving the same way that birth control awareness promotes teenage sex. In short, it doesn't. I hate driving through checkpoints the same way I hate being groped at airports.
it's not aiding and abetting anyone, it is distributing public information in a convenient format.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
.... it seems to me is that RIM has actually already agreed to pull the app (from a link in the OP article : http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/126130/20110323/rim-research-in-motion-dui-checkpoint.htm ).
I've already ruled out Apple for my next handheld as I don't want to be tied to only what they approve of.
I think my decision of whether to go with Android or Blackberry has just been made for me as well.
The last time I saw a checkpoint in my neighborhood I used an alternate route home. Not because I was drunk. I hadn't had a drop of alcohol. It was because I didn't wish to have 30 minutes of my time wasted for the purpose of having my rights violated.
-- Will program for bandwidth
"Driving is not a right, but rather a privilege."
Although I mostly agree with your post, I am interested to know where this idea comes from, it seems to have been indoctrinated in a large segment of the population.
There are multiple court decisions declaring that driving is indeed a right, for example: http://thecountyguard.org/right-2-drive-handout.html
So why is the average american citizen so willing to surrender this right and go along with the privilege theory? Did I miss some kind of mass disinformation campaign?
-Lod
_Make the trains run past last call_ Serious. (not an issue everywhere, but in los angeles it is a huge one).
For the most part, people don't want to drive drunk. A $1.50 train ride out easily turns into a $150.00 cab ride back if you are just a few minutes late for the last train and there are huge swaths of LA that cabs literally just won't go at night. People are scared of getting stuck in the city, staying overnight on the streets isn't fun because you can't afford a cab ride back and the trains stopped. Once people experience it, they drive from then on, even though they probably wouldn't otherwise, just in case.
They don't even have to do a full schedule, just every half hour or 45 minutes would suffice. sigh.
http://notanumber.net/
Once you're truly drunk, you don't have the mental capacity to take a route home based on where the police aren't.
I would agree. However, I would have to say that a BAL of 0.08% is not "truly drunk."
Furthermore, it would depend on the App. An App that shows the DUI checkpoints in a five mile radius might be tricky. An App that knows my route back home and says, "WARNING: DUI Checkpoint at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue!" is pretty easy to consider. An App that says, "WARNING: Don't turn left on Beach Boulevard--there's a DUI Checkpoint at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue! Continue to Golden West before turning left!" as I approach Beach Boulevard would be pretty easy for me to handle in an inebriated state.
You kids today have never driven drunk...
Sure, if you live in a major city. Lots of the US doesn't have taxi service. And in those areas outside major cities where taxi service exists, its not typically reasonably priced.
Driving is not a right, but rather a privilege.
Baloney. That's what the people 'granting' you the right want you to think.
Driving is travel, travel is required for assembly, the right of assembly is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. You can't very well assemble in most places if a driver's license is revoked.
The 5th Amendment says, "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The 'right to travel' is a liberty, there can't be prior restraint on it. This is incorporated against the States by the 14th Amendment.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And... I hit submit before I added the 9th Amendment, the most obvious of them.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That's an interesting lot of verbiage and citations that you linked to. I don't care for the preachy structure of it, but the fact that I don't like the structure doesn't mean that the content is somehow incorrect.
I'm lead to wonder in what manner a formal rebuttal would proceed with proving it wrong.
I've saved the text for later parsing, and/or re-writing to make it more approachable.
Thanks, I think.
Kid-proof tablet..
aye, that page is quite preachy.. my intention was to provide a single link with most of the relevant court decisions and laws on it, and that seemed to fit the bill. personally I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, I just don't understand why people believe they don't have the right to drive... where does this privilege idea come from? I couldn't find a law stating that it is not a right and just a "privilege", though there may be.. google just turns up pages like the one I linked to (or even crazier).
-Lod
That, exactly.
I've always understood that driving is a privilege that can be revoked. It's just what I've learned growing up -- I have no particular source for the origin of my mindset. Until tonight, I honestly didn't believe it was a right -- or even that it should be. I'd never considered the possibility at all.
Learning differently is somewhat like (and please pardon the analogy) learning about circumcision: I assumed, early on, that everyone's cock was shaped like mine, and it turns out that they generally are...but only after modification.
But at the same time, I read the text like I remember reading about Texas's failed attempt(s?) at succession: Epic Fail.
Meanwhile, it is plain: Driving privilege (such as it may be) is dictated by the state. If there is a Constitutional right to drive, backed by the court(s), then this dictation is simply false: That's the way the Guvament works.
I won't forget this concept. And when I get a chance to do so, I'll dig up the sections of the Ohio Revised Code (since that's where I am), and chase down all of the myriad of citations presented in your linked article.
Why? Just because I'm an autistic altruist, and whenever I'm forced to do something arbitrary in exchange for being "allowed" to do something else that should be reasonable, I want to understand whether or not that force is fair and just.
Kid-proof tablet..
Police have no expectation of privacy in the performance of their duty. If they are in a public place, they have no reasonable expectation that their location be kept secret.
In Pennsylvania, police must publish ahead of time when and where they will have a DUI checkpoint, and place signs saying "DUI checkpoint ahead" in all directions beyond the first legal turnoff from the DUI location, to give people the opportunity to avoid it.
Else you would not need an explicit license for it. Is there no concept of driving license in your country? I am sure it is there in the US.
Another example - running a pharmacy is not a right but a privilege (in my country, at least). For similar reasons.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Sounds like we will need a new Czar.
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I guess that might explain it, but of course you need a license to marry, hunt, fish, own a gun, operate a business, and god knows what else.
I'm fairly sure that gun ownership is a constitutional right, and it would seem marriage would be although I'm not certain.
I am no legal scholar... I am not convinced that just because something is licensed it automatically becomes a privilege rather than a right.. but maybe so.
-Lod
cool that you are open minded about it, I am trying to be too. I spent a decent amount of time on Google, and all I turn up are A) people stating the privilege thing (millions of them, clearly it's just an accepted standard thing to say), but never any source or references, B) a much smaller group asking the same question I am, with mixed answers, the people claiming its a "right" generally with some pointer to a more or less relevant court decisions, the "privilege" camp just repeating the privilege theory a lot, or C) complete nut jobs insisting they can just drive around without a license or insurance and any cop who stops them is a state funded drone out to harass the innocent.
it's really the lack of any references from the huge number of people on the "privilege" side of things that stands out. it doesn't seem to me this is something obvious that requires no explanation or proof, yet for many it is. I've generally learned to assume that I've missed something somewhere instead of assuming that a huge number of people are wrong, but I'm really not sure in this case.
anyway I wasn't asking you to research this.. based on your well written op I figured you'd just say "because of ...", possibly with some slight insult related to my ignorance, and that would be that. If you do decide to try and figure this out, I'd love to hear what you find. If nothing else maybe this thread will remind people to be critical of everything, just in case. good luck.
-Lod
If your experience is true, then lack of cited opposition is, I think, is where a less-preachy re-write would be most useful.
By rewriting the text to be a bit more humane, while keeping the informational intent and the relevant citations, perhaps some well-learned folks from the privilege side will take the concept seriously enough to add their own two cents in with citations of their own. In other words, I think a rewrite might encourage others to do some of my homework for me.
Meanwhile, please understand that I don't care how it works out in the end. I've always been content with the privilege concept of driving, and I'll continue to be content whether or not that changes...either way, if I turn out to be a provably bad or dangerous driver at some point, I expect my privilege/right (as it may be) to become limited, much as the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater is very justifiably limited irrespective of how the First Amendment reads by itself.
I realize that you haven't asked me to do this, and I wouldn't care if you had. :) My goal is merely to have fewer lies in the world, and that is all the reason that I need.
Kid-proof tablet..