Slashdot Mirror
Why Apple's DUI Checkpoint App Ban Is Stupid
hookskat writes "Reason.tv Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie reacts to Apple's decision to ban DUI Checkpoint Apps from the App Store, writing: 'Let me add something even more damning of this latest development in corporate cave-ins to legally protected free speech and I'm gonna bold it for emphasis: Some police departments actually supply the data used in such apps because they reduce the number of drunk drivers on the roads! Somehow, I'm thinking that Steve Jobs circa 1984...would have told U.S. senators sending threatening letters about computer-based info sharing to take a hike. Or at least to spend time on, I don't know, creating a freaking budget for the country rather than worrying about regulating something that helps reduce impaired driving.' Last month, after RIM caved on the same question, Reason.tv released this video on the subject of banning DUI checkpoint apps."
I agree.
The end.
From the summary on slashdot: "I'm gonna bold it for emphasis: Some police departments actually supply the data used in such apps because they reduce the number of drunk drivers on the roads!"
From the article: "Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected...."
Does it really decrease the total number on the road, or only the total number counted by police checkpoints?
Also that old line on causation. You know the one.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
This is horrendously bad for apple, cause if I think it's not cool, then I stop recommending it. I stop recommending it, they don't get sold. It took a lot of nerds to make apple get where it is today, IMSHO.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
I think the reason RIM caved so quickly is users can easily install apps outside of their 'App World' application.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Watch the video.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
If you doubt something, research it. Then come back with your information.
Blanket statements against blanket statements yields politics.
"because they reduce the number of drunk drivers". Really? Where's the proof of this? And it better not be stats from DUI arrests at the checkpoints because well....you're telling them where you are, they go a different way. Not that I agree or disagree with Apple's decision but if you're gonna make such a "bold" statement you better be able to back it up Nicky G.
i've run those kinds of apps before (trapster in my case)
and you know what i'm doing the whole time i'm running it? I'M LOOKING OUT FOR COPS AND STAYING VERY AWARE OF MY SPEED!
in other words, i'm being safe!
You mean like this one?? It's not in an app, but this is where the apps get some of their info from...
http://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/DUI-Enforcement.aspx
Also, why are they banned? You can find them by driving around and seeing them. Why is the sharing of them, even if they are not "advertised"??
dude makes no snese. if you actually read the apple TOS they say that it's ok if the police departments are releasing it.i it's onl not ok if its crowedourced.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
This doesn't violate the first amendment, because the Apple App Store is definitely not a public forum. Apple has the right to ban any apps it sees fit, with or without good reason.
I also don't see how a DUI checkpoint app could reduce the number of drunk drivers. A determined drunk would try to find an alternate route home then to sit and sober up where they are.
If you haven't the time to watch the video (or maybe you're using elinks or something), they specifically cite the fact that police in Travis County, Texas have willingly supplied checkpoint data to Trapster developers.
And anyway, I don't see how these apps would help people avoid DUI checkpoints. If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
The rules specifically apply to checkpoint information that is NOT published by law enforcement agencies.
Section 22.8 of the updated App Store Review Guidelines reads:
"Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected."
Some law enforcement agencies publish where DUI checkpoints will be located ahead of time, and these notices have been exempted from the ban.
Source
What the hell passes for "facts" these days?
Apple has *not* banned DUI checkpoint apps. Not even one. All of the checkpoint apps that were up on the store before today are still there.
What they have done is changed their ToS to be explicit about the listing of non-public information, which DUI checkpoints are *not included in* since the police advertise them.
How the fuck this ever (and in the previous article) got twisted into "Apple bans DUI checkpoint apps" is beyond me, other than some serious axe-grinding Apple haters are just making stuff up and posting it as news. Maybe the correction was sent to them via text message from Android, but it somehow got sent to a guy who cleans windows in Atlanta instead.
that Nick Gillespie doesn't actually read what he quotes?
Yeah, but both sides are making claims, and both sides are disavowing any responsibility to meet any burden of proof. Sounds like it's devolving into a "no, you go first" argument I have to occasionally send my 5-year-olds to time-out to break up.
Good work, Slashdot.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
About the 1984 Steve Jobs part, As we know now that giant screen in the famous Macintosh commercial was not a prop, but rather a real deal space time communicator, where 1984 Steve received orders from 2016 Steve. Also the board removed Steve from his duties shortly thereafter for no other reason than "that communicator thing is really creeping me out"
That is the point. The Police know the people who check this app are going to be the kind of people who decide against DUI. The people who do go drinking and driving don't exactly have a a lot of foresight. If you plan your life enough to check a DUI checkpoint app, you are going to stay home, get a ride or take a taxi.
I assume you're talking about the government officials who are pressuring Apple, right?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
If the police department did not release the data of their secret checkpoint then it's not public data.
If it is something I can SEE WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET than it is public data, by definition. You can't argue the opposite without descending into hopeless contradictions.
The End.
Indeed.
I'm at a bar, I've had a couple drinks, but nothing excessive. It's not late and I can safely get myself home as I have done in the past, but there's a plausible chance I'd get busted for a DUI if I got stopped on the way home. I'm a little buzzed and 0.001% over is all it takes. I check my new iPhone app and lo and behold, there's a checkpoint on the only highway between the bar and my house. I don't want to spend the night in jail, so I take a cab instead.
That app would save me money and jail time, save my district a bunch of paperwork, and make the roads safer.
The other side of the argument is that people will know where the checkpoint is and try to drive around it. If anything, this being open should encourage better checkpoint planning. There are plenty of high traffic bottlenecks in every state, so that's a poor excuse. Worst case scenario is the appropriate side roads would need increased patrols.
Deadly weapon but not considered armament, thus in no way, shape, or form does it have relation to the right to keep and bear arms.
If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.
I just realized we should all be worried not merely about drunks on the roads, but drunks on the road trying to use their iPhones with this app (or any other app... text messaging, I'm looking at you...) while driving. Or even sober drivers, it they're trying to app while driving.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The burden of proof is on the one making the positive claim.
Why does a libertarian like Nick Gillespie want to force a market participant like Apple to carry certain types of apps in its App Store? Last time I checked, the First Amendment was about the government abridging your right to free speech.
If people want DUI checkpoint apps, they can switch to Android or some other phone platform that allows them to run the types of app they want. The market will reward or punish Apple accordingly. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
Can someone explain how knowing where the DUI checkpoints are lowers the number of drink drivers? I'm not questioning it, it's just that I don't get the logic and I haven't seen any explanation of it anywhere.
Not good enough.
My mobile phone can already share location information via the browser. dart.org's mobile site shows you the closest bus stops, so creating a similar site that shows the closest dui checkpoints is certainly possible ... what would apple do then? ban the site from its browser?
A motor vehicle with a sober driver is also a deadly weapon. The second amendment is about ownership. You have the right to bear arms. Not to get drunk and stagger around town pointing a loaded weapon at everyone you meet.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I actually leave Trapster running with my phone in it's GPS cradle. Then it beeps and lets me know that I am approaching a traffic enforcement point, school zone or red light camera or any of the other helpful warnings it also gives me. It acts as a great safety mechanism to help me watch out for potential road hazards... including the police.
HTC EVO 4G LTE w/ CM 10.2 | NookColor w/ CM 10.2 | Samsung Epic 4G w/ CM 10.1
And anyway, I don't see how these apps would help people avoid DUI checkpoints. If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.
There is a huge gap between the legal alcohol limit where driving is impaired due to lower reaction times and being so blotto that you can't use an iPhone app. If you can't use an app then you probably can't get the key in your ignition either.
I have known people who take back streets to avoid likely checkpoint areas (making it a more complicated route to navigate) because they knew that they would be over the limit. Being drunk doesn't instantly make you stupid, it starts by making other people look more attractive.
Say, somebody DUI comes towards you... Can you shoot such person in self defence?
Privacy is terrorism.
If it is something I can SEE WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET than it is public data, by definition.
Interesting definition.
You walk down the street, see someone's credit card laying on the sidewalk where they dropped it. Obviously, it is now public information. There can be nothing wrong with selling that information to the Russian mob, right?
You go to the ATM machine and the person ahead of you forgot to pull the receipt. You take it and get their account number. You wait a few minutes before looking so you can look at it while you "walk down the street". It is obviously public information now. Oh, you were also able to shoulder-surf their PIN, so that's public information, too.
You pull the PDA out of your pocket while walking down the street to check your appointments and see that you have an appointment with Mistress Dominica tonight at 7 and you better not be late you slimy worm kiss my feet bastard! This information is now, by definition, public data.
No, I think your definition is a little incorrect. Ok, a lot incorrect. People using this kind of definition for "public data" are why the ECPA was written and why scanners have large gaps in coverage of the cell phone bands. They could hear cell phone conversations on their radio, so they thought it became "public data" they could pass around freely.
Yeah, but both sides are making claims
It looks like he just asked for a citation.
and both sides are disavowing any responsibility to meet any burden of proof.
Neither of them said anything about doing that.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
HEY DONT MENTION MY FRIEND THE HOSTS FILE TROLL, OK? - Rachel
Why does the lameness filter stop me from posting the above, but will allow others to do it? HTML entities for capital letters? Maybe this will balance it out...
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Don't confuse the idea of "free markets" spoken of in the realm of economics with the idea of "free" markets where buyers and sellers have the freedom to do whatever they want.
In fhe former, buyers and sellers always act rationally, that is to say sellers always sell at the maximum price that they can get for a good and buyers always buy at the minimum price they can pay for a good. The equilibrium between price taking and price setting is supposed to produce the most efficient price.
Contrast this with a market where sellers act against their economic interest as the result of various other interests. For example, a shop keeper might want to refuse serve customers whose skin hue is a particular shade. Another shop keeper might want to refuse to stock merchandise by a manufacturer that implicitly (or explicitly) supports certain political causes. And then, there are the buyers. Some consumers might choose higher priced items that are functionally equivalent based on ideological reasons. Other consumers might choose to buy products based on advertising campaigns rather than on whether the product actually meets their needs. The market where this sort of thing is "free" in the laissez-faire sense of the term. But it is not the "free market" of Neoclassical economics.
Ultimately, libertarians have to decide whether the freedom of the seller to sell (or not to sell) takes priority (or not) over the freedom of they buyer to buy (or not to buy). Some try to argue that there is no tension in these freedoms. They are deluded as the lunch counter boycotts of the sixties demonstrated. Libertarians that are not deluded sometimes come down on the side of the sellers and sometimes on the side of the sellers. And, very infrequently, on the side of neither in support of the "free market" of Neoclassical economics.
Your examples are a bit twisted. Reading your appointments in a public street wouldn't make them public simply because they were private information obviously intended to be kept secret. The same with the credit card example.
It's the same difference between taking a photo of someone on the street without their permission (legal), or taking one of them in their home (illegal), even if the home is clearly visible from the street where you're standing with your super-zoom lens.
It'd be hard to argue that a police operation on the middle of a public road is intended to be kept secret and that you're not supposed to look at it.
Huge gap? Not really. You don't know what the limits really are
Go get a good testing device. Get drunk to 0.11%. You'll have trouble finding your keys. It's scary, and why most states moved the limit down to 0.08%.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Your examples are a bit twisted. Reading your appointments in a public street wouldn't make them public simply because they were private information obviously intended to be kept secret.
I'm sorry, but you didn't read the definition of "public data", now did you? "Anything I can see while walking down the street" -- by definition. How are you not seeing the data about your appointment with the dominatrix? How can that not fit the definition? Unless the definition is wrong, which was my point.
As for the intent to keep it secret, I guess then that the police intending to keep a checkpoint location secret is sufficient to breach the definition of "public data" and it, too, would be secret. Unless the definition was wrong, which was my point.
It'd be hard to argue that a police operation on the middle of a public road is intended to be kept secret and that you're not supposed to look at it.
Good thing that nobody is arguing that a police operation in the middle of a public road is intended to be kept secret and that you aren't supposed to look at it, then.
I'm sorry, but you didn't read the definition of "public data", now did you? "Anything I can see while walking down the street" -- by definition.
No, it's not.
As I said, even you you can clearly look inside my house from the street, it's not "public data".
You can't take pictures, and you can't complain about my hairy ass if I decide to walk around naked in my apartment with open windows (there was a court case about this, but I don't have the link at hand).
R.Y.O.F.A.
Just in case someone really believes it's not a fact...
I work for "the media" and receive emails from my city's police department .. oh, every couple weeks .. telling me exactly when they're going to have a checkpoint and in what neighborhood. Really. These are emails from the police, days in advance. I don't know if this includes every DUI checkpoint, though it might.
My understanding (which could be wrong) is that if they didn't do this, the checkpoints would would be illegal (or "more" illegal in some people's view). If the public (theoretically) knows where the checkpoints are, then people must be "choosing" to drive to those checkpoints, rather than getting randomly searched for no reason. At least I think that's the logic. But the notices directly from the police are very real.
You know how Bart Simpson tells his sister Lisa that he's going to swing his arms around and if she gets hit, it's her fault? And then he does it? Something like that.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, states moved the limit down to 0.08% because the feds made them do it (on pain of losing highway funding). The feds did it because the neo-prohibitionist lobby groups like MADD waved the bloody shirt until they did.
A BAC of 0.08% is low enough to make the classic "2 beers" illegal in many people. The idea isn't to prevent drinking and driving; it's to prevent drinking by making it impractical to get home from the bar without risking jail time.
actually you can.. have you ever heard of paparazzi?
Out of curiosity, at what point does the existence of the checkpoint itself count as "published by law enforcement?" At the very least it would be at the point where the first ticket was written, since the ticket is a public record and it contains the address closest to the infraction. Right?
What bothers me about this is that Apple has, essentially, banned an app for publishing a certain class of facts. Is there any way that this sounds OK once it's been framed that way? I get the motivation but I'm just not willing to advocate for censoring facts unless you prove to me that there's no viable alternative.
I for one welcome our new Twitter banning overlords
In 1984 Steve Jobs replaced the fabulously open Apple ][ with the incredibly closed Macintosh.
Apple's 1984 campaign was clever marketing not a presentation of Steve Jobs' personal philosophy. Jobs has always been a slick character. He only played the freedom card in to serve himself. He hasn't changed a bit.
Nick Gillespie should know better. Perhaps he's being disingenuous to try to get some shame leverage here. But he ought to know Jobs has never given a damn.
Saying it's "stupid" somehow makes your argument look lame, kind of like calling that someone you don't like a "big poopy head".
Flat out, it's police-state anti-democracy in action. Apple caved to political pressure placed upon it by sleazy politicians pandering to police organizations/unions.
But he could just use other sources to get the same info, sense most police publicly announce where DUI checkpoints are going to be. Isn't that a little like saying Kitchen knifes should be illegal because even if one person falls on one or kills someone else, it's too many?
That's a good question.
I remember a court case where a good looking woman was walking around naked in her apartment. She was sued by a (presumably uglier) neighbour who didn't like her husband catching peeks. She lost.
But I can imagine that with children the outcome would be completely different, either rooted in law, or in a knee-jerk "think of the children" reaction.
you can't complain about my hairy ass if I decide to walk around naked in my apartment with open windows
Yeah, try buying a house in front of school and walking around naked in front of your picture window for a few days, then call us and tell us how far your freedom to expose your hairy ass extends.
It depends on where you live.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The FACTS are that DUI checkpoints are only legal in the U.S. if the police department informs the public in advance where and when they will be. So, in order for a DUI checkpoint to not be considered a violation of the Fourth Ammendment, the police department MUST provide such data to the public.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
FTA: Somehow, I'm thinking that Steve Jobs circa 1984...would have told U.S. senators sending threatening letters about computer-based info sharing to take a hike.
All companies that go public will eventually drop or morph core values when these conflict with shareholder value (variously defined as profit or share price). Apple are no different.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
Talking about search points which are legal yet unpublished. This pretty only things these guys are talking about. It has nothing to do with DUI; http://www.frtv.org/2010/06/constitution-free-zone-border-patrol-security-search-and-seizure-laws/
You're only reading the charts that tell you that. Try it in real life.
Go get drunk to 0.11%. See if you'd feel safe driving a car.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Right .11% is kind of a pointless number. It's .08% that is easy to hit without drinking much.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Most geeks spend so much time in basements that being at ground level gives us^H them vertigo.
What's more, they're so physically uncoordinated that if you put them on a pedestal we, umm, they'd fall off.
Luckily, most geeks are smart enough to know that and take active steps to avoid pedestalization.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.11% used to be legally drunk (over .10) which is why I used it, and as an example of why they lowered it. You are drunk at that point.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
How about a different hypothetical situation. One where I am driving home completely sober. I happen upon a DUI check point and the PIGS there are being their usual piggy selves. So I swipe one of their guns and blow them all away. Wouldn't there have been less death and destruction if I had checked the app and taken a different route home.
These hypothetical situation stories are fun!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
There's two sets of charts. The ones they trot out when lobbying for reduced BAC levels, which are based on 12 oz of 3.2 beer or something similar. And the ones they trot out after they've gotten the laws passed, which are based on 16 oz of 5% beer. It's the latter that show that two beers put me right at the limit.
Which makes no sense at all. Shouldn't they be happy that Apple is free to do whatever the fuck they want?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon