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Uber Suspends Australian Transport Inspector Accounts To Block Stings
jaa101 writes In Australia Uber is reportedly suspending the accounts used by government transport inspectors conducting sting operations. The article suggests that a new handset, credit card and email account are all needed to get a new, unblocked account. If inspectors can only issue one or two fines before they're blocked then the sting operations will cost more than the fines. Presumably the Uber app can block based on IMEI, SIM and/or phone number.
How is this obstruction of justice? All this does is make the inspector's life more difficult; but it does not prevent him/her from actually doing their job; nor prevent them from prosecuting prior infringements (which would be obstruction).
I think Uber should divide their services into two separate contracts; one calling the vehicle; the other providing the ride. Then include a clause in their Ts & Cs that requesting a vehicle for the purposes of issuing a fine or any other regulatory purpose attracts a $100,000 call fee. If the inspector issues the fine prior to a fare-paying ride being witnessed, then there is no evidence with which to charge the driver. However, the call-fee still stands, since that service has been contracted; and contracted separate from the illegal activity; being the fare-paying ride.
Let me help you fathom it.
Uber is under no obligation to accept every potential passenger. They can choose who to do business with and who not to. If they proactively deny their services to a person who happens to be a regulatory inspector - after the customer happens to be discovered as a regulatory bureaucrat - it isn't obstruction of justice, it's merely refusing to do further business with them.
Obstruction of justice is the willful interference in an ongoing investigation or prosecution; not the ongoing career of an investigator. By your logic, pleading the fifth amendment or using encryption is obstruction of justice. _That_ is something unfathomable.