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Police Organization Wants Cop-Spotting Dropped From Waze App
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports on a request from the US National Sheriffs' Association, which "wants Google to block its crowd-sourced traffic app Waze from being able to report the position of police officers, saying the information is putting officer's lives at risk." From the article: "'The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action,' AP reports Sheriff Mike Brown, the chairman of the NSA's technology committee, told the association's winter conference in Washington....Brown called the app a 'police stalker,' and said being able to identify where officers were located could put them at personal risk. Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his members had concerns as well. 'I can think of 100 ways that it could present an officer-safety issue,' Pasco said. 'There's no control over who uses it. So, if you're a criminal and you want to rob a bank, hypothetically, you use your Waze.'"
When I was in my late teens I moved out of my parents' house and lived in a city whose police felt predatory, somewhat during the day, but especially after dark. Simple traffic stops would result in at least two units showing up half the time, and at night they were constantly racing around on the main streets, but never could be found in the actual neighborhoods. I've never been into drugs, never driven drunk, and at the time my vehicle was only six years old and in fairly good repair, but it felt like the police were actively looking for an excuse to pull me over. Literally within five miles were three other cities, and I never felt anywhere near as uncomfortable in those cities than I did in the one I lived in at the time.
I now live one city over, and there's a major state university here, but even with all of the youth hijinks and the college dropout slums a few miles from the school it still doesn't feel as predatory. Only time I was pulled over in this city I deserved it, and the officer was professional and civil even if he was firm in issuing me a citation. When pulled over in the previous city it always felt like the officers were just looking for excuses to get tough.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Waze also tends to give me much better directions than any other app, and much better ETAs as well.
So long as user reporting and map chat is there, there will always be a way to report officer locations; no matter what they do with the official feature.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Pasco said. 'There's no control over who uses it. So, if you're a criminal and you want to rob a bank, hypothetically, you use your Waze.'"
What about the non-criminals who want to know where the police are so they can get some help from them? Or what about the non-criminals who want to know when police officers are blocking a side of the road, or dealing with a traffic situation? If they really don't want to be bothered, they should just drive unmarked cars, make their phone numbers unlisted, and institute some kind of paywall for their official web sites.
Instead of removing information from Waze, they should just be adding information to it with their own api. They could transmit the gps location of their marked cars in real-time (like bus systems now do with the nextbus api). When responding to a call, they should just send the person who called a real-time update of their estimated arrival. And when there is a bank robbery, they should just flood the Waze api with virtual police officers everywhere.
Not only that, but if the police could try to crowdsource the effort of looking for bank robbers, child abductors, or the obvious-looking drunk drivers, through Waze instead of overburdening the outdated the 911 system, that would help them prioritize and weed out most of the false positives in real-time.
How about illegally low speed limits? The State of Texas sets out guidelines for setting limits. The places setting them must abide. Most don't. They set the limit the lowest they think they can get away with. This causes traffic jams and unsafe conditions. If a cop is sitting on the side of the road running radar, that's "proof" that the limit is unreasonably low.
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Colour me confused but aren't police meant to be visible on patrol, reassuring the public and obstructing the criminals by their presence. Being a police officer is not meant to be about being a revenue machines on the clock but a peace officer assisting the public in upholding the law and providing a first response emergency service. So shouldn't police be more like, hmm, great app, let's try to be everywhere on it and not just sitting down on our doughnut munching lard arses, as mobile revenue machines targeting the poor and middle class.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Just the download counter for the app could be read as a social barometer of public trust.
It's not a cop locating app, it's an app to suggest alternate routes of travel around congested areas. It just has a feature to show where police are, but that's not the purpose of it.
It's BS to say it's putting cops' lives at risk, for the most part. That being said, a lot of cops are feeling really under attack these days because of the public outrage over the last few months and the cops who were ambushed in NYC--like, their families are really worried about them, and I Can respect that.
The cop locator does two things for the ap. It lets people speed, I suppose. But the only situation where I've seen it used is really for fun, in a spot-the-cop kind of way.
That being said, people would be dumb not to check it before robbing a bank, I suppose. Of course, most people who rob banks are pretty dumb.
(It is not productive employment--it pays something like 30-60K/yr with a high likelihood of getting caught each year, IIRC).
Actually, it's usually safer for all if the cops don't show up during the bank heist. That's how hostages get taken and people get shot/stabbed/etc. Plus, if they "get away", it's instantly the FBI's problem. (also, with technology what it is today, few ever totally get away with it.)
Go to a peaceful protest somewhere, something anti-government. Go up to random cops and just try to strike up conversation. Sure, some cops are cool and some people appear to ask for trouble. At the same time, you will find a tremendous amount of unfriendly and unprofessional cops.
The best experiment I ever saw was of ex cops trying to ask for complaint forms at police stations. Yeah, now that's a good time to be had for sure.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Agreed and trapster and other apps do the same crowdsourced speed trap locating trick.
Trapster had better audio alerts but they don't work on my new phone so I use waze now.
It also flagged "likely" speed traps even when the police were not yet reported in the location.
Using the app to locate a speedtrap is about as productive as driving along the road and observing parked police cars then circling back around and attacking them now that you know where they are.
The police have a problem because they have been killing united states citizens at a rate of roughly 1200* citizens per year (via 528 validated trustworthy news source reported face page reports). More of those citizens killed by united states police were children than all the citizens killed by the police forces of england, france, and germany combined. It is literally (not figuratively) about 120* citizens vs under 20 citizens in england, france, and germany total per year.
Not to mention countless beatings, illegitimate property seizures, and a solid reputation of "good cops" standing aside doing nothing while the "bad" cops commit crimes.
*People who are police officers killed about 1450 citizens but 528.com found that about 200 of the killings were not related to their police status or police duties.
** I support the police and donate to the police fund but our police are out of control and have terrible community relations. We need to get them out of dealing with drug gangs and drug money and swat teams and military equipment. Move that activity to the FBI and return the police to ordinary police enforcement actions. Having a tank and heavy automatic weapons misleads them into killing 7 year old girls when they were at the wrong address.
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I have to say I disagree with your premise. Sure, traffic safety is important. As an older guy with two young kids and a wife that freaks out when I drive more than 5 mph, I always drive at or slightly under speed limit. I still like knowing where the cops are. Your argument is akin to just do nothing wrong and the NSA will not pose problems for you while they read your emails.
I lived abroad for 10 years in Asia pursing a banking career, I came back with my family about six months back. In this time, I have had two highly negative interactions with the US police and I am not an aggressive person.l I NEVER had this issue over 10 years in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, China or Indonesia. I do not trust them and I do not want to interact with them.
Furthermore, I was not issued a ticket or a summons either time. So, proves I was doing nothing wrong in the first instance. However, I did lose one hour of my life for no good reason other than cop ego feeding. I had to go through a DUI check and a breathlyzer test (result 0.00 BAC), a search of me and my vehicle, putting my hands behind my back, numerous irrelevant personal questions and boatloads of attitude including telling how I have to stand so as to not threaten them. This is at a ROUTINE SCHEDULED checkpoint where there at like 30 cops, floodlights, cameras, whatever. This is at a fookin sobriety check point which is apparently a civil liberties exclusion zone.
There are serious problems with law enforcement in the US. People should have every right to watch, video, tape and otherwise contain the police as any lawful democracy should.
I've slowed down and drive much less aggressive as I've aged. Not because I feel more responsible now or that I was carefree when I was younger. I just don't have the awareness I used to have when I was younger and I am not as comfortable pushing things. It takes me much longer to verify no one is next to me before changing lanes, I used to just whip my head around, scan my mirror and then go, it takes me longer to refocus when I look in my rear view mirror or down at the speedo and back forward again, my vision is not as good as it used. I could take a 300 mile trip at night and remember almost every car I passed or passed me. Scope out areas where police might be like openings in the median or after bridges and down hills. I knew exactly what was around me, approaching, and pulling away at every moment. I was constantly scanning everywhere. I don't do most of that anymore, I just kind of... drive. I don't even use my detectors anymore. Although I still love to take trips and get in the car and go, I am just not "into" driving like I used to be. I'm probably not as "safe" as I used to be but at least I am going relatively slower than I used to.
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I'd be happy to use an app that didn't track me so much, but to give voluntary info on police speed trap warnings, and traffic incidents, but I don't want them keeping my travel data and tracking me in real time.
This thing looks like a privacy nightmare from the TOS.
I"ve used an older app called "Trapster" which was a bit more anonymous and allowed folks to report speed traps and traffic cameras, etc. I think it fell a bit into dis-use which makes these kind of apps useful or not, but man, I don't like all the tracking and all that Waze does and the information it collects and seems to keep. Otherwise I'd jump on board big time.
Would be nice to know where speed traps and DWI roadblocks are set up when driving.
I prefer to avoid the police while out no matter what the cause.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........