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NYPD To Google: Stop Revealing the Location of Police Checkpoints (nypost.com)
schwit1 shares a report from the New York Post: The NYPD is calling on Google to yank a feature from its Waze traffic app that tips off drivers to police checkpoints -- warning it could be considered "criminal conduct," according to a report on Wednesday. The department sent a cease-and-desist letter over the weekend demanding Google disable the crowd-sourced app's function that allows motorists to pinpoint police whereabouts, StreetsBlog reported. "Individuals who post the locations of DWI checkpoints may be engaging in criminal conduct since such actions could be intentional attempts to prevent and/or impair the administration of the DWI laws and other relevant criminal and traffic laws," wrote Acting Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters Ann Prunty in the letter, according to the website. My $0.02 is that the NYPD loses on first amendment grounds.
Papers, please?
SOTU to NYPD: STFU
Citation?
My 0.02$ is if you're in a motorized vehicle, obey the damn traffic laws at all times. Who cares where the police is?
If people know where the speed traps are then they feel free to speed everywhere else.
And of course, the idea that the speed limit is simply too low is never even considered.
Well, they have guns, so you have to agree. This is at the same time they protest that you shouldn't have guns, because it weakens the violence-factor of their guns.
It seems the government wants their cake and wants to eat it, and then order another 50 cakes. You can't put the whole universe under 100% intense surveillance daily and expect they won't want to know what you're up to. Government acts don't carry zero consequences by public measure.
Also, we're mostly clued into the idea that your goals don't coincide with ours. Public order is only the government definition of the same. Please try harder to explain how "this is good for us".
Fixed.
Are there any studies on how many extra accidents speed traps cause?
Sudden braking, people looking for the hidden speed camera vans instead of at the road, driving too slowly because they aren't sure what the limit is or don't trust the janky speed detectors, that kind of thing.
This has happened to me a few times. People suddenly braking when they see the van, or doing 15 in a 40 zone. Once I was distracted by a van that looked kinda like a speed cam van, and when the real ones are out my strong instinct is to keep checking the speedo rather than watching the road carefully.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This app also assists Lawful and Non-Impaired drivers in avoiding the inconvenience or uncomfortable situation of happening upon an unexpected checkpoint and possibly becoming subject to some search or test that they wish to avoid.
In other words.... this functionality has lawful and beneficial uses, contrary to what their letter suggests.
Furthermore, the submission, sharing, and dissemination of this information about government activity is speech of a political nature among the types of speech most strongly protected by the 1st Amendment of the US constitution, which the NYC PD is not above.
Go read the first amendment, and then go fuck yourselves. We have every right to tell each other about unwarranted surveillance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Eh, the checkpoints and people trying to get around them is an issue going back decades, and a pretty contentious one since it tries to address one of those areas where 'but my freedom!' ends up killing 3rd parties.
RTFA. This is about DWI checkpoints. Speed traps are one thing, but fuck you if you think driving drunk is some sort of right.
The driver and any passenger face gets some quality CCTV well before any checkpoints.
Any smart phone is detected.
No smart phone detected? Talking at the checkpoint is the voice print.
The constitutionally approved magic is a K9 unit that can alert on command.
That allows for the K9 approved "search"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Contrary to the ridiculous police claims... the Red Light Cameras and Speed Traps are a greedy money grab.
In the same way that people in the street ask for voluntary donations from a charity. You know you are entirely within control here right? You can easily not pay money to these people. In fact in order to pay money to these people you basically have to break the law.
You have not been paying attention.
When you give your money to a company to build the road, they will make sure they own the road.
You will pay for it, though the nose, because they have you over a barrel. But they will own it
And they will charge you extraordinary amounts of money to use it. You and everyone.
Sure, government needs to be watched ( so, why arent we watching ), but corporations need watching too.
The Randian notion that corporate execs are uniformly stalwart pillars of truth, justice and fairness does not seem to apply.
I wish like heck it did, but it dont.
emt 377 emt 4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If they're allowed to get away with this, you can bet it won't be long before they'll be trying once again to make it illegal to video them when they're beating the crap out of somebody.
The police need to be smacked down hard. If you happen to be part of a demographic they don't particularly like, your odds of getting beaten or killed by the cops for no particular reason are higher than your chances of being injured or killed in a terrorist attack.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
How the heck did this get modded up? DWI checkpoints are a reasonable law enforcement tactic. The reason that we may want to side with Google here is because the need for law enforcement needs to be balanced with first amendment protections. Not because enforcing DWI laws in inherently bad.
I haven't found a Supreme court opinion on the subject, but a Federal district court judge granted a preliminary injunction against the City/Police in Ellisville Missouri regarding this. See "Elli vs Ellisville" from 2014. (I am not the same AC you asked for a citation, just thought I'd give googling for one a shot)
And the standard here isn't that people were helping people get away with criminal behavior. Flashing your lights at someone (and by anology letting people know about a police checkpoint) is the equivalent of telling someone not to commit that crime. This isn't the equivalent of a look out for a drug lab radioing in to let them know about a police raid.
So if you are speeding and I flash my lights to warn you of a speed trap that doesn't help the furtherance of a crime, you are going to slow down and comply with the speed limit. Likewise if there is a police checkpoint then you are going to drive more carefully or might just decide to stop driving if you had a couple. People are going to stop the criminal behavior, at least for a period of time.
Deterrence is the whole point of having speed traps and police check points... which is completely in-line with people being made aware of them.
No victim, no crime.
Someone hits you, then you own their ass until repaid.
That and voluntarily insuring yourself will cover it.
If nothing else, you sovereign citizen lunatics give me something entertaining to watch on youtube. I love watching your dumb asses blather on about how you're "not driving, you're travelling, and you don't need a license for that!", then get your car window busted out and dragged out of a car while screaming "no victim, no crime." Not sure why, but that amuses me.
Actually on topic... sorry. "Someone hits you, then you own their ass until repaid." So when someone kills my wife/brother/mother/son because they were driving way too fast for conditions and caused an accident I "own them" until they provide me a replacement loved one? I'm not sure if you know, but that's not how things work. Do we incarcerate that person for the rest of their life? Do they owe me some number of millions of dollars? When should I consider myself "repaid"?
Seems to me that a mutual understanding that "this road was designed to handle traffic at 25mph", posting some sort of notice that indicates as such, and paying a couple people to make sure motorists drive within those established guidelines would make a bit more sense.
"DWI checkpoints" are not used to catch drunk drivers. They mainly go after expired plates, unpaid tickets, outstanding warrants. auto insurance, minor drug offenses.
They're document checks, nothing more. The statistics on this are pretty clear.
You are welcome on my lawn.