Slashdot Mirror
Nevada Lawmakers Want Police To Scan Cellphones After Car Crashes (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Most states ban texting behind the wheel, but a legislative proposal could make Nevada one of the first states to allow police to use a contentious technology to find out if a person was using a cellphone during a car crash... If the Nevada measure passes, it would allow police to use a device known as the "textalyzer," which connects to a cellphone and looks for user activity, such as opening a Facebook messenger call screen. It is made by Israel-based company Cellebrite, which says the technology does not access or store personal content. It has not been tested in the field and is not being used by any law enforcement agencies. The company said the device could be tested in the field if the Nevada legislation passes...
Opponents air concerns that the measure violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, also raised questions over how the software will work and if it will be open sourced so the public can ensure it doesn't access personal content...
Law enforcement officials argue that distracted driving is underreported and that weak punishments do little to stop drivers from texting, scrolling or otherwise using their phones. Adding to the problem, they say there is no consistent police practice that holds those drivers accountable for traffic crashes, unlike drunken driving.
Opponents air concerns that the measure violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, also raised questions over how the software will work and if it will be open sourced so the public can ensure it doesn't access personal content...
Law enforcement officials argue that distracted driving is underreported and that weak punishments do little to stop drivers from texting, scrolling or otherwise using their phones. Adding to the problem, they say there is no consistent police practice that holds those drivers accountable for traffic crashes, unlike drunken driving.
Here's the actual legislation if anyone wants to look through it. Seems like a pretty bullshit law. If you refuse to submit your device to search, it's an automatic 90-day suspension of your license.
Preponderance is for Civil not Criminal law. Police enforcing traffic law is a criminal concern because you have to be breaking a law to be legally pulled over.
"The problem is not that your hands are not on the wheel, but that your mind is not on the road."
Among all of the other "distractions" possible this is hardly worth arguing about. The police themselves are legally allowed to multitask with all sorts of instrumentation in their vehicles during the course of their duties. Proper enforcement and laws are already there. People are still dying on the roads and the only effect currently is that cities are collecting more fines for people being road hazards. We really need to move away from a fine based system and institute a revolving point based system... but that would hurt a lot of city economies. It just pays to be corrupt, so we will remain that way. The objective is to generate revenue, not save lives. If we were actually serious about saving lives we should do a lot of things differently.
The overwhelming majority of judges just mindlessly believe everything said by the notoriously corrupt and untrustworthy cops.
Our current crop of judges ARE THE PROBLEM, definitely not the solution.