this technology should not be promoted to your customers--in fact, it shouldn't even be available.
It shouldn't even be available? That sounds sketchy to me. I know slippery slope is a logical fallacy, but if this line of reasoning holds, couldn't you say the same thing about encryption? It enables people who wish to engage in illegal activities to avoid government authority and thus, shouldn't even be available? Scary.
The point is that it doesn't really matter. The very first constitutional amendment ensures that the government's power is limited such that it doesn't need to evaluate the content of its citizens' speech.
It's an invariant property of the rule of law that when something isn't explicitly illegal, it's legal. And yes, many "free" western countries do have problems with this.
If your goal is to catch people driving drunk, then no, it doesn't make sense to announce the locations of DUI checkpoints. If however your goal is to prevent people from driving drunk in the first place, it might make sense to announce checkpoints at a number of locations throughout the city. If the potential drunk driver knows he can't go too many places without passing though a checkpoint he may decide to just stay home.
1. It hops to discourage people from drinking and driving in the first place by planting the idea that there will be checkpoints. The best time to avoid DUIs is before the driver starts drinking. Ideally, they'll make alternative arrangements to get home from wherever it is they're going rather than taking the car and figuring it out after;
2. To enable those capable of driving to avoid the checkpoints. The premise for this is that those who are drinking and driving either are capable of making this kind of rational forethought or they're not and the police are largely interested in catches those that aren't; and
3. Possibly to divert those that are borderline cases from driving through areas where they might cause the most damage if something does go wrong.
I know people like to see speed traps and DUI checkpoints as cynical revenue-raising initiatives but you'd be surprised to learn that some people just don't want others to act irresponsibly by driving several tons of metal at high speed while impaired, possibly harming or killing themselves or others.
They used to tell me they didn't feel right "baiting" drunk drivers, for instance sitting hidden outside of popular bars and waiting for closing time. They felt like if they observed you driving impaired, you got pulled over, and if you were drunk you got a ticket. To them this was just the right way to act.
I think there is a natural balance between people being outrageously and stupidly human and law enforcement needing to control the population. In my opinion, the balance has shifted too far to law enforcement's side.
I don't see anything wrong with the apps. I wouldn't use one, but I really hope Apple doesn't come down on the wrong side here. The gay thing was bad enough. Simply because somebody is unhappy or raises a ruckus shouldn't mean that some developer's app can't be purchased. That's crazy. If it breaks somebody's phone? Sure. If it hurts the user? Fine. But just because a bunch of senators wrote a letter? Not good.
I note that all of the Senators involved receive substantial contributions from both police management and union groups. I understand that a monitored population is easier to control, and I understand that these groups seek to lobby to make their jobs easier (and therefore the public safer), but there has to be limits to these things. If not for constitutional reasons just because of common sense.
I can't understand that at all. I would agree if it were a victimless crime, or perhaps if they were actually baiting them. But this sounds like a great and efficient use of police time. Are there any circumstances where they shouldn't stop drunk drivers??
If thieves predictably showed up at a store to steal something, should the police not camp out and take advantage of their predictability?
There is, of course, the argument that punishing people that try to drive after drinking too much may get them to change their behavior. Regardless, doing it this way makes one wonder if income from tickets, rather than safety, is the real goal.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1493749
If Congress or a state legislature tries to ban these apps, I think the laws will probably get overturned. However, if Apple decides that they think these apps are in poor taste and shouldn't be part of their ecosystem, I'm fine with that. They've blocked apps that are far less offensive to me.
The other interesting question is liability. If a driver were to use one of these apps to circumvent a DUI checkpoint and then kill or injure someone in a car accident, I wonder if the app maker (or Apple?) would bear some liability. I don't think that free speech would offer much protection in this kind of case.
Trapster was designed from the ground up to be a platform for drivers to share relevant geo data.
The Trapster moderators have worked to curb DUI checkpoint sharing since its inception but users find ways around it.
So really this is a platform discussion - is it the platform's responsibility to proactively moderate the content?
If so doesn't that have wider implications for Twitter, Facebook, etc?
Since the goal was to prevent speeding, it didn't matter if they slowed down because they wanted to avoid a ticket so long as they slowed down.
These days they don't do so anymore because it is a nice way to pad government coffers, but it would be nice to build such an app.
Is the content legal? Then it's available on the app store. Is it illegal? Then it's not.
Does it offend some group or the other? It doesn't matter. Does it cause displeasure to a bunch of lawmakers? Tough luck.
But when Apple starts to pull apps that offend minorities, it has to take all those requests into consideration, and produce justification as to why it pulls this and allows that.
1) If a person is so impaired to drive, he will be even more impaired to operate and understand an app on a tiny freakn device.
2) Maybe the police shouldn't setup any checkpoint. Instead the check should happen in random places on the street.
3) Think of legislation or creating better safety standards for Cars, so the manufacturers are forced device cars that can detect impairment of the driver and not start at all. This option can create more jobs, inovations, etc.
These morons are freakn shame to our democracy!
Instead there was a 3rd party site where you could download an updated database of accident black spots - the ones where they put speed cameras.
