Google Won't Pull Checkpoint Evasion App 343
RedEaredSlider writes "Don't expect Google to remove apps that help users avoid DUI checkpoints — the company says it is leaving the controversial apps on its Android Marketplace. A source said the company only removes apps that violate its Android content policies and the apps in question do not appear to violate these policies." We'll see if Apple caves to pressure to remove them.
Why should they? (Score:5, Informative)
Why should they? Police in most (all?) areas are required to publish the locations of checkpoints ahead of time, so these apps are just making public information easier to find.
Re:Why should they? (Score:5, Informative)
It's considered entrapment if they don't. If you read your local paper, you'll see checkpoints published. Of course, law enforcement is constantly trying to push the limits. After our local PDs started ramping up DUI checkpoints, they started restricting information on locations, shortening the lead time for announcements, etc.
Re:Why should they? (Score:4, Informative)
Regardless, they are still treating you and I like criminals. Show me your papers, citizen!
Checkpoints where I live (Score:5, Informative)
Expected benefits (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, and while standing shoulder to shoulder with drunk drivers and Google, we are also standing shoulder to shoulder with our local news papers, radio stations, municipalities, and police departments, seeing as how they are REQUIRED BY LAW to advertise the location of these check points.
It is unconstitutional to search or sieze an individual or their car with out reasonable cause. Being on the road after bar time is not reasonable cause. The only way that these check points have been able to pass constitutional muster is by advertising their existance (including the when and where) to act as a deterrant.
I loathe drunk drivers. I lost a girl friend and another close friend to drunk drivers. I left a company after the finding out that the CEO had been arrested for his 4th DUI. I'd love to see much harsher penalties for multiple offence drunk drivers. But the posting of these check points is a matter of constitutional law. If the senate were to forbid media industries from distributing this information, the check points would fail to pass the constitutional measure and would have to stop.
As much as I hate drunk drivers, I love the Constitution far more.
-Rick
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked with a bunch of Cops. Almost all of them have been stand up guys, and good people. But like any other organization of (mostly) well meaning people, bureaucracies get in the way.
Mistakes happen, and sometimes the interests of the public aren't fully served. But for the most part anyone that goes into a service career like law enforcement usually has the best interests of the public at heart.
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:5, Informative)
In most countries flashing your lights is a signal to oncoming motorists that they are approaching a hazard. It almost doesn't matter to me whether that hazard is a fallen utility pole or a bored traffic cop, I would want to have some signal it's coming.
Re:Why should they? (Score:5, Informative)
Here in New Hampshire, there are specific prohibitions against [nhseacoastlawyers.com] using a sobriety checkpoint for trapping ANY violation other than drunk driving.
Go figure, the legislature - along with armies of lawyers and police officers, thought of your trick and specifically closed the loophole to prevent against that abuse.
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:4, Informative)
If they were really worried about it...they'd just ban the sale of alcohol in establishments like bars and restaurants,and only allow you to drink at home.
There we go! I knew we'd come up with the proof!
But wait, wouldn't it be easier to just ban driving? Then they'd get rid of every vehicle-related crime at once (except the crime of driving, I guess). Proof they don't care about any of it!
Actually...MADD would really love to just turn back the clock to prohibition.
They would... which is exactly why MADD's founder [wikipedia.org] left the organization. They'd become something other than what she had originally been fighting for.
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:5, Informative)
This article [msn.com] lends credence to the idea. Don't have a ready citation for the idea that drunk driving is something government needs, though.
If you're too lazy to click, Dallas, TX decided that the cameras at red lights were doing too good a job of reducing infractions and were cutting into their funding, so they got rid of them. The cops would have you believe that the purpose of the cameras was to increase safety, but their behavior clearly shows that the primary motive was cash.
It could be argued that this is the result of "running government like a business".
The lesson: If everyone stopped breaking the law, cops might have to do an honest day's work. :D
Re:Unexpected benefits (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly. Red-light cameras were pushed HARD in Florida by claiming they'd reduce red-light running, but 99.7% of the actual tickets end up getting issued for rolling right turns, or coming to a complete stop with the front vertical plane of the car not 100% behind the white line painted SO FAR BACK from the intersection,drivers on wet roads end up in a position where they literally have about 200 milliseconds to figure out whether they have enough room to come to a complete stop behind the white line painted about a hundred feet back from the actual intersection without hydroplaning and spinning out of control, or trying to make it completely across the intersection to another point ridiculously far beyond the actual intersection.
The fact that there are no mandatory state-dictated standards for yellow-light timing and/or white-stripe placement makes the whole thing an even bigger farce. Actually, that's not quite right... there ARE standards for timing and geometry, but they only apply to state-road intersections... intersections that never have red-light cameras anyway because FDOT knows they're bullshit and doesn't even want to waste its time screwing with them. It's cash-starved municipalities that go crazy putting them everywhere, casting their nets as far and aggressively as they can with the tightest timings and most widely-spaced stripes the consultants leasing them the cameras and issuing the tickets tell them they can get away with. In fact, FDOT won't even allow red-light cameras on state property.
How bad is it in Florida? In many cases, the red-light cameras are now costing the municipalities money, because any ticket issued by them can be trivially challenged on technical merit and get thrown out of court with basically 100% success, often without even requiring an attorney. At least one judge (in Broward, I think) cleared his entire docket and dismissed every outstanding ticket issued by a municipality over the prior ~year because LITERALLY 100% were getting successfully thrown out, and the City's legal argument for pursuing them can be loosely summarized as "our contract with the camera company requires us to cooperate, and we really need the money." I don't remember the exact argument, but it was something along those lines, and was so egregiously bad, the judge threatened to hold the City's attorney and its elected officials in contempt of court if it kept wasting his time with tickets that couldn't stand up to even the most trivial legal challenge.
The fact is, actual honest-to-god "the light is red, and I'm going to intentionally proceed through the intersection anyway" offenses are almost *unheard* of in the US. At the end of the day, it's probably the #1 greatest cultural taboo in America. Americans will sit at a red light at 3am on a deserted 6-lane road for 5 minutes. We'll spend 10 minutes backing up and moving forward in a roomba-like forward-facing figure-8 pattern shifting across 2 or 3 lanes trying to trigger broken sensors, and do a U-turn over a curb and raised median if we believe that the light really, truly, is never going to turn green... but actually proceeding forward through a red light? Never.