
Google and Waze Must Stop Sharing Drunken-Driving Checkpoints, NYPD Demands - kposehn
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/nyregion/waze-nypd-location.html
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Simulacra
This is laughable. It's our freedom of speech to alert others to DUI
checkpoints, speed traps, or coupons at at the donut shop. Whatever we want.
It's the same as flash the brights, which the police have tried (and failed)
to stop [1]. I hope the NYPD does try to push this so they can get smacked
down in court.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2014/02/05/flashing-headlights-to-warn-drivers-of-a-speed-trap-
constitutionally-protected-speech/)

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anigbrowl
That's true, but something tells me the same people opposing this will scream
like banshees when people start sharing lists of known speeders and bad
drivers publicly.

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geofft
The government doesn't have freedom of speech rights, and in any case accusing
people of being "bad drivers" likely gets into issues of slander in a way that
pointing out the fact of the existence of checkpoints or cameras doesn't.

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apatters
Indeed, it's almost as if the laws were designed to defend liberty and hinder
authoritarianism. As if even when authoritarianism sounds like a good idea, it
is not...

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mindslight
So it's not enough to set up anticonstitutional totalitarian checkpoints, but
they complain when their victims have the audacity to report on them?! Given
how readily these charlatans will waste public resources, it seems like the
best way to "make the streets safer" would be to lay off as many are necessary
until their organizations can once again focus on fighting crime rather than
creating it.

But of course that's just the ongoing issue with these lawless thugs. The
noteworthy problem here is the vulnerability caused by centralized
applications and centralized app stores. Waze may not immediately succumb to
this whining, but the technical foundation of the mobile ecosystem makes it a
sitting duck for repeated attacks. Eventually enough pressure will build that
they will have no choice but to succumb to the totalitarian ratchet.

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berberous
The Supreme Court has expressly ruled these constitutional:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz)

You can think it was a bad decision (3 judges dissented) that should be
overruled, but they are currently constitutional.

~~~
mindslight
The Supreme Court ruling something constitutional does not mean that it _is_
constitutional. It's every citizen's duty to understand the law for
themselves, in order to know when the government has exceeded its mandate.

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escape_goat
Seven Supreme Court justices, products of the same era, training, experience,
and institutions, cannot in all cases unanimously agree that a thing is (or is
not) constitutional.

Let us pause to imagine for a moment the comity arrived at by "every citizen,"
having taught themselves law in accordance with their civic duty, in
considering the same matters.

How are we to imagine a thing to be (or not be) constitutional, in such a
circumstance? If most citizens think a thing constitutional, does that make it
so? Or have they merely 'ruled' that it was constitutional, in your view,
should your own self-taught understanding persuade you differently?

I agree in general that there is a civic duty to understand principles of
government, to understand the nature and limits of law and justice, and to
grasp (if not embrace) the fundamentals of ethical reasoning.

However, in this instance what you seem really to be saying is that you hold
your own judgement to be absolute and superior with regards to what is and
isn't constitutional.

I am not going to impugn the quality of your personal reasoning or education.
The problem is that that just isn't how it works. None of the rest of us are
interested in having that be how it works, and as a pragmatic matter it simply
would not 'work' in any meaningful way. It would not result in a system in
which most of us could agree and get along.

The overwhelming majority view, from the time of the framing of the
Constitution onwards, has been that Section 2 of Article 2 conveys the power
of interpretation upon the federal judiciary in instances where the need for
interpretation arises within the constraints imposed elsewhere upon their
power.

The other view is not a 'view' in the sense of a workable alternative. It is a
stubborn naysaying, notionally on principle, that renders the entire system of
law and governance unworkable.

We don't want it.

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mindslight
> _If most citizens think a thing constitutional, does that make it so?_

It means that most citizens think a thing constitutional. You seem to have an
assumption that saying "X is constitutional" can only represent some universal
fact rather than a personal opinion.

> _Or have they merely 'ruled' that it was constitutional_

I mean yes, this is exactly how Supreme Court decisions are talked about -
whether the Court will _rule_ certain way. A court can _rule_ that pi equals 3
and lower courts will even have to follow that precedent in their own
decisions, but it would obviously be foolish for anyone else to repeat this as
factual.

What you're doing is akin to equating legality and morality, a standard
technique to quash dissent. Categorically ruling out that a code could be
wrong prevents being able to critically discuss it.

> _It is a stubborn naysaying, notionally on principle, that renders the
> entire system of law and governance unworkable._

Yes, it is an all-too-common refrain that dissent hinders effective governing.

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berberous
The text of the constitution at issue is your right to be free from
"unreasonable searches". Your pi example ignores the fact that "unreasonable"
is hard to define, and indeed, this case would not have reached the Supreme
Court if there were easy answers.

All we are saying is that in the United States, what the Supreme Court says on
this issue _categorically_ makes it constitutional. That does not mean you
cannot disagree with the policy, or advocate it be changed. For example, you
could advocate that your state pass a law prohibiting the practice. Or you
could advocate to amend the constitution.

But saying it's unconstitutional just makes no sense, and would make our
entire system unworkable.

How do you feel about other issues? Is the right to an abortion (Roe v Wade)
unconstitutional? Gay marriage? The Affordable Care Act? The right to tax
income at all?

There are groups that think all of those decisions were bad and
unconstitutional -- but the Supreme Court has the final say. Amend the
constitution, pass new laws, protest all you want, but saying any of these
things are unconstitutional just because you disagree makes no sense.

~~~
mindslight
> _All we are saying is that in the United States, what the Supreme Court says
> on this issue _categorically_ makes it constitutional_

This is a _political_ assertion you are making. It prevents invoking the
_intent_ of the constitution without some contextual disclaimer, thus
hindering critiques of whether the current government has run aground of its
charter.

> _There are groups that think all of those decisions were bad and
> unconstitutional -- but the Supreme Court has the final say_

The final say over whether _the government_ considers an action
constitutional! While the Supreme Court interprets the law for the government,
it does not have a monopoly on the definition of the word "constitutional".

Please note that my original comment even used the term "anticonstitutional",
because I did somewhat anticipate this authoritarian fallacy that _courts
define truth_. Regardless of arguing the semantics of whether "constitutional"
and "unconstitutional" are constrained to only referencing the legal scope,
the argument I'm making is that the practice of stopping and harassing every
traveler runs _directly contrary_ to what the founders intended as well as the
values our society purports to hold.

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thedailymail
I am struggling to think of a way in which prohibiting the sharing of such
information could be made illegal. The checkpoints are publicly visible
activities of public employees. The right to photograph and video record
police when acting in an official capacity is well established. If anything,
noting their location seems less intrusive and more likely to represent a
protected form of speech.

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joecool1029
In NJ they announce the checkpoints ahead of time in local newspapers. This is
(presumably) to avoid breaching the 4th amendment.[1] Otherwise police would
have to establish reasonable cause to pull a car over. Or at least that's what
a shitload of case law looks like (they had a window obstruction or were
driving 'erratically', for instance)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz)

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buildingsramen
I'm shocked at the comments in this thread decrying DUI checkpoints. Does
anyone _not_ see drunk driving as a serious threat to public safety?

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function_seven
We have lots of threats. We don’t arbitrarily stop every single person to
ferret them out. A free society demands some level of risk at the hands of
other citizens.

Freedom of movement without harassment is important to me. More important than
catching every drunk driver.

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NotANaN
> We don’t arbitrarily stop every single person to ferret them out.

This is NYC we're talking about. Stop-and-Frisk was a fun game the cops played
for years.

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User23
It's interesting how effectively propaganda has convinced people that
searching known felons for illegal weapons isn't a "common sense gun law."

Edit: Case in point.

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function_seven
Stop-and-frisk had little to do with felony status. It was your black-and-
young-and-male status that would trigger a search.

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Jedd
> ... the group expresses concern that people who abduct children could use
> the app to plot routes that avoid police checkpoints.

That's some spectacularly tenuous, desperate, ludicrous, over-reaching
rationalising. Once I got to that point I wasn't sure if the whole thing
wasn't a sophisticated trolling exercise.

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everdev
In SF, I drove by a big road sign that said "DUI checkpoint ahead".

It seemed like the SFPD was advertising it a few blocks in advance and it was
easy enough to take another street to avoid it if you wanted to.

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sajohn6
Where I'm from (Midwest), they'll set up the same checkpoint signs and then
have an alt checkpoint waiting after the most likely exit point.

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ams6110
To optimize, they should probably have the checkpoint only on the alternate
route.

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lawrenceyan
The NYPD have no legal recourse to do so regardless of their demands so it
shouldn't make any difference.

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sliken
It does make you wonder. Exactly how much should the government be able to
inconvenience the large majority of law abiding citizens to catch the rare
few?

This isn't just about checkpoints, but implies to privacy, encryption, etc.

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rundmc
It would be smarter for NYPD cops to start posting fake DUI checkpoints on
Waze all over the city. If any Waze users were thinking they could DUI safely,
this will persuade them otherwise.

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geofft
I imagine that even perfectly sober people are interested in skipping these
checkpoints, and so a checkpoint on Waze, whether real or not, causes enough
traffic diversion that fake checkpoints will just make traffic even more of a
mess, which seems unlikely to be a politically popular decision.

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upofadown
I think the traditional attack on this sort of thing is to have a bunch of
concerned citizens drive around and create false checkpoints. Or spoof the GPS
and just do it from home.

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cwkoss
It would be disappointing if Google and Waze capitulated to this demand. DUI
checkpoints are unconstitutional and of questionable value.

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pseudolus
The Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of DUI checkpoints in
Michigan Dept. of State v. Sitz [0][1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz)

[1]
[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/444/](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/444/)

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bgentry
Setting aside the legality of the checkpoints themselves, the general public
has a clear freedom of speech right to share information about the activities
of law enforcement authorities. Barring some exceptional circumstances,
there’s no constitutional authority by which they can prohibit an individual
or a company from disseminating this information, especially given its clear
value to the public.

Whether the companies capitulate on their own accord or due to some behind the
scenes strong arming is another matter.

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mhb
Maybe they could move the checkpoints into close proximity of drinking
establishments.

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kevin_thibedeau
I've never seen a checkpoint in Manhattan. Where do they typically operate?

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xfitm3
I've been through one right before the Holland tunnel.

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dgzl
Makes me think that the NYPD doesn't have any direct connections to Google.

