Apple Bans DUI Checkpoint Apps 601
An anonymous reader writes "In late March, four US senators banded together and wrote a letter to Apple asking that they remove apps that alert users as to the whereabouts of DUI checkpoints. Now, Apple has revised its app store guidelines to ban those type of 'illegal' apps."
Choose Freedom. Choose Android. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what freedom is all about.
Choose Android.
Choose Freedom.
Fuck the police.
Re:A-PPolice State. (Score:5, Insightful)
I run a store. I don't want to sell beans in my store. I remove all beans from my store.
Do I have a legal leg to stand on here?
Re:Hypocritical (Score:4, Insightful)
Citation?
I agree drunk driving is a bad thing. But frankly, I've never seen any real evidence it's as endemic as you suggest. I've been driving for almost 40 years, and I can only recall seeing ONE (1) guy who was almost certainly drunk while driving (he was going east on the westbound half of a divided highway in the middle of the night).
It's virtually certain that there were other drivers who'd had a drink or three near me on the road in that time, but none that were obvious enough to pick out from the usual fraction of sucky drivers you find everywhere.
Re:A-PPolice State. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple doesn't have to allow apps showing photos of kittens if it chooses to ban those. It's a privately owned business.
Yes, Apple has a leg to stand on.
Re:A-PPolice State. (Score:4, Insightful)
According to some at /., no. In the name of freedom you must be forced to sell any and all beans, whether you want to or not.
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure this is used by a lot of non-drink-drivers for this reason.
Re:Hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
Automotive analogy: The problem with using BAC is that it's akin to checking the speed of your car by putting strain gages in the tires and measuring the radial strain to get at the rotational speed. It's just as silly.
What you need to do is a functional test: measure reflex speeds, vestibular nystagmus and its suppression, and such. All of that could be done with a portable eye tracker, quite cheaply, too (read: big profits for manufacturer). This would take care of people's varying sensitivity to alcohol, and would automatically catch drug users, too. It tests the performance of the visual system -- kinda important when you're driving.
BAC is an indirect way to measure impairment: it's impairment you're after, not BAC itself. BAC is a very approximate estimate for impairment! Even worse, BAC is measured indirectly again by poorly testing the amount of alcohol in exhaled air. That's two layers of indirection for measuring something that has direct, reproducible measurements available.
Re:No more apples (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you feel about apps which help innocent people to avoid being questioned about their activities by a man with a gun?
Re:No more apples (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't drink & drive, and I also don't enjoy waiting in a long line of cars going through a DUI checkpoint.
Like all technology, there can be legal and illegal uses, or in this case, moral and immoral uses. Information about DUI checkpoints is required to be public.
Re:No more apples (Score:5, Insightful)
> apps which have no purpose other than letting
> people drink-drive
That these checkpoints are called "DUI checkpoints" in no way suggests that:
1) Government checkpoints are authorized by the Constitution
2) There is no reason for non-drunks to avoid them
3) That banning products in high demand will do anything but create a black market for them.
If you're not a fan of censorship generally, I'd expect you to be a little more skeptical and analytical, a little less "I don't care if the authorities grope everybody's underpants because I've got nothing to hide".
Re:Makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Or release it for another mobile OS - perhaps one with more market share and no dickish rules about what's "appropriate"?
Yeah. Like maybe Android [wired.com] perhaps? Oh, wait....
Re:A-PPolice State. (Score:4, Insightful)
No competition? What about Android?
It's either totally crushing iOS and being a triumph for "open over closed" *or* Apple has a monopoly on mobile apps.... you can't have your cake and eat it.
It is not illegal to have a monopoly, or to have a homogenous system - another analogous position would be Xbox Live and the online store there, or the PSN (when it's working, I kid, I kid).
Crucially no one is forcing you to use an iOS device, or an Xbox 360, or a Playstation, and using one of those does not restrict the competitors at all.
Re:Hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
the dangers of drunk driving have nothing to do with how your eye vibrates or your nystagmus suppresses or whatever.
There isn't some magic booze fairy that comes down and jerks the wheel. These are well-understood biological processes. You said it yourself above, "The danger is with people who are drunk enough to mess with their distance judgment or reflexes." So which is it? Biology or booze fairy?
At least BAC is a proxy that can be understood and everybody agrees is related to alcohol intake.
So what? It's also an arbitrary measurement that can mean wildly different things depending on any number of factors. If I usually have a six pack a day, and today I drank three beers, I'm probably over the limit, but in no way impaired. You obviously know that. So why are you spreading lies?
I can't stand drunk driving apologists.
I can't stand ad hominems.
Re:No more apples (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't drink and drive and I also don't enjoy being hit by asshole drunk drivers.
I don't want to be hit by asshole drunk drivers either, but I value my 4th Amendment rights more than a little bit more safety enforced by a police state.
Cops patrolling and looking for erratic drivers is the answer, not a police state searching innocent civilians with no cause.
Re:No kidding. (Score:3, Insightful)
Checkpoint Apps that rely on publicly available police department released data are just fine. Crowdsourced (etc) apps are not.
Why is that?
Whether it's immoral or not to provide a method for drunk drivers and normal drivers alike to avoid DUI checkpoints is another question.
Morality has nothing to do with it; for these checkpoints to have passed Constitutional muster, it's required that the public be informed as to their location. So again, why does it matter how the public gets this information? It's not like most checkpoints are disclosed except for a few here and there that those wacky pranksters with their smart phones are spoiling the surprise!!!!!111lol
Personally, I wholeheartedly support DUI checkpoints and would approve of greater punishments for dangerous and erratic drivers.
Personally, I despise any and all fishing expeditions performed by the police and I'm grateful that these DUI checkpoints are required to be disclosed. After all, the police are ostensibly checking for DUIs, but make no mistake about it, any interaction like that with a police officer is a free interrogation for every crime they can pin on you.
Re:No more apples (Score:4, Insightful)
Loss is a horrible thing.
But, you have to remember that rights are more important than a single life. I don't want another terrorist attack, so should I agree to fly naked and have a cavity search before boarding a flight?
There is also the question of effectiveness of check points. If it takes 20 officers to run a check point and they catch 1-2 people who might not even be impaired but simply blew over the magical .05 or .08 limit is that really the best use of 20 officers time? Could it be better to have them patrolling and looking for people who are you know...impaired?