The checkpoints are out in public , they can be watched , videoed and reported upon. I’m not smuggling 12 year old Guatemalan girls or 20 kilo’s of cocaine in my car but I would still want to know about delays along my route.
This is a free speech issue.
This has been challenged before, except in the 70’s with the popularity of CB Radios. People would announce where the cops are on high ways. The app is doing the same thing, its freedom of speech like you said.
I can’t remember. Is it legal to flash your lights to warn oncoming cars about a speed trap ahead? Seems I’ve heard of drivers getting tickets for doing that. Doesn’t stop me though.
Waze tells you. Before waze we would flash our headlights at oncoming traffic to warn our fellow drivers that there was a radar trap ahead.
We’re not talking about stopping murderers from getting arrested here.
How many pings from a Waze site and a cell phone tower does it take Google to associate a phone number with a LEO?
Oh no ! The Surveillance cops don’t like being watched !
Awwwwwww
Great shades of flashing your lights on the thruway to alert drivers they were approaching a speed trap....I know they used to ticket folks they caught doing it but haven’t heard of that in a long time....
Dear New York PD,
Ligma balls.
Love,
Laz
The checkpoints are in public, therefore the NYPD has no expectation of privacy.
In other words, blow it out your a$$, NYPD.
Kill all the red light cameras, then may we’ll sympathize with ya.
Ugh, yet another google product in my life. I didn’t realize it was google until now - looks like it was bought in 2013.
Waze is no different than calling your friend on the phone following you down the same road and warning them of a speed trap ahead.
Some yokel sheriff tried this stunt a few years back.
He couldn’t give an example of police being endangered by Waze spotters and, of course, the lazy media didn’t ask.
Waze DOES allow ‘crowdsourcing’ to spread knowledge of speed traps, DUI checkpoints etc. - which of course endangers revenue collection (hello Bland County VA coppers).
It is for this reason that police resent it.
Don’t the cops want people to know there was a speed trap so they slow down? Isn’t public safety their concern? Why, this makes is seem like these speed traps are nothing more than a revenue generator.
Please, please, PLEASE, hit google with something illegal.
There is no greater threat, IMHO, than google to our freedoms.
I believe the courts have ruled that even “flashing headlights” to vehicles coming the opposite direction, notifying of police presence coming up, was considered free speech.
This came up as the police tried to punish people flashing their lights.
Any attempt to criminalize this would be a clear violation of the 1st Amendment right to free speech. I don’t remember the name of the case, but approximately 15-20 years ago some PD arrested a guy for flashing his lights to motorists going the other way, warning them of a speed trap or something similar. The USSC ruled that the arrest violated the 1st Amendment, that flashing one’s lights was “speech” of a sort.
NYC can go piss up a rope. BTW, I was in NYFC last summer, and Waze happened to save me from at least 3 tickets during that week. Thank God that I’m back in Texas, where you can be on the 80 MPH interstate, and go 95 passing the cop going 90 and no one gives a rat’s ass so long as you’re not being dangerous. Oh, and you can have 10 guns in the car with you at the time of getting pulled over (IF you get pulled over), and they also don’t care (and may ask to go shooting with you).
In the past, police would have said thanks as these warnings help people slow down and drive correctly.
Trickle down:
Citizenry calls/texts intercepted —> no punishment
Elected Prez spied on, thwarted —> no punishment
Top Spy guys lie to Congress —> no punishment
WHY SHOULDN’T the cops start trying to push Google around..?
The past 10+ years have provided a How To for establishing a US dictatorship ruled by a permanent unelected bureaucracy.
If you show unelected people often enough that They Are In Charge, don’t be surprised when they start ACTING LIKE IT.
While traveling in western Canada I was surprised at something I figured would have been illegal in a place that has no respect for many personal freedoms we take for granted. The traffic reports on the radio would regularly include warnings to motorists about the exact locations of police speed traps and their portable speed camera locations on any given day.