Posted on 03/24/2011 10:53:53 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A quartet of Democratic senators expressed out -rage Tuesday at the thought that Americans might object to being stopped and interrogated while going about their daily business. The hard-left solons - Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, Harry Reid of Nevada, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Tom Udall of New Mexico - are pressuring technology companies to censor a popular software feature available for Android phones, Blackberries and iPhones that enables drivers to avoid a warrantless search by police during their drive home.
@-Text.normal:It wasn’t so long ago that “Papers, please” checkpoints could only be found in Eastern European countries under the thumb of the Soviet Union. They were tools of oppression designed to keep the populace in check. In 1990, the Supreme Court decided that such techniques could be used in the United States because of the “carnage” caused by drunk driving - the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures notwithstanding. The advent of smartphones has enabled drivers to note the locations of these stops and dispatch a warning notice to anyone who may be in the vicinity. It’s the digital equivalent of flashing one’s headlights to warn of an upcoming speed trap - a form of free speech as old as the automobile itself.
Mr. Reid, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Lautenberg and Mr. Udall don’t see it that way. They wrote a letter pressuring the chief executives of Apple, Google and Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) to “remove these applications from your store unless they are altered to remove the DUI/DWI checkpoint functionality.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
PING!
What does the software do, exactly?
I’m assuming that it would pop up the equivalent of a warning signal on your GPS app at close to realtime.
My brother and I discuss this frequently. “Checkpoints” have literally mushroomed into an almost weekly occurance around here. It involves State, County and City LEOs. They detain you, ask for I.D. insurance, registration etc. He was caught in one last week. There was one set up in the adjoining podunk town as well.
A couple of years ago, I was caught in one that was literally in BF Egypt. Approximately 10 miles to the closest podunk town and right smack dab in the middle of the road that runs through the state park.
This ‘tool’ has been used in the past 2.5 years and before that, never. It’s a damn police state we are living in.
What is the name of the App?
You were breathing?
10 or 12 cops at $40 an hour overtime for 4? hours to catch maybe one drunk is real cost-effective.
The peasants are revolting!...............
The article didn’t say.
Wikipedia CB Lingo shows that a significant amount of the lingo dealt with locating and identifying police.
But a lot of the chekcpoints are paid for with federal money (all the money which the Dems say can't be cut). The fines might be pure profit for the city running the internal passport checkpoints.
One of these sorts of apps is apparently called Trapster:
what a bunch of crap...the app is clearly in compliance with, and a natural extension of, Maryland law...
These apps simply make that locally relevant information available in real time, in the car.
We live in a leftist police state currently.
From the supporters of the bill, the motivation appears to be to augment government “creative financing” through infringement of certain unreasonable constitutional restrictions upon aforesaid government.
Papiere, bitte!
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