NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Apple Caves on DUI Apps: Free Speech Suffers, but Nobody Is Likely Safer
Apple Caves on DUI Apps: Free Speech Suffers, but Nobody Is Likely Safer
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000865.html
I can certainly see this one coming. This is one of those postings
that guarantees an angry email barrage in short order. But for the
moment the servers are still all running, the queues are in pretty
good shape, and the hamsters are running full speed on the generator
wheels. And these days I'm in even less of a mood to mince words than
ever.
You'll recall that Congress has been figuratively beating up on Apple
and Google lately, this time regarding smartphone apps that allow
users to report or be warned regarding DUI (Driving Under Influence)
checkpoints (that is, roadblocks).
When this issue initially came up recently, with a gaggle of U.S.
Senators writing RIM, Apple, and Google asking them to ban such
applications, RIM servilely complied immediately.
Google and Apple both refused, noting that while they would make
efforts to remove *illegal* apps, they did not view DUI
notification apps as illegal. And in fact, they are *not*
illegal. Period.
Today comes word that Apple has apparently caved on this matter, and
has changed its notoriously arbitrary App Store Review Guidelines to
ban drunk driving/DUI applications, and will review the existing ones,
presumably in preparation to retroactively ban them as well
( http://j.mp/jw9Hvw [The Hill] ).
A chorus of politicians and tech columnists immediately sprang forth
today to sing the praises of Apple for this strike against this
particular designated evil of free speech.
For that is what we're really talking about. It is not illegal to
report DUI roadblocks. It is not illegal to tell people where such
police activity is occurring -- in the U.S., anyway. It is unlikely
that any attempt to make such reporting illegal would easily withstand
court scrutiny. Nor would a ban on such information be practical even
if it was successfully enacted and then approved by the courts.
Attention in this sphere will now inevitably turn toward Google and
Android apps. Since Google wisely does not operate a restrictive,
approval-based App Store (in contrast to Apple), and since Android
users can easily create, share, and "sideload" apps without using the
Android app store at all, Google cannot effectively block apps before
installation, and even their use of the Android app "kill switch" --
only activated in extreme cases to date -- can be circumvented by
users in various ways.
But unlike many observers, I don't condemn this state of affairs
regarding Android. Rather, I applaud it. When I buy a device I feel
justified in demanding that I be allowed to run any legal application
on it that I choose. For all practical purposes, Android provides
this crucial capability. I can write my own Android apps, I can
download them directly from Web sites. I take responsibility for my
own use of my technological property.
This is of course not in keeping with the current "politically
correct" ideology, that users of technology must be controlled in ever
increasing detail by manufacturers, carriers, ISPs, and ultimately by
government. "Users cannot be trusted," says this mantra -- they must
be constrained to only use technology in the manners and circumstances
that government ultimately deems fit to bless.
While the DUI apps case indeed has elements that invoke aspects of the
upcoming battle over PROTECT IP and government-mandated search engine
censorship ( http://j.mp/legUSl [Lauren's Blog] ), at this stage
demands for the removal of these apps are more in the nefarious "nod
and wink" zone.
That is, given that the government cannot *order* Google, Apple,
or others to ban such apps providing legal information, Congress is
trying to apply pressure through the "chokepoints" of major Internet
firms, via a kind of "friendly persuasion" that would have seemed
perhaps familiar to Al Capone (in this case, of course always with the
unspoken threat that failure to comply might result in more intense
Congressional scrutiny of these firms in other ways).
All too often today, law enforcement is attempting to block us from
the legal noting, reporting, or recording of openly visible
enforcement activities in public places -- note the sometimes violent
reactions to citizens simply attempting to document police activities
using camcorders or phones.
Efforts to prevent the public from reporting or accessing information
regarding "sobriety checkpoint" roadblocks on public thoroughfares is
yet another example of law enforcement and political overreaching.
Two ironies in all this immediately present themselves. First, there
is no evidence I know of documenting that the use of smartphone DUI
apps increases drinking, drunk driving, or accidents in any manner.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that when many persons know that there are
DUI checkpoints on their route, they either don't drink or find a
designated driver who isn't drinking -- both highly positive outcomes
for everyone involved.
But the other irony in all this is that even if smartphone apps
providing this information were somehow 100% effectively banned, the
availability of such data would be hardly reduced at all. The same
data is available on vast numbers of conventional Web sites, via
automated email, SMS text messages, and other means. Anyone with a
bit of skill can throw together a script to leverage standard GPS data
with such sites to provide very much the same capabilities as
dedicated apps.
This really isn't about the scourge of drunk driving, a horror that
nobody supports. Rather, we're talking not only about fundamental
principles of free speech, but also regarding the inability of
specific restrictions on speech to actually achieve their ostensible
goals.
Given the realities of this situation, it is difficult to view the
Congressional pressures being asserted as much more in the end than
political posturing, even if we assume that the motives of the
Senators involved are purely honorable ones.
Drunk driving has enormous costs for society, both in terms of lives
and money.
But I would argue that attempts to control free speech, particularly
efforts to prevent the dissemination of information regarding the open
activities of law enforcement and other government officials in public
places, ultimately carry enormously greater potential risks and costs
to society, especially when such information restrictions cannot
possibly achieve their stated goals.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com