Texting and Driving? Watch Out for the Textalyzer
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
There's no such immediacy with phone activity, especially since phone logs are stored permanently somewhere other than the phone. If the police need to search the driver's phone records, they can tell it to a judge and get a search warrant. So the analogy to the Breathalyzer just isn't a good one.
And, a casual search of phone records could turn up all sorts of stuff, encouraging use of the Textalyzer as a pretext for conducting a broader search.
This is clearly an attempt to ignore Riley v. California. As Justice Roberts said at the end of the unanimous opinion[1]:
Our answer to the question of what police must do before
searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is
accordingly simple—get a warrant.
It's a technically ignorant news article about technically ignorant politicians creating technically ignorant laws that don't really help.
All of the data it pulls from your phone is going to _evidence_ that could be used in court.
I'm still not on board with it, but I don't think false positives are as big of a deal as people here are making them out to be.
If you read some of the history of the devices and their use, I'd argue the correct statement is "the Breathalyzer does not measure anything". The number of inaccuracies and outright bugs in both the hardware and software are appalling, considering the increasingly-draconian penalties associated with their use.
One would hope but no one in the industry has had their products extensively evaluated for false positives by independent researchers. The way these machines work is entirely handwavy and full of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. How you can confidently extrapolate blood alcohol from breath alcohol under loosely controlled test conditions with 4 significant digits across the spectrum of human physiology has never been explained.
I would be doubly afraid of false positives from a textalyzer triggered by some app that accesses texts automatically. There will be no recourse to prove the state wrong.
So, this, presumably, would make that aspect cheaper and afford this evidence for less severe accidents and allow those who believe they should pay less in insurance because they drive more responsibly (as could evidenced by this method) to enjoy those benefits and at the same time presumably drive down the incidence of distracted driving induced accidents.
If it's actually desirable that the fact of an accident be treated as probable cause for such a search, then the warrant would not be all that hard to obtain. In general, warrantless searches need to be justified by some kind of immediate need, not just cost and convenience.
Seems like this is either very misguided/flawed, simply a feel-good measure, a way to funnel public money to a connected company, or some combination of the three.
Honest question btw.
Now all that aside, this is quite a stretch ... If the 5th amendment protects you from disclosing a password under a court order, there's no reason you should have to unlock your phone just because a police officer asks you too. Come to think of it, pretty sure that applies that unlocking your trunk either unless the officer has a warrant.
The breathalyzer has the immediacy requirement described elsewhere in this thread, which doesn't apply to your phone. The only reason to avoid getting a warrant is convenience.
Yes, actually, and that question (wrt criminal penalties some states have heaped on) happens to be in front of the Supreme Court right now in Birchfield v. North Dakota[1] (though not for the first amendment, GP is off course there).
Sibling comments are correct on the legal theory behind allowing punishments for refusing to take a breathalyzer test, but it's clearly questionable whether a state should be allowed to issue criminal penalties for availing yourself of your rights. If such a thing were generally allowed, warrants wouldn't be necessary in most cases: let us search your person/phone/car/house/papers without a warrant unless you want severe automatic penalties, etc.
[1] http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/04/argument-analysis-criminal...
Distracted and reckless driving have been laws long before cell phones or laws against drinking while driving. Distracted and reckless driving already carry large fines and are much more subjective with much less burden of proof than finding a text message on a phone.
Instead of the breathalyzer (or other tests for EtOH) we should be testing for ability. I suspect this shouldn't be hard or expensive, for example, to make a portable device that implemented objective tests[1] of ability. Obviously some research would be needed to determine which skills need to be tested and to calibrate the minimum-ability cutoffs.
[1] like this reaction time test: https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/redgreen.html
Isn't that basically how traffic tickets work in general? As far as I understand it, you have the option of rejecting the ticket as long as you're willing to be arrested for the offense instead.
Driving is not a right in any sense, it's a privilege.
Likewise with driving.
It's not the actual manipulation-of-an-automobile part of driving. It's getting around the world in a timely manner, just like everybody else, instead of having to be interned in a bus for an extra hour.
The theory being they'll use the first for motorists and the second for terrorists.
But then someone will figure it's terribly convenient for drug and organised crime too. And tax evasion. And tickets. Soon everybody gets the exploit kit but they'll whip out the first one for press ops.
Clear and dry with light traffic is very different than snow in a construction zone. Phone use is something I can stop doing. The same can't be said for being drunk.
It would be much more appropriate to implement ways that remind people that this is dangerous behaviour.
Preferably there should be something done during driving tests to see how people react. Something like calling the participants phone when in a safe environment to see how they react. Of course people could plan for it but that would be the point.
Of course, I don't have high hopes that it'll actually be implemented like this, and I fully expect if this does come out to see a headline a year later along the lines of "Textalyzer protocol exposes private user data/allows arbitrary code execution!"
Imagine being able to download the schematics for the car, order relevant commercial parts, 3D print the exterior, connect to a specialized Raspberry Pi with cameras and sensors, built-in GPS, ...
I don't actually know how you would do this but if Google can build a self-driving car, then why couldn't an independent group of motivated people who don't have any conflict of interest also make one?
The answer to both is that both require highly talented programmers and designers with a lot domain-specific knowledge, and most if not all of the people who fit that bill are getting paid to do it commercially.