New York eyes a 'breathlyzer' for texting while driving

For example, in a traffic collision, you tailend someone: a super common cause is distracted driving. The officer might claim a search for concrete evidence of distracted driving, like if you were accessing the phone during that moment.

the chief argument being, the law needs tools to protect its citizens.

the sacrifice of privacy for security has been towards security on a consistent basis for a while now, I see no reason for that to change.

They mention the tech is glitchy, I'm guessing because their exploits fail on many devices.

As for android phones, afaik you're pretty boned.

http://www.cellebrite.com/Releases/MobileForensics/UFED6.1_R...

The device lists makes and models of Android phones they can access, and ones they can bypass the lock. I have to assume they are using exploits. Especially with the lack of similar lists for Apple.

What I have to wonder though, are they getting a special version of the product, or is the euphemism or a digital "breathalyzer" just a way of dodging the fact that they want to do warrant less digital forensics on people's devices?

Voice to text is certainly harder to prove right now.

To me (and I know this will be a controversial opinion) I feel this is something smart phone manufacturers should work together with the government on. A simple "has a text been manually entered in the last x minutes" read out feels like a non slippery slope that may save lives by proxy.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-dev...

Furthermore, the idea that privacy means secrecy is too narrow even when we think only about personal information, like the contents of a journal. Suppose I give you my diary and urge you to read it. No one would think you are violating my privacy when you do so. The reason is that privacy is not about the information itself, no matter how personal it may be. Instead, this aspect of privacy – informational privacy – is about my right to control what other see, and in this example I have given you my permission.

Privacy has less to do with the information we conceal from the world than with the close and trusted people that we determine to share our information with.

My Actions, i.e. the act of communicating, is absolutely protected under the original intent of the fourth amendment. Now, that means very little nowadays, but your statement - "Constitutions normally only protect the content of communications, not the fact that communications occur" - is patently untrue.

It would be nicer if there was a way to do this without complete privacy invasion, at the bare minimum a warrant + request to your carrier for just timestamp metadata would make me much more comfortable.