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Comment by wslh | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question: is sharing the location or distribution of information about police presence illegal? I assume this would be treated differently if it involved military positions, but I'm curious about how the law applies in this case.

Waze is another example of an app where users can share information about police presence or roadblocks, while useful to some, could also be seen as having negative implications depending on the context.

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While your question is meaningful and well intentioned, let me point out that it may be inconsequential. The legality of an action is moot when the regime ignores and defies the entire basis of those laws - the constitution. It's like trying to evaluate yourself against a standard that is no longer followed.

Instead, evaluate yourself on the basis of your standing with the regime. If they dislike you for any reason including your skin color, they will find some sort of national security threat in your actions. Or they may punish you first and then claim the inability to correct it. On the other hand if they need you, they will completely ignore your actions, including even leaking of extremely sensitive information to unauthorized individuals.

yeah, it's more a question of "has america's justice system been reduced to arbitrary persecution of things the president or his executives deem a threat to America".

Because that's basically what's unfolding under fascism means.

That's a rhetorical question at this point.

Only if you knew by virtue of something like access to secret information (the things you'd have a security clearance to access).

If you see the police are gathered around your local 7-Eleven, you're absolutely free to post it.

If you know in advance that the police are going to be performing a raid on a meth house and you got that information by virtue of a security clearance (I assume they do have something of this sort like federal employees have, though I'm not sure the precise mechanisms) then you'd be violating the policies around that access. This could be illegal (just like a fed leaking secret or top secret information).

If you know in advance because the police have loose lips, but you are not personally under any kind of confidentiality policy, you're free to post it. So the loose lipped cops at the bars I used to frequent could have caused real problems for themselves.

Worth pointing out that the question of legality is besides the point if you are purposefully antagonizing the police state.

It’s not about legality. It’s about compliance.

If you become a target, they will arrest you and drop charges later. They will make you miss work and lose your job. They will set up surveillance on you to catch you doing anything else they want to continue harassment.

You don’t have to look hard to see reporting of officers using official databases to settle personal scores. 404 media just did a big expose on ALPR Flock DB abuses

Honestly, they'll put you in an ICE detention facility indefinitely. They don't have to drop charges if they don't even have to charge you in the first place, and because they're all hiding behind masks there's no way for them to face any kind of repercussions.

Beyond that, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of sending "homegrowns" to overseas concentration camps, so it won't be long now before you don't have to do anything wrong to be targetted and you don't have any recourse regardless.

Behold the June 11 Justice Dept Memo on wedge applications for "5. Prioritizing Denaturalization"

https://www.justice.gov/civil/media/1404046/dl

with some discussion at: DOJ Opens Door To Stripping Citizenship Over Politics - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/doj-opens-door-to-strippi...

"We can't let those (accused) commies take over New York (even if elected)"

Crowd-sourced flock camera locations: https://deflock.me/

IANAL

Flashing your headlights to warn others of cops or anything else is generally considered free speech. IIRC, this has been ruled on several times in pretty high courts.

So double check with a lawyer, but I'm like 99% confident there's nothing illegal about these types of Apps. I mean Waze has been doing it for years and even Google maps notifies you about speed traps.

If some new ruling makes it not free speech, we're in danger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight_flashing

Flashing headlights gets people to drive more carefully and within the speed limit, thus you are not helping someone commit a crime. However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained this might make you complicit in their actions and the courts could very well decide differently. Intent very much matters here.

Using this line of reasoning, let’s imagine for a moment that a car speeding 20mph over the limit sees someone on the other side of the road flashing their lights and slows down in time to avoid a ticket.

Hasn’t the light flasher helped someone who was breaking the law avoid detection?

And isn’t the intent of the flasher to ensure that people who were breaking the law have enough time to stop doing that long enough to avoid detection?

> However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained

Obligatory “I am not a lawyer” disclaimer, but the people who make posts on this app have no contact with the people the app ostensibly benefits. If the app helped targets of ice find willing drivers in the area to help them escape to somewhere else, that’d be one thing since there is now a direct relationship with a person and the accused and direct action on the part of the app user. But I don’t see how this app is materially different from posting speed traps or DUI checkpoints on Waze, an action that has absolutely helped people avoid lawful intervention by police.

The light flasher has merely persuaded someone to stop breaking the law. Whether or not the lights flashed, the police would not have been able to detect prior speeding, but merely detected speeding near them.

An analogy might be to have a sign in a shop warning thieves of CCTV - the purpose is to prevent theft and is not considered to be helping someone avoid detection, although it does also do that.

Speech that indirectly results in someone committing more crime is not the same as speech that directly incites someone to commit more crime.

We’re saying that “intent very much matters here” but when we are talking about people flashing headlights to warn others of a police-manned speed trap, we focus on the effects of the action. Isn’t the intention of the person flashing their headlights (in many cases) to help people break the law? That is, people see the signal and slow down while passing the speed trap only to increase speed once past, evading detection.

This looks much the same to me as people warning those around them of ICE activity.

Nobody flashes their headlights with the intent that someone will speed up. Driving at night, you're not even able to determine whether oncoming traffic is speeding.

It is literally telling someone to obey the law, because the law is watching.

Maybe they’s why people post on the app too, to remind folks to have their documentation in order.

If you have the app, you likely don't need the reminder. You're either evading ICE or helping other people steer clear of ICE.

Police notifications on GPS don't really give you much notification to turn off onto a different road or to avoid them, at least on freeways, which is the only time I've seen them.

Fondly remember 20 years ago when I was doing over 100 on a highway in northern Alaska and all the _cop_ did was flash his lights at me to tell me to slow down.

Times sure are changing

In Pennsylvania the court ruled that flashing your lights to signal isn’t illegal but it is dangerous at night. So presumably it’s fine during the day, or perhaps one could signal by turning headlights off and on instead.

In the UK during the early era of cars, the Automobile Association used to send boys out with bicycles to warn drivers about speed traps. This was challenged in court, obstruction of justice or some such, so the AA simply inverted the scheme. The boys were now told to always salute cars to signal that everything was okay, but wouldn't salute if there was a speed trap ahead. It was reasoned that the law couldn't compel the boys to salute. Apparently they kept this up for a few decades, before eventually deciding that speed limits were generally reasonable.

Now you get the warning on your satnav...

I use OsmAnd and it alerts me to pedestrian crosswalks. My wife uses google and it alerts her to speed enforcement. Interesting difference in priorities.

What are the benefits of crosswalks alerts? Usually, there are lots of signs leading to, and at the crosswalks. This is the opposite for fixed and mobile speed traps, they'd rather it be a surprise to drivers.

The benifit is adding another layer of safety to reduce risk. In the swiss cheese model of accidents, each safety measure is a layer of swiss cheese, which has holes through which accidents may go through. But if you stack up a lot of cheese, the accident has to thread a path through several different holes and that is less likely to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

If you drive around in EU then be aware that the law is different depending on the country. Schweiz for example do not allow to use or sell databases that has the location of speed cameras. In Germany you are not allowed to use apps that warn you of it. You are also not allowed to use your car lights to warn other drivers, but you can use hand signals. They are however allowed in other places like Belgium, Neitherlands and Spain.

Here is a list (but I can't say how accurate it is): https://lizhiguos.com/driving-aids-and-speed-camera-warnings...

As someone that lives and works on the DACH region, you just have to listen to German and Swiss radios, they do tend to point out radar spots, regardless of those laws, so dunno how they get their permissions to do so.

Idk about danger. There are countries with better functioning democracy and personal freedom than US that make it illegal to use an app that warns about speed traps. For example Switzerland. In multiple other countries you also can't flash your headlights to warn about police presence on the road.

You can have a reasonable system one way or another. I would take Swiss regulation over US one any day personally.

Since Waze still has their speed trap reporting feature, I’m guessing it’s still legal.

This is now built into google maps

Waze in NZ removed this feature after threats from police.

If you post to local social media groups about DUI checkpoints or mobile speed cameras you’ll be scolded by about 30% of people.

Pretty depressing it is only 30%.

Why?

Because folks don't want to enable drink-drivers and speeders? Maybe they want to use their roads with some basic level of safety?

True, they should set up child abuse checkpoints too - think of the children after all.

And check that every single one of your federal papers are present and punctual. We'd hate to have someone that's unbecoming to share a full disclosure of themselves to officers on the road.

Doctors and teachers handle that, since they have regular contract with children. At least in my state they're required by law to report suspected child abuse.

As a side note, these laws are doing damage to organizations looking for volunteers that I don't think we have fully grasped yet.

People are willing to put a couple of weekends into making a middle school or high school competition happen. They're a lot less willing to do it if they have to go to an FBI station to get fingerprinted or produce a state and federal background check first. And I'm not talking about people with something to hide; I'm talking about people with a completely clean background who just don't want to be bothered.

The equivalent checks outside the US may not require fingerprinting, they don't in the UK.

Making slippery slope arguments like this is not discussing in good faith. I was providing the context of someone who lives in that geo-political area.

NZ OP here. Few weeks ago there was a morning checkpoint to inspect everyone's child car seat installation.

Few years back got chased by a cop and ticketed (and scolded) for not restraining kiddo (small town and my clever 2yo somehow learned how to unbuckle themselves (even that houdini clip didn't help)). Warned I could get prosecuted for child neglect if I continue. I suspect the daycare has tipped him off.

Nanny state isn’t synonymous with police state, but it rhymes.

There is a risk to DUI checkpoints and speeding checkpoints even if you are doing neither. Innocent people die at the hands of the police fairly often, but many more are wrongfully imprisoned. Wanting to limit your interactions with the police is a valid safety and risk management proposal.

Not in NZ

What about people that are on their way to work (or somewhere else time sensitive) who want to be aware of places with a slowdown because of checkpoints?

A lot of people think that a few delays once in a while are a reasonable price to pay for suppressing the rate of DUIs.

yeah, and thats fine, but you dont have the right to say someone cant have another opinion

Umm, that’s exactly what free speech is.

okay you can say it, but you have no right to actually get your way

1. I didn't say people can't have another opinion. I didn't say that because I don't believe it and never implied otherwise.

2. Supposing I did believe it and did say it, I would be well within my rights to say it. The First Ammendment assures the right to say things like that, no matter how dumb and misguided those things are.

If safety was the real goal the police themselves would announce checkpoints and speed traps. This gives people a chance to not drink too much or speed in the first place. I've lived in places where DUI checkpoints were all announced ahead of time, and I think for many it was a serious reminder to not drink and drive.

But for many DUI checkpoints safety is not the goal. It's simply a pretext to check everyone's papers.

Like in sports, how before every drug test the athlete is given a heads-up right?

Or is perhaps the chance of a random test at any moment more of a deterrent?

That only works if you actually have a DUI checkpoints all the time everywhere. It is a random check because then people need to be careful all the time. If there is a DUI checkpoint 2 times per year in your area you can just avoid driving drunk at those two days per year.

They do. DUI checkpoints are heavily advertised here in California for exactly that reason — to deter drunk drivers. The only thing they don't do is tell the exact intersection so drunks don't just drink and drive the other direction.

https://www.chch.com/chch-news/police-services-across-ontari... In Ontario they announce R.I.D.E. checkpoints ahead of time, it is always before winter holidays.

the whole idea behind a police state is that legality doesn't matter when it conflicts with "the state wants to employ machinery to keep you in line"

Absolutely not illegal.

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