I am annoyed that several police groups are wanting to remove this feature and they are citing "officer safety" for the reason. I understand the possible concern but they are rolling out that term for everything, and I and many others are getting"officer safety" burnout. it is used to excuse any and all police interaction with the public that usually results in a citizen getting shot, beaten or harassed. Usually the perp deserves it by doing something stupid, but there are many examples of police overreacting and it is all over you-tube. And the supervisors excuse it by "Officer Safety" and the police that break the rules get a "get out of jail free" card. The average person is starting to resent the double standard that this will entail.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sheriffs are
campaigning to pressure Google Inc. to turn off a feature on its Waze
traffic software that warns drivers when police are nearby. They say one
of the technology industry's most popular mobile apps could put
officers' lives in danger from would-be police killers who can find
where their targets are parked.
Waze,
which Google purchased for $966 million in 2013, is a combination of
GPS navigation and social networking. Fifty million users in 200
countries turn to the free service for real-time traffic guidance and
warnings about nearby congestion, car accidents, speed traps or traffic
cameras, construction zones, potholes, stalled vehicles or unsafe
weather conditions.
To Sergio Kopelev, a reserve deputy sheriff in Southern California, Waze is also a stalking app for law enforcement.
There
are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, but law
enforcers such as Kopelev are concerned it's only a matter of time.
They are seeking support among other law enforcement trade groups to
pressure Google to disable the police-reporting function. The emerging
policy debate places Google again at the center of an ongoing global
debate about public safety, consumer rights and privacy.
Waze
users mark police presence on maps without much distinction other than
"visible" or "hidden." Users see a police icon, but it's not immediately
clear whether police are there for a speed trap, a sobriety check or a
lunch break. The police generally are operating in public spaces.
A Waze spokeswoman, Julie
Mossler, said the company thinks deeply about safety and security. She
said Waze works with the New York Police Department and others around
the world by sharing information. Google declined to comment.
"These relationships keep citizens safe, promote faster emergency response and help alleviate traffic congestion," Mossler said.
Google has a
complicated relationship with government and law enforcement. The
company worked closely with the Obama administration to defend itself
against hacking by China's government, and it is regularly compelled to
turn over to police worldwide copies of emails or other information
about its customers. Last year, after disclosures that the National
Security Agency had illicitly broken into Google's overseas Internet
communication lines, Google and other technology companies rolled out
encryption for users, which the U.S. government said could hamper law
enforcement investigations. Also last year, Google and other companies
sued the U.S. to allow them to more fully disclose to customers details
about how much information they were required to hand over each year.
Sheriff
Mike Brown of Bedford County, Virginia, said the police-reporting
feature, which he called the "police stalker," presents a danger to law
enforcement.
"The police
community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act
like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove
this feature from the application even before any litigation or
statutory action," said Brown, who also serves as the chairman of the
National Sheriffs Association technology committee.
Nuala
O'Connor, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington
civil liberties group, said it would not be appropriate for Google to
disable the police-reporting feature.
"I
do not think it is legitimate to ask a person-to-person communication
to cease simply because it reports on publicly visible law enforcement,"
she said. She said a bigger concern among privacy advocates is how much
information about customers Waze shares with law enforcement, since the
service necessarily monitors their location continually as long as it's
turned on.
Brown and
Kopelev raised concerns during the meeting of the National Sheriffs
Association winter conference in Washington. They pointed to the
Instagram account of the man accused of shooting two NYPD officers last
month. Ismaaiyl Brinsley posted a screenshot from Waze on his Instagram
account along with messages threatening police. Investigators do not
believe he used Waze to ambush the officers, in part because police say
Brinsley tossed his cellphone more than two miles from where he shot the
officers.
Kopelev said he
hadn't heard about the Waze app until mid-December when he saw his wife
using it. Afterward, Kopelev said he couldn't stop thinking about the
app and was motivated to act by the NYPD shooting. While attending the
funeral of one of the officers in New York, he spoke with Brown, his
former boss. Brown asked Kopelev to discuss Waze at the upcoming
sheriffs' association conference. Kopelev refers to his efforts as his
"personal jihad."
The executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, Jim Pasco, said his organization has concerns, too.
"I
can think of 100 ways that it could present an officer-safety issue,"
Pasco said. "There's no control over who uses it. So, if you're a
criminal and you want to rob a bank, hypothetically, you use your Waze."
This
is not the first time law enforcement has raised concerns with these
types of apps. In 2011, four U.S. senators asked Apple to remove all
applications that alert users to drunken driving checkpoints. Nokia
removed the sobriety check tracking function of one of the most popular
apps, Trapster, according to Trapster founder Pete Tenereillo. Trapster
was eventually discontinued at the end of last year due to Waze's
popularity.
I agree. It's bullshit. Who cares? It isn't going to create ambushes. It only alerts when the radar is on, not when a police car is present. It is no different than a radar detector. I didn't have time to worry about that. A cop should be alert at all times and most people are inherently good, but someone is always going to try to get the jump on you or kill you. That's why you have emotional intelligence and do your job as a law enforcement officer. This agenda is dumb and cops have no business vying for it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I say...keep the apps.
ReplyDeleteAnd who cares if a citizen slows down because of an app to get out of ticket. It had some form of proactive deterrence. Ok. I'm done now.
ReplyDelete+1 on Momma!
ReplyDelete+1 on Momma!
ReplyDelete