Technology can only be used by the state to infringe upon personal liberties, not to enhance
the liberty of private citizens, several key Democrats say. Coincidentally, Apple appears more concerned about placating Big Brother politicians that for preserving the rights of iPhone owners.
Big Brother says it, and that’s good enough for Apple
Apple iPhones come complete with Thought Police protection whether you like it or not. Even as Apple has loosened its grip on the iTunes App Store to allow the soft porn of Playboy, it continues to police its apps for political correctness and for any app that Big Brother may not like. In this case, apps that track police DUI checkpoints
People who drink and drive are among society’s worst, so it’s understandable why some may have a positive reaction to this move at first. However, this move is a troubling sign of human rights that continue to be abridged by technology.
Unconstitutional assault on personal liberties
The latest assault on mobile freedom comes courtesy of Apple by way of Gestapo US senators who seem to have a problem with the constitution and with the personal liberties it supposedly guarantees.
This Fabulous Four, Charles Schumer, Harry Reid, Frank Lautenberg and Tom Udall united to demand an end to smartphone apps that can be used to track DUI checkpoints when it hauled executives from RIM, Apple and Google before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May.
Although these apps are not illegal, they concern the senators because people could use their iPhones as a means of circumventing potentially unconstitutional police activities.
These men, likely drunks themselves, demanded that DUI checkpoint tracking be removed from apps that track police or else that such applications be completely removed from mobile platforms.
Where does the censorship end?
Schumer is unhappy that Apple has moved only to ban new checkpoint apps and that more censorship is still to come:
Schumer said, “This victory will remain only half-won until the existing apps are removed from the store.”
According to USA Today, the censored applications only involve those that deal with DUI checkpoint tracking. These apps either have to be removed or they have to remove the DUI parts of them. For example, Fuzz Alert had a DUI module, but has now removed it. However, other features of the police tracking app remain intact.
RIM has already banned all existing apps from its platform, but Google’s response is unclear based on the USA Today piece.
With one victory under their belt, the next step for these politicians to take is to ban all police tracking apps. After all, an app that tracks seat belt checkpoints, speed traps, or red light enforcement efforts all do the same thing: help drivers avoid trouble.
Besides, what happens if someone marks generic police checkpoints and one of them happens to be a DUI roadblock?
iPhone technology a one-way street
While handing Apple iPhone users a few crumbs of convenience, recent months have revealed that both Apple and law enforcement has no problem with tracking the whereabouts of iPhone users every second of the day, so why can’t iPhone users track the whereabouts of law enforcement?
The bottom line is that it’s not the business of the government, Apple or the police to determine what private citizens do with their smartphones. The writing is now on the wall.
Now that people have been roped into a reliance on mobile technology, the realization is now setting in that the high-tech devices they think aids their freedom is instead slowly enslaving them to the State.
