Comment Re:They might as well. (Score 1) 239
Go home. You're drunk.
Go home. You're drunk.
Of course laws are sometimes arbitrary. Of course staring at your car stereo is just as dangerous as staring at your phone. Do you think these are revelations to anyone?
Yes, I do.
If I was a police officer, I would charge you with not being in full control of your vehicle by virtue that your attention is divided between the traffic and your piece of wood.
What if I can produce video of the event in which I can demonstrate that although I did poke continuously at the block of wood and sometimes glanced at it, that most of the time my eyes were on the road, and in fact I narrated a continuous and accurate description of all traffic around me? What if I have a certified driving instructor with me at the time who can legally swear that in his professional opinion, I was in full and complete control at all times?
I'm not bringing up the particular scenario above to suggest that's exactly what I'd do, but if your answer is nevertheless "the cops always win", then we shouldn't even be talking about whether there are cellphone laws or what have you, because it's immaterial... the real discussion in that case would be what a complete police state the US has descended into (which it has, I agree). But if that's your point, please forgive me because I'm still working my through the possibilities that exist when there actually is some amount of due process, as meager as it seems to be these days. At a minimum, if we do live in a complete police state, I want to see every person acknowledging that. Until that happens, I'll continue to explore scenarios like this to see what happens when people take it upon themselves to contemplate poking at the system.
Unless you're filming yourself with that block of wood, it's all the cop's say-so as to whether you were texting.
So if the defense asks the cop in a courtroom to distinguish between a well-painted block of wood and an actual cellphone, at distances equivalent to those on a highway, could a cop do it, even putting aside that on the highway there was the further impediment of the cars moving at high speeds? The cop can certainly claim he THOUGHT it was a cellphone, but he has no way of proving that he didn't mistake one for the other.
This would get especially sticky for him if it turned out to be the case that there was no actual cellphone in the car.
Also, simulating a crime just to distract a cop is a separate crime.
Out of curiosity, can you provide an authoritative citation of that?
Regardless: the proposed activity is not simply "to distract a cop"... it's to highlight the shaky and arbitrary foundations of a poorly thought out law. I'm not saying a policeman is going to welcome that interpretation, but the prescribed defense is a whole lot more than "I was just trying to distract a cop". Was Rosa Parks just trying to make the bus late?
Unreasonable people, by definition, will not reliably heed any law, no matter how fair or rational.
I wouldn't know about that, but you seem to be implying that a law against texting -- while ignoring fiddling with the radio, talking to other people in the car, glancing at folded maps, handing things to other people, etc -- is unquestionably fair or rational. I question that premise.
eah, its not always a crime to be a jerk.
Right back atcha, sunshine.
During take-off and landing they are usually strapped in their seats.
Even if they were hovering right over everyone's shoulders, knowing whether a user is using wireless or not is impossible.
But seriously, they're their to save your ass, not to kiss it.
I'm not sure what to make of this statement... is this abject hero worship?
There is nothing short of an absolute, death-like issue that you need to be texting at a red light, or anywhere else while driving.
That's one way to see this. Here's another: People are going to use their cellphones while driving, and none of these laws and stings are going to stop that. But now that people think they're sitting ducks while at stoplights, they'll make it a point to defer their occasional usage to places other than stoplights, like when they're on the highway. Whether this is an improved outcome is left as an exercise for the reader.
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
There are many ways to do one's job. I can go into my office and hassle the living crap out of my underlings for little to no reason at all, or I can choose to do constructive things, encourage good work, and not make everyone there feel like they're constantly one mistake away from being fired. Yes the policeman is doing his job, but if you don't think he has discretion about how and what he does, you're out of your mind.
The difference is that anonymity means they can still collect all your information, just not your identity.
There's no change in what Canonical collects. It's still the exact same spyware as before. Canonical merely says now that they'll try not to hand out your IP address to other people when they hand out your local searches.
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Oh goodie! Another ID number to protect my privacy!
Can get AdID #1?
I want to be the first and most anonymous.
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Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer