Want Privacy? Nevermind. We Want to Censor!

Senator Chuck Schumer rounds out a trifecta of bloggable moments from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law's hearing this morning.

Ignoring the subject of the "mobile privacy" hearing, Schumer queried the witnesses from both Google and Apple on whether they will accede to his demand that they reject certain "apps" on Android phones and iPhones. The applications Senator Schumer dislikes alert people on their mobile phones to the locations of DUI checkpoints.

Senator Schumer says these apps "allow drunk drivers to evade police checkpoints," but that statement fails to include other parties who might rightly wish to avoid police checkpoints—such as law-abiding citizens who wish to live free in this country, for example.

Recently, I landed at Harford's Bradley International Airport late on a Friday night, heading to a Saturday morning meeting in Northampton, Massachusetts. From my shuttle bus to a remote rental car area, I saw a DUI checkpoint. After I completed the arrangements for my car, I asked the agent how I might leave so as to avoid the checkpoint. I wanted neither the delay nor the impingement on my sober liberty that a police checkpoint represents. He cheerfully directed me to a route I could freely travel.

Senator Schumer wants to prevent conversations like this from taking place on a mass scale, facilitated by advanced technologies. He stands a good chance of succeeding—RIM has already given in—because Google and Apple have repeat business before the federal government. Senator Schumer can raise their regulatory costs far higher than the value of allowing minor, but controversial apps on their systems.

If Senator Schumer succeeds, our right to freely and efficiently communicate about police activity will diminish in a way that is effectively insulated from First Amendment challenge. Privacy and freedom be damned. There are drunk drivers to catch.