10 ms·

I seem to be the minority here, but I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Anyone who uses e

by avn2109 10y ago

I seem to be the minority here, but I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Anyone who uses e.g. the Waze app to evade speedtraps is similarly guilty of "systematically avoiding the law." Lastly, let me just disclaim that I think Uber is run by assholes and so is the police.

wavefunction 10y ago
Exactly, if -for example- a police officer tries to pull me over for a traffic infraction, my speeding off and attempts to make it more difficult to ticket me is only a natural and decent personal impulse!
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  You have a legal obligation not to flee an officer. However, even if you sell drugs or sex, you have no obligation to approach a known police officer and offer to sell them drugs/sex.
  - xg15 10y ago
    You make a distinction between staying passive and not helping an investigation (the drugs example) - and actively deterring the investigation (the flight example). That's a valid distinction to make, however given how much development effort companies like Uber and VW invested in their tools, I think those are clear cases of active deferring.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are making the wrong distinction. Fleeing a police officer is explicitly illegal, I believe the crime is resisting arrest or something equivalent. Actively telling all your hooker friends to stay home because the cops are out is not illegal. Nor is it illegal to say "oh hi there officer" before your hooker friend propositions a cop. That's basically what Uber did.
      - areyousure 10y ago
        Don't be too sure! Check out this amazing survey article on "Crime-facilitating speech" by Eugene Volokh: http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/facilitating.pdf http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/facilitating.pdf Not only will you find examples of things like courts finding liability if "a newspaper publishes the name of a witness to a crime, thus making it easier for the criminal to intimidate or kill the witness" (with no intent on the part of the newspaper) [18] or "a Web site or a newspaper article names a Web site that contains copyright-infringing material, or describes it in enough detail that readers could quickly find it using a search engine" [26], there are also examples more directly relevant to this situation. I think references [19, 37, 38, 39, 40] are most relevant. [19]: "publish[ing] . . .the residence address or telephone number" of various law enforcement employees "with the intent to obstruct justice" is illegal in many states, including California. [37] My reading of United States v. Lane, 514 F.2d 22 (9th Cir. 1975) is that advising people not to sell drugs to a person because you heard something interesting on a police scanner is aiding and abetting a conspiracy. The court said the defendant "could not seriously contend that he was discouraging, rather than aiding and abetting, the commission of the crime" in response to his assertion that "he actually advised against it". [38]: My reading of United States v. Bucher, 375 F.3d 929 (9th Cir. 2004) is that it is walking down a trail to warn a person whom park rangers intend to arrest is interfering with both the rangers and their official duties (and thus illegal).
      - tyingq 10y ago
        It's closer to them saying, "Yes, sure...I'm happy to take money for sex...wait right here for a while", and then hiding. Which could be obstruction. If the app told them they were banned, it would be closer to your analogy. But, it shows fake cars circling about that never pick you up. It's actively deceiving law enforcement
        Asooka 10y ago
        Ah, but is it deceiving law enforcement with the knowledge that that person is right now trying to arrest you, or is it just refusing service to law enforcement because they don't like them? The latter is covered by the TOS where it says they can refuse service to anyone for whatever reason.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ForHackernews 10y ago
> I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they find the laws unacceptable, they should lobby to have them changed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hype7 10y ago
  Herein lies the source of the disagreement. We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. These laws once had a good reason, but are now still on the books only because incumbents have regulators in their pockets. As for lobbying to have the laws changed, if you expect startups to be able to lobby in every jurisdiction to get the law changed against incumbents when the regulators often come from the industry the startup is disrupting, then I got a bridge to sell you.
  - Qworg 10y ago
    We're all better off? That's an incredibly broad statement. The laws on the books still exist for a good reason. Even if you feel that Uber is somehow exempt/makes good choices with the people it chooses to employ via the platform, does that apply to any other "uber-esque" groups with more lax enforcement?
    - jccooper 10y ago
      "The laws on the books still exist for a good reason." That's... optimistic. Many laws were put in place to benefit other (incumbent) businesses, or in reaction to conditions that no longer hold, or due to ideas proven false or at least no longer fashionable. That's not necessarily good reason to break the law (though sometimes it is), but anyone shold feel free to lobby for removal or change of a law.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    > We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. The thing is, we're not. What we've got is a cab company that can offer better and cheaper service than everyone else because it's breaking the law, and it's good at throwing VC money at lawyers to avoid the consequences. What we've got is further damage to the respect for the rule of law and thus to the fabric of civilization, as people see how Uber gets away with illegal activities. Hell, there are many people who are inspired by their antisocial behaviour, and see Uber as an example to follow.
ceejayoz 10y ago
Obstruction of justice and interfering with police duties are crimes in plenty of jurisdictions. I'm not sure Waze is a good comparison - your behavior around knowing where a police car was sighted is to comply better with the law, so it'd be hard to argue it's obstruction of justice.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > your behavior around knowing where a police car was sighted is to comply better with the law It may be...it may also be to avoid the area, for illegitimate (I'm a criminal police are looking for) or legitimate (the local PD is notoriously racist against people of my race, and I want to avoid being hassled) reasons.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  I think that Waze is a great comparison. There's an app which is explicitly used to find and avoid police in order to flaut the law. The main difference in my view is that Waze is individual people doing this, which we approve of, conversely Uber is a corporation many dislike. In situations like this it's important to acknowledge bias and try to abstract to the general case and reason about that.
  - fjdlwlv 10y ago
    Waze users are following the law when they get near Police officers. Uber users are continuing illegal behavior but obstructing police visibility. Uber's behavior is more like radar jamming or putting up a barrier in front of police.
SilasX 10y ago
True, but there's a big difference between turning away anyone who looks like a cop (as biker bars might do, and is on firm legal ground), versus lying specifically to those people you believe to be cops.
- mentat 10y ago
  So, saying the bar's closed would be ethically unacceptable but just saying you're not allowed in isn't? I'm afraid I don't agree with this being a clear ethical distinction.
booleandilemma 10y ago
Greyball makes it easier for Uber to continue breaking the law. It's like drug dealers using police scanners to determine if the police are nearby.
- mkolodny 10y ago
  Or like non-Jews hiding Jews from the Nazi police. Obviously that's a dramatic example, but so is the drug dealer example. If Uber believes that the taxi industry is wrongfully colluding with the government to try to stop Uber from operating, then it's not necessarily wrong for Uber to do whatever it can to continue operating.
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    A less extreme example would be saying that you bought that weed for your glaucoma.
  - adamsea 10y ago
    If Uber believes the taxi industry and the government are wrongfully colluding, it has the means to legally make that case as well as in the court of public opinion. That is obviously not true for the extreme example you cited of genocide under fascism, so, I don't think it makes sense to compare the two.
    - gtirloni 10y ago
      Exactly. Uber didn't have to have Greyball in the first place. Every driver that got intimidated/assaulted should go to the police. Every time a competitor pulled some shenanigans against Uber, they should sue. And so on and so forth. This is just smokescreen. It's obvious what the intent was.
  - timecube 10y ago
    https://youtu.be/t5zQpN28xa4 https://youtu.be/t5zQpN28xa4 Life imitates art.
ImSkeptical 10y ago
It may not be illegal to try and avoid a ticket, but imagine the sixteen year old who wants to give your kid a ride home from school says with a wink "Don't worry. I use Waze." That might make you think twice. If you're going to a lot of trouble to avoid law enforcement, doesn't that suggest you may be doing something illegal?
wpietri 10y ago
Obstruction of justice is a crime. So are lying to an FBI agent, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, evading arrest, falsifying business records, destruction of documents with intent to impede an investigation, and of course perjury. I don't know that any of these apply here, but yes, actively avoiding accountability is often a crime on its own. And correctly so, I'd say. Creating fake accounting records as a hobby would be odd but not immoral. But keeping two sets of books in a real business has no purpose beyond enabling illegal activity.
- wpietri 10y ago
  Oh, and if you're wondering about the moral case, I think it's pretty clear. When we the people set out to do something together, deciding to evade our joint decisions and mechanisms for self-regulation is an antisocial, antidemocratic act.
  - Asooka 10y ago
    The government hasn't represented "we, the people" since forever, so all your arguments are void. It cannot be morally unlawful to resist a government that doesn't represent you.
    - wpietri 10y ago
      You are welcome to your own opinions, but I disagree. I imagine most Americans would. Regardless, if you have decided that the government doesn't represent the people, it makes your task harder. Unless you're just saying that you can do what you want (which doesn't strike me as much of a moral position) then you have to work to divine what the collective will of your fellow citizens is and honor that.
  - WildUtah 10y ago
    When big money monopolists corrupt our local governments to obtain taxi monopolies at the expense of working families, the environment, and vulnerable racial minorities that can't hail taxis but can get an Uber, then it's the system that's antisocial and antidemocratic. Uber is a social reform movement organized as a profit-seeking business. Of course the forces of corruption and reaction are going to try to stop it under cover of law.

by avn2109 10y ago

wavefunction 10y ago

Exactly, if -for example- a police officer tries to pull me over for a traffic infraction, my speeding off and attempts to make it more difficult to ticket me is only a natural and decent personal impulse!

yummyfajitas 10y ago
You have a legal obligation not to flee an officer. However, even if you sell drugs or sex, you have no obligation to approach a known police officer and offer to sell them drugs/sex.
- xg15 10y ago
  You make a distinction between staying passive and not helping an investigation (the drugs example) - and actively deterring the investigation (the flight example). That's a valid distinction to make, however given how much development effort companies like Uber and VW invested in their tools, I think those are clear cases of active deferring.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are making the wrong distinction. Fleeing a police officer is explicitly illegal, I believe the crime is resisting arrest or something equivalent. Actively telling all your hooker friends to stay home because the cops are out is not illegal. Nor is it illegal to say "oh hi there officer" before your hooker friend propositions a cop. That's basically what Uber did.
    - areyousure 10y ago
      Don't be too sure! Check out this amazing survey article on "Crime-facilitating speech" by Eugene Volokh: http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/facilitating.pdf http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/facilitating.pdf Not only will you find examples of things like courts finding liability if "a newspaper publishes the name of a witness to a crime, thus making it easier for the criminal to intimidate or kill the witness" (with no intent on the part of the newspaper) [18] or "a Web site or a newspaper article names a Web site that contains copyright-infringing material, or describes it in enough detail that readers could quickly find it using a search engine" [26], there are also examples more directly relevant to this situation. I think references [19, 37, 38, 39, 40] are most relevant. [19]: "publish[ing] . . .the residence address or telephone number" of various law enforcement employees "with the intent to obstruct justice" is illegal in many states, including California. [37] My reading of United States v. Lane, 514 F.2d 22 (9th Cir. 1975) is that advising people not to sell drugs to a person because you heard something interesting on a police scanner is aiding and abetting a conspiracy. The court said the defendant "could not seriously contend that he was discouraging, rather than aiding and abetting, the commission of the crime" in response to his assertion that "he actually advised against it". [38]: My reading of United States v. Bucher, 375 F.3d 929 (9th Cir. 2004) is that it is walking down a trail to warn a person whom park rangers intend to arrest is interfering with both the rangers and their official duties (and thus illegal).
    - tyingq 10y ago
      It's closer to them saying, "Yes, sure...I'm happy to take money for sex...wait right here for a while", and then hiding. Which could be obstruction. If the app told them they were banned, it would be closer to your analogy. But, it shows fake cars circling about that never pick you up. It's actively deceiving law enforcement
      - Asooka 10y ago
        Ah, but is it deceiving law enforcement with the knowledge that that person is right now trying to arrest you, or is it just refusing service to law enforcement because they don't like them? The latter is covered by the TOS where it says they can refuse service to anyone for whatever reason.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ForHackernews 10y ago

> I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they find the laws unacceptable, they should lobby to have them changed.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hype7 10y ago
Herein lies the source of the disagreement. We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. These laws once had a good reason, but are now still on the books only because incumbents have regulators in their pockets. As for lobbying to have the laws changed, if you expect startups to be able to lobby in every jurisdiction to get the law changed against incumbents when the regulators often come from the industry the startup is disrupting, then I got a bridge to sell you.
- Qworg 10y ago
  We're all better off? That's an incredibly broad statement. The laws on the books still exist for a good reason. Even if you feel that Uber is somehow exempt/makes good choices with the people it chooses to employ via the platform, does that apply to any other "uber-esque" groups with more lax enforcement?
  - jccooper 10y ago
    "The laws on the books still exist for a good reason." That's... optimistic. Many laws were put in place to benefit other (incumbent) businesses, or in reaction to conditions that no longer hold, or due to ideas proven false or at least no longer fashionable. That's not necessarily good reason to break the law (though sometimes it is), but anyone shold feel free to lobby for removal or change of a law.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. The thing is, we're not. What we've got is a cab company that can offer better and cheaper service than everyone else because it's breaking the law, and it's good at throwing VC money at lawyers to avoid the consequences. What we've got is further damage to the respect for the rule of law and thus to the fabric of civilization, as people see how Uber gets away with illegal activities. Hell, there are many people who are inspired by their antisocial behaviour, and see Uber as an example to follow.

ceejayoz 10y ago

Obstruction of justice and interfering with police duties are crimes in plenty of jurisdictions. I'm not sure Waze is a good comparison - your behavior around knowing where a police car was sighted is to comply better with the law, so it'd be hard to argue it's obstruction of justice.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> your behavior around knowing where a police car was sighted is to comply better with the law It may be...it may also be to avoid the area, for illegitimate (I'm a criminal police are looking for) or legitimate (the local PD is notoriously racist against people of my race, and I want to avoid being hassled) reasons.
Godel_unicode 10y ago
I think that Waze is a great comparison. There's an app which is explicitly used to find and avoid police in order to flaut the law. The main difference in my view is that Waze is individual people doing this, which we approve of, conversely Uber is a corporation many dislike. In situations like this it's important to acknowledge bias and try to abstract to the general case and reason about that.
- fjdlwlv 10y ago
  Waze users are following the law when they get near Police officers. Uber users are continuing illegal behavior but obstructing police visibility. Uber's behavior is more like radar jamming or putting up a barrier in front of police.

SilasX 10y ago

True, but there's a big difference between turning away anyone who looks like a cop (as biker bars might do, and is on firm legal ground), versus lying specifically to those people you believe to be cops.

mentat 10y ago
So, saying the bar's closed would be ethically unacceptable but just saying you're not allowed in isn't? I'm afraid I don't agree with this being a clear ethical distinction.

booleandilemma 10y ago

Greyball makes it easier for Uber to continue breaking the law. It's like drug dealers using police scanners to determine if the police are nearby.

mkolodny 10y ago
Or like non-Jews hiding Jews from the Nazi police. Obviously that's a dramatic example, but so is the drug dealer example. If Uber believes that the taxi industry is wrongfully colluding with the government to try to stop Uber from operating, then it's not necessarily wrong for Uber to do whatever it can to continue operating.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  A less extreme example would be saying that you bought that weed for your glaucoma.
- adamsea 10y ago
  If Uber believes the taxi industry and the government are wrongfully colluding, it has the means to legally make that case as well as in the court of public opinion. That is obviously not true for the extreme example you cited of genocide under fascism, so, I don't think it makes sense to compare the two.
  - gtirloni 10y ago
    Exactly. Uber didn't have to have Greyball in the first place. Every driver that got intimidated/assaulted should go to the police. Every time a competitor pulled some shenanigans against Uber, they should sue. And so on and so forth. This is just smokescreen. It's obvious what the intent was.
- timecube 10y ago
  https://youtu.be/t5zQpN28xa4 https://youtu.be/t5zQpN28xa4 Life imitates art.

ImSkeptical 10y ago

It may not be illegal to try and avoid a ticket, but imagine the sixteen year old who wants to give your kid a ride home from school says with a wink "Don't worry. I use Waze." That might make you think twice. If you're going to a lot of trouble to avoid law enforcement, doesn't that suggest you may be doing something illegal?

wpietri 10y ago

Obstruction of justice is a crime. So are lying to an FBI agent, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, evading arrest, falsifying business records, destruction of documents with intent to impede an investigation, and of course perjury. I don't know that any of these apply here, but yes, actively avoiding accountability is often a crime on its own. And correctly so, I'd say. Creating fake accounting records as a hobby would be odd but not immoral. But keeping two sets of books in a real business has no purpose beyond enabling illegal activity.

wpietri 10y ago
Oh, and if you're wondering about the moral case, I think it's pretty clear. When we the people set out to do something together, deciding to evade our joint decisions and mechanisms for self-regulation is an antisocial, antidemocratic act.
- Asooka 10y ago
  The government hasn't represented "we, the people" since forever, so all your arguments are void. It cannot be morally unlawful to resist a government that doesn't represent you.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    You are welcome to your own opinions, but I disagree. I imagine most Americans would. Regardless, if you have decided that the government doesn't represent the people, it makes your task harder. Unless you're just saying that you can do what you want (which doesn't strike me as much of a moral position) then you have to work to divine what the collective will of your fellow citizens is and honor that.
- WildUtah 10y ago
  When big money monopolists corrupt our local governments to obtain taxi monopolies at the expense of working families, the environment, and vulnerable racial minorities that can't hail taxis but can get an Uber, then it's the system that's antisocial and antidemocratic. Uber is a social reform movement organized as a profit-seeking business. Of course the forces of corruption and reaction are going to try to stop it under cover of law.