Source code demand saves drunken drivers

It all started when Timothy Muldowny's lawyers asked for the source code to the Intoxilyzer alcohol breath analysis machine which was the police's main evidence against him.

However Intoxilyzer did not want to make its source code public because it would mean handing over the information to its rivals or hackers.

A Seminole County judge tossed out Muldowny's alcohol breath test and the ruling was upheld by an appeals court in 2004.

Since then DUI suspects in Florida, New York, Nebraska have had their cases throwned out or reduced to lesser offences.

Now law makers are considering bringing in new laws that will mean that source code does not have to be produced for DUI defendants.

However they might find that such laws are unconstitutional. Apparently it is everyone's legal right to face an accuser in court, even if the accuser is a machine.

More here. µ