Apple and Google block apps that crowdsource ICE sightings. Some warn of chilling effects

[Fäthër Cörpsë]

freedom of speech does not protect speech that incites "imminent lawless action" intended to subvert the government.

I am guessing that is part of the justification being used to shut down these apps.

Additionally regardless of being public servants they have a right to privacy and safety like anyone else.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

Additionally regardless of being public servants they have a right to privacy and safety like anyone else.

Agree again. I certainly wouldn't want to see any of the ICE agents endangered. Just like regular cops, they're doing their jobs. However, just like DUI checkpoints and speedtraps or any other organized, public-level law enforcement activities, we have a right to know where and when those activities are occurring. From what I understand, most of the people using the app were ordinary US citizens trying to avoid the massive inconveniences the ICE checkpoints were causing.

 

[AdaBull]

It doesn't matter who the app serves. What if this app told you which stores sold the cheapest vapes? What if the government (for their own reasons) ordered Apple and Google to remove the app from the stores? I created this thread not because I'm in support of the app or the people that want to use it. I created it because I'm 100% against the US government telling me what I can't do with my own personal property.

I understand, but for you does it never depend on the problem or what the app does?

 

[K.I.T.T.]

I understand, but for you does it never depend on the problem or what the app does?

Correct, it never depends upon the problem or what the app does.

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

Ok. I don't like illegals in my country and I want them all gone, HOWEVER, I also REALLY hate the idea of free speech being curbed. That's a very slippery slope. And once they take rights away, you rarely get them back. I have to support the app developers on this one, as much as that pains me.

It is denial of an enemy intelligence asset. Its purpose is to hinder national security operations by alerting the enemy invaders to lay low or act and inviting enemy sympathizers to riot and commit violence on their behalf. So, fuck the app.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

I understand, but for you does it never depend on the problem or what the app does?

Why the surprised reaction? What is so surprising about wanting the government to stop meddling with my own property? I buy a phone, I pay the bill, shouldn't I be allowed to install whatever the hell I want on it? Where does it end??? Are they going to say "Well, we understand you like sports cars but you can't have a turbocharger in it." Look at some of these other countries where GoreGrish is illegal. Imagine living in a country that decides for you what you can or can't see or do with your own property. It's simultaneously sad and infuriating.

 

[AdaBull]

Why the surprised reaction? What is so surprising about wanting the government to stop meddling with my own property? I buy a phone, I pay the bill, shouldn't I be allowed to install whatever the hell I want on it? Where does it end??? Are they going to say "Well, we understand you like sports cars but you can't have a turbocharger in it." Look at some of these other countries where GoreGrish is illegal. Imagine living in a country that decides for you what you can or can't see or do with your own property. It's simultaneously sad and infuriating.

I understand and I agree with all that, but I think sometimes the government has to take action to protect the citizens. That is why the government should exist.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

I understand and I agree with all that, but I think sometimes the government has to take action to protect the citizens. That is why the government should exist.

Fair enough. I'm only stating my own opinion anyway. It might not be a popular one, but I stand by it. The government meddles too much in the name of "national security" and I have four words for you that support that thought: The War On Drugs

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

Fair enough. I'm only stating my own opinion anyway. It might not be a popular one, but I stand by it. The government meddles too much in the name of "national security" and I have four words for you that supports that thought: The War On Drugs

That is a lame point.

The "War on Drugs" was never about solving the drug problem. It was a cash cow which was exploited by the same people who declared that bullshit war in the first place, and a way for them to put the boot to our throats. It only exacerbated the drug problem. It was never meant to succeed. It was meant to do the opposite. To keep blacks down on the Democrat plantation and to erode the white middle class while converting our local police forces into paramilitary forces.

Fast forward to 2025...
We now have an administration that is doing what it is supposed to be doing. You're crying about old news. Get relevant.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

That is a lame point.

The "War on Drugs" was never about solving the drug problem. It was a cash cow which was exploited by the same people who declared that bullshit war in the first place, and a way for them to put the boot to our throats. It only exacerbated the drug problem. It was never meant to succeed. It was meant to do the opposite. To keep blacks down on the Democrat plantation and to erode the white middle class while converting our local police forces into paramilitary forces.

Fast forward to 2025...
We now have an administration that is doing what it is supposed to be doing. You're crying about old news. Get relevant.

I was making a comparison to convey a point. Get educated.

 

[Shaitan Al Tawakoni]

It is denial of an enemy intelligence asset. Its purpose is to hinder national security operations by alerting the enemy invaders to lay low or act and inviting enemy sympathizers to riot and commit violence on their behalf. So, fuck the app.

I understand that, but it's really not different in practice than flashing your headlights to warn other people of a speed trap. If that's protected, then why wouldn't this be? Like I said, I don't like it, I don't like flag burning either, but sometimes the protection of long-term base principles and rights matter more than perceived short-term benefits. Jmho.

 

[Shaitan Al Tawakoni]

freedom of speech does not protect speech that incites "imminent lawless action" intended to subvert the government.

I am guessing that is part of the justification being used to shut down these apps.

Additionally regardless of being public servants they have a right to privacy and safety like anyone else.

Good point.

 

[Ramres]

Again, you're missing the fucking point. I'm all for ridding the country of illegals. I'm not concerned about what the app does or what it's used for.

I'm concerned about the US government dictating which apps I can or can't install.

(By the way: Nobody says "based" or "cringe" anymore... Are you twelve or just pretending to be?)

You're right. In an ideal scenario, they should have just fought it by an app with slightly better UI on reporting suspected illegals. But their have been attacks against ice or people purposefully road blocking them I get why they reacted that way and I'm not too disappointed about it.

In any case there's a lot of things Google apps doesn't allow, like mobile porn games and apk romhacks. Not the complete end of the world. People just archive it elsewhere for download.

 

[dwdays]

I’m white…. I will be fine.

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

I understand that, but it's really not different in practice than flashing your headlights to warn other people of a speed trap. If that's protected, then why wouldn't this be? Like I said, I don't like it, I don't like flag burning either, but sometimes the protection of long-term base principles and rights matter more than perceived short-term benefits. Jmho.

Oh. It is very different in practice.

The removed program is an enemy intel app that alerts foreign occupying invaders and their domestic abettors about the location of ICE operations for the intent of aiding the illegal foreign invaders in evading capture. It's also a call to arms to any loon who may be monitoring the app with intent to hinder ICE in their constitutional duties or to physically harm them.

Alerting your fellow motorists of a potential, civil traffic violation waiting around the bend is nowhere in the same league as aiding and abetting foreign and domestic enemies.

The first amendment does not apply to enemy intelligence gathering. Who needs that app besides people who shouldn't have it in the first place?

Did you even see what the actual reason why it was taken down from Google and Apple stores? It violates both of their TOS. The DOJ only pointed it out to them. They complied by their own terms.

Kind of kills the whole first amendment angle you and @K.I.T.T. are working with here.

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

Agree again. I certainly wouldn't want to see any of the ICE agents endangered. Just like regular cops, they're doing their jobs. However, just like DUI checkpoints and speedtraps or any other organized, public-level law enforcement activities, we have a right to know where and when those activities are occurring. From what I understand, most of the people using the app were ordinary US citizens trying to avoid the massive inconveniences the ICE checkpoints were causing.

Are you playing devil's retard? You're not really that obtuse are you?

 

[K.I.T.T.]

Oh. It is very different in practice.

The removed program is an enemy intel app that alerts foreign occupying invaders and their domestic abettors about the location of ICE operations for the intent of aiding the illegal foreign invaders in evading capture. It's also a call to arms to any loon who may be monitoring the app with intent to hinder ICE in their constitutional duties or to physically harm them.

Alerting your fellow motorists of a potential, civil traffic violation waiting around the bend is nowhere in the same league as aiding and abetting foreign and domestic enemies.

The first amendment does not apply to enemy intelligence gathering. Who needs that app besides people who shouldn't have it in the first place?

Did you even see what the actual reason why it was taken down from Google and Apple stores? It violates both of their TOS. The DOJ only pointed it out to them. They complied by their own terms.

Kind of kills the whole first amendment angle you and @K.I.T.T. are working with here.

I see where you're coming from, I understand it and I even agree with some of it. But are you aware that some innocent and legal civilians are being caught up in this giant net that ICE is casting? A white family in my town had their doors kicked in, teargas thrown through the windows and the children traumatized for life because someone sent ICE an anonymous tip to the wrong address. It's become the new way to SWAT people.

Besides, the app is still freely available to anyone that wants it, it's just no longer available in two (of the eight) app stores. I'm not surprised to learn that since the app's removal from the "official" app stores, downloads from other sources have skyrocketed. It's everywhere, being shared via torrents and other p2p sharing platforms, it's being distributed via Reddit, Github and thousands of other websites with clear instructions that make it simple for anyone to install it to their phone. Interestingly, the app itself is not illegal. It only violated the TOS of Apple & Google and look what happened... Everyone sidestepped and now it's spreading like wildfire.

Good job, DoJ... Your plan backfired.

Are you playing devil's retard? You're not really that obtuse are you?

Not at all. Read the news for yourself. Do you understand how aggregated demographic data collection works? I didn't think so. Your phone knows your race, your age and all kinds of other shit about you because of your unique advertising ID and hundreds -even thousands- of other data points.


What race of people in the US do you think accounted for the bulk of ICEBlock downloads from the app stores? Go ahead and find the data on your own and come back and share. I'll wait...

 

[Shaitan Al Tawakoni]

Oh. It is very different in practice.

The removed program is an enemy intel app that alerts foreign occupying invaders and their domestic abettors about the location of ICE operations for the intent of aiding the illegal foreign invaders in evading capture. It's also a call to arms to any loon who may be monitoring the app with intent to hinder ICE in their constitutional duties or to physically harm them.

Alerting your fellow motorists of a potential, civil traffic violation waiting around the bend is nowhere in the same league as aiding and abetting foreign and domestic enemies.

The first amendment does not apply to enemy intelligence gathering. Who needs that app besides people who shouldn't have it in the first place?

Did you even see what the actual reason why it was taken down from Google and Apple stores? It violates both of their TOS. The DOJ only pointed it out to them. They complied by their own terms.

Kind of kills the whole first amendment angle you and @K.I.T.T. are working with here.

You're not wrong, but I am very leary of anything the government limits. The Patriot Act is a great example of what they will shackle us with if they're allowed to. I don't want any more legislation like that. 'Those who will sacrifice essential Liberty...'

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

You're not wrong, but I am very leary of anything the government limits. The Patriot Act is a great example of what they will shackle us with if they're allowed to. I don't want any more legislation like that. 'Those who will sacrifice essential Liberty...'

The government didn't limit that app, they just pointed out that it violated terms of service on both platforms. Apple and Google complied by their "own" terms.

This is one of those to-do-over-nothing things the lefty media loves for stirring shit up. No rights were harmed in the making of this non-story bullshit.

 

[Teeshine]

Apple and Google blocked downloads of phone apps that flag sightings of U.S. immigration agents, just hours after the Trump administration demanded that one particularly popular iPhone app be taken down.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said such tracking puts Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at risk. But users and developers of the apps say it’s their First Amendment right to capture what ICE is doing in their neighborhoods — and maintain that most users turn to these platforms in an effort to protect their own safety as President Donald Trump steps up aggressive immigration enforcement across the country.

ICEBlock, the most widely used of the ICE-tracking apps in Apple’s app store, is among the apps that have been taken down. Bondi said her office reached out to Apple on Thursday “demanding that they remove ICEBlock” and claiming that it “is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”

Apple soon complied, sending an email Thursday to the app’s creator, Joshua Aaron, that said it would block further downloads of the app because new information “provided to Apple by law enforcement” showed the app broke the app store rules.

According to the email, which Aaron shared with The Associated Press, Apple said the app violated the company’s policies “because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”

In a Friday interview, Aaron decried the company for bending to what he described as “an authoritarian regime.” And immigration rights advocates like Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, added that these actions marked “a disturbing example of how tech companies are capitulating to Trump.”

“These apps are a lifeline for communities living in uncertainty and fear of when ICE might show up to tear their families apart,” Matos said in a statement. Downloads of apps like ICEBlock have surged since Trump took office for his second term earlier this year. Aaron said he launched the app in April as a way to help immigrant communities protect themselves from surprise raids or potential harassment. It had more than 1 million users, he said.

While not specifying details on the total number of platforms removed, Apple confirmed to the AP on Friday that they removed “similar apps” due to potential safety risks that were raised by law enforcement. Google followed their move, saying that several similar apps violated their policies for Android platforms.

While some advocates don’t find all of these apps particularly useful — pointing to potential misinformation and false alarms — they echoed criticism of moves to suppress them.

“What really worries me is the kind of precedent that this sets” where the government can “basically dictate what kinds of apps people have on their phones,” said civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo, who works at Harvard University’s Cyberlaw Clinic.

Caraballo said outside the U.S., government pressure to block apps has been “kind of a hallmark of an authoritarian regime,” such as when Chinese pressure in 2019 led Apple to remove an app that enabled Hong Kong protesters to track police.

Bondi warned over the summer against apps that allow people to communicate about the location of law enforcement officers and specifically called out ICEBlock’s Aaron.

“We are looking at him and he better watch out because that’s not a protected speech,” Bondi said in a July interview on Fox News.

Those warnings escalated last month after a gunman opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas. Officials including FBI Director Kash Patel said the gunman had searched for apps that tracked the presence of ICE agents, though they haven’t said if he actually used one of the apps or whether any of them played a role in the attack.

Aaron said tying the gunman to the apps made little sense because the app only works if somebody else is reporting ICE activity within a 5-mile radius of another iPhone user. “You don’t need an app to know that ICE agents are at an ICE detention facility,” he said. “This is just an easy excuse for them to use their power and leverage to take down something that was exposing what they are doing — and that is the terror that they are invoking on the people of this nation every single day.”

He also said the app worked similarly to popular navigation apps like Waze, Google Maps and Apple’s own Maps app, which allow users to report police speed traps.

It’s “not illegal in any way, shape or form, nor does it dox anybody,” he said, adding that ICEBlock is similarly “an early warning system for people.”

Those who use the apps or other online methods to monitor ICE activity say most people who use them do so for their own safety or out of concern for their loved ones.

“People are extremely scared right now,” said Sherman Austin, who founded Stop ICE Raids Alert Network in February. He pointed to rising fears around racial profiling and violent arrests impacting families.

“They want to know what’s going on in their neighborhood and what’s going on in their community,” Austin said, describing people getting violently thrown to the ground by ICE agents in broad daylight.

Also known as StopICE.Net, Austin’s platform similarly uses crowdsourcing, but instead allows its users to track ICE activity more broadly online or through text alerts, without the need to download a separate app. Austin says the platform has reached more than 500,000 subscribers as of Friday.

The group has similarly criticized the Trump administration for what it says are retaliatory attacks targeting those who are exercising their First Amendment rights. Last month, the platform said it learned that the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed Meta for data on StopICE.Net’s Instagram account.

Austin said StopICE.Net immediately challenged the action, adding on Friday that the subpoena is now temporarily blocked and pending a hearing with a judge.

Meta declined comment Friday. DHS did not directly respond to a request for comment about the subpoena on Friday, instead directing the AP to a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who reiterated that “ICE tracking apps put the lives of the men and women of law enforcement in danger” and criticized media outlets for framing Apple’s “correct decision” to remove apps like ICEBlock as “caving to pressure instead of preventing further bloodshed.”

Developers like Austin, meanwhile, say removals of these apps and other federal threats should alarm everyone.

“We’re up against a regime, an administration that’s going to operate any way it wants to — and threatens whoever it wants in order to get its way, in order to control information and in order to control a narrative,” he said. “We have to challenge this and fight this any way we can.”

What 'alarms' me is the twinks think EVERYBODY HATES TRUMP, Im saying it aint so, twinks. Real AMERICANS, not that I love TRUMP, but LOVE THE POLICY HE ENDORSES