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ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings, goes viral
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44445180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44445180
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ck2 1y agoHas anyone decompiled it yet to make sure it's legit?
- warkdarrior 1y ago[flagged]
- i80and 1y ago[flagged]
- asacrowflies 1y agoWe already have toms
- pimlottc 1y agoWhat is "toms"?
- asacrowflies 1y agoI'm sorry I think my phone ate half a comment.and I don't know how to delete or edit on Hacki app.
- livinglist 1y agoHi you can right swipe on your comment to edit.
- asacrowflies 1y agoTo be fair we already have lots of mandatory apps already...... Facebook,Netflix,etc are system apps on most androids
- dylan604 1y agoit's not mandatory to run android though
- ck2 1y agoWell they could do that for theater but they don't need it anymore They've already illegally cross-linked all the federal databases and banking data People would have to be 100% off the grid which is nearly impossible and miserable these days The real question is after they run out of 15 million "undocumented" will ICE be used again 25 million naturalized citizens (yes likely with new $140 Billion budget) And then there is the question how many millions of birthright citizens will ICE go after, how many generations back, where on earth would they deport them since they've never lived in any other country? US won't be recognizable by 2028, going to be a horror show
- vkou 1y agoThe real question is that if the Dems ever get power back, what can be done to punish the bad people who participated in all this criminality? With every other social norm being broken, I don't see why political reprisals shouldn't be the way forward. Just say that any of the pardons were illegal[1], and start stripping citizenship from anyone involved in this. The genie's out of the bottle, and not punishing the thugs involved in this would just embolden them and their minions to try harder the next time they have power. Criminality should have consequences. Deprivation of rights under color of law is a serious crime in this country, and should be treated as such. [1] The current administration regularly declares immigration decisions made by the previous one illegal, and retroactively applies that label to the people affected by them. I'm not sure why any of its decisions should be worth the paper they are printed on, if it is ever theown out.
- tokai 1y agoI bet is going to be like with the Patriot Act, the torture, and all the other horrible things from GWOT. Things are going to be tweaked to fit a new agenda, but carried nonetheless.
- trothamel 1y ago$140 billion for 15 million illegal immigrants is under $10,000 per deportation, which strikes me as kind of light, given that as the process is likely to involve international plane flights, board. and so on. I don't think there are any plans to deport citizens or legal immigrants, as opposed to illegal aliens.
- brunker2 1y agoWhy would they need to make it mandatory? I suspect it would be very popular.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- asacrowflies 1y agoYeah in this case not being FOSS makes it most likely a honeypot
- kstrauser 1y agoHow so? If I report seeing ICE at 123 Main St., that doesn't mean there are more than usual undocumented immigrants there. It just means that's where I saw ICE at that moment.
- asacrowflies 1y agoNot a honey pot for immigrants but for dissidents and anyone anti ice or anti administration
- kstrauser 1y agoIf we go down that road, I suspect everyone registered to vote as a Democrat will be on the same dissidents list.
- jedimastert 1y ago> The app does not collect or store any user data, which TechCrunch confirmed by analyzing the app’s network traffic as part of a test.
- mandevil 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
- ldoughty 1y agoApple App Store only. Developer has a statement about privacy concerns on Android: https://www.iceblock.app/android https://www.iceblock.app/android (Concerned that the information they would be required to store and handle may require they work with the government during a subpoena) Apple also has to handle this (internally) to do push notifications, but I suppose that theory is Apple has pockets to fight the government (or it's at least out of the developers hands)
- i80and 1y agoGrapheneOS has a retort: https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w
- ldoughty 1y agoYeah, that's basically what I deduced. They throw Android under the bus but _really_ it's not any more private, it just makes it up to Apple to comply, not the developer. There is an argument to be made that Apple is better positioned to fight financially... However, the current administration tends to threaten blocking or mergers/acquisitions, or other red tape unless they comply. I doubt Apple would accept such financially damaging threats to protect ICEBlock's users.
- fn-mote 1y agoApple has resisted pressure from law enforcement in the past. That gives me a real reason to believe that they will not fold in the future.
- kstrauser 1y agoAgreed, and they certainly have better lawyers than an indie dev could afford.
- realusername 1y agoThey also threw their Chinese users under the bus and complied with the russian government as part of their war censorship.
- beepbopboopp 1y agoThe security secretary and attorneys general going after a private citizen by name is gross
- neither_color 1y agoI don't see what's so bad about wanting to avoid an area where there's police activity going on. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're doing anything wrong, it's as simple as not wanting to get hassled at a DUI checkpoint or get stuck in traffic because they need 8 squad cars taking up a lane to k-9 search someone. As a more tan law-abiding US citizen, the possibility of some agent asking me for papers and then asking probing questions to "prove myself" anywhere that's not an airport is enough for me to want a heads up not to be in area where that might happen.
- hartator 1y ago> anywhere that's not an airport Why are we accepting this even at airport? Locking the doors of the cockpit made another 9/11 close to impossible.
- wvenable 1y agoMurdering all the passengers made another 9/11 impossible -- nobody is going to sit quietly while their plane is hijacked anymore.
- hayst4ck 1y agoHistory is filled with people who dug their own graves while a person with a gun pointed at them told them to do it. It takes an exceptional person to act before their fate is sealed and the majority of passengers, if not all of them, will be in a state of denial or shock at the situation they are in preventing them from action. Others who might want to act, but not having been in the situation before, will think about what to do or when the right moment to act is, and the right moment will never come, especially if the hijackers can guarantee the first person who acts dies.
- mh- 1y agoAs a frequent flyer who has thought about this scenario a bit, I agree with this. And I actually think that as long as the FAs kept making their inane announcements about credit cards and so forth, most pax wouldn't even notice a takeover at the front of the plane.
- adolph 1y agoThe application appears to be a geofenced messaging application like Yik Yak. What is to prevent feds from joining and changing their appearance based on reports of their current appearance?
- actionfromafar 1y agoRemove their masks and drop their guns? Half is won in that case!
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago> What is to prevent feds from joining and changing their appearance based on reports of their current appearance? probably the same weird compulsion to cosplay the gestapo in the first place. they don't need to move in silence. they want to make people afraid.
- ramoz 1y agoFYI - It's rising to the top rn because it is also being flooded with false reporting as an adversary tactic.
- kennywinker 1y agoA small number of people could easily flood a system like this with bad reports. Every good faith user has to wait for an actual sighting - bad faith users don’t.
- davidw 1y agoSame could work for ICE reports if you could figure out a way to submit them without being traceable... Hrm.
- aerostable_slug 1y agoAlso, good faith users are very often wrong. In my immediate area, ICE has been "spotted" numerous times and that news relayed on social media. Unfortunately, ICE hasn't actually engaged in any removal operations in this county. All of the sightings have been other agencies. The spotters are batting 0.0, and that's without any bad faith actors purposely spoofing reports.
- AlecSchueler 1y agoUnfortunately?
- aerostable_slug 1y agoUnfortunate for the spotters: they've been wrong about who they're seeing in the field. In this area, all of the Feds that have been seen have been DEA and HSI after suspects who are US citizens, not ICE enforcing immigration law. The spotters are historically not good at distinguishing Feds from each other, which makes the utility of this app a little questionable (unless you're just trying to avoid all police). My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the ordered scale-back on ICE agricultural worker immigration enforcement took place before they got to this county. That said, I don't know why they haven't been here, just that they haven't.
- nottorp 1y agoI think Iran has a similar app for signaling where the religious police is checking haircuts and head covers :)
- averysmallbird 1y agoGershad — not sure it’s super active but seems like it still has a user base. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/12/10977296/gershad-app-iran-morality-police-women https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/12/10977296/gershad-app-iran...
- SXX 1y ago[flagged]
- hackyhacky 1y ago> After they run out of migrants they'll come back to check haircuts and covers. Anf your voting record and your attendance of protests.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoYou don't downsize a government agency once it's been given a budget larger than the entire Marine corps. You just give it new targets if needed.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThis is exactly what will happen. If you criticize MAGA, the Man come and take you away.
- system2 1y agoThe silly app requires iOS 18.2. I have an iPhone 11 and can't get to iOS 18. They shot themselves in the foot with this ridiculous requirement.
- vanchor3 1y agoAre you sure you have an iPhone 11? My iPhone 11 runs iOS 18.5 fine and is reportedly going to support iOS 26.
- kstrauser 1y agoYou're right, according to https://www.apple.com/os/ios/ https://www.apple.com/os/ios/ .
- system2 1y agoWell, mine doesn't go above iOS 17. I triple checked it now.
- kstrauser 1y agoIt does: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/iphone-models-compatible-with-ios-18-iphe3fa5df43/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/iphone-models-compati... You might need to download an image and install it via a computer if you don’t have enough free space or something.
- josefresco 1y agoWhy isn't this a privacy first PWA? Is a native iOS app more secure? Even if I delete it from my device it's still in my "Cloud" and there's a record (at Apple) of me downloading/installing it.
- Aurornis 1y agoThe article is sparse on details, but I assume an app like this relies on background location services to determine when nearby alerts are relevant.
- tempodox 1y agoAren't there also browser APIs for location services? I imagine this functionality could be possible with a web app. Edit: What I don't know is whether a web app running on iOS could do the equivalent of a push notification. Last I heard, WebKit's functionality is/was? limited here. That might be a reason to use a native app after all.
- bigyabai 1y agoThat's okay, you trust Apple right? If you didn't, you'd just buy another phone. That's what HN tells me.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- datax2 1y ago>"...we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country."' wild statement from the person who went to law school, but threw out everything they learned. I see little to no difference between this, Waze, helmet* taps, or flashing your high beams to other cars when passing the cops. That topic in general has been in court multiple times, and every time the ruling was in favor of it being considered freedom of speech.
- wat10000 1y agoThey know, they just don't care. They have a friendly Supreme Court, and even if they lose in court they suffer zero consequences for trying.
- chrisweekly 1y agohead taps?
- datax2 1y agoon a motorcycle when you pass a cop you tap your helmet to warn other riders.
- chrisweekly 1y agothanks. and yikes! I've been a motorcycle rider for over a decade, many thousands of miles, now on my 3rd bike -- and somehow I'm just now learning this.
- ggreer 1y agoPeople on motorcycles signal "police ahead" to riders in the opposite direction by reaching up with their left hand and tapping their head/helmet.
- water-data-dude 1y agoI’m nervous about how willing SCOTUS has been to throw out precedent and side with this administration.
- tempodox 1y agoYay, Streisand effect! More power to the publisher and every user of this app.
- abeppu 1y agoThere are so many layers of crazy here but the one that strikes me most is attacking CNN for having a piece about the App. I.e. it's not just that reporting police activity is treated as a problem (it's not) but even an article discussing the way that some people are reporting police activity is a problem. > "CNN is willfully endangering the lives of officers who put their lives on the line every day and enabling dangerous criminal aliens to evade US law," If the engadget article gets enough eyeballs will they be also be willfully endangering lives? What about a really popular forum thread discussing that article?
- EGreg 1y agoThis reminds me of how we have articles and handwringing about “our soldiers were attacked” in a country they had no authorization to even be. It is never discussed what they were actually doing there, but this is usually framed as in “we need more money to defend our men and women overseas”. Example: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/10/23/politics/niger-troops-lawmakers https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/10/23/politics/niger-troops-law... Several other leading senators also said they were in the dark about the operation in the western Africa nation. “I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “They are going to brief us next week as to why they were there and what they were doing.” He continued: “I got a little insight on why they were there and what they were doing. I can say this to the families: They were there to defend America. They were there to help allies. They were there to prevent another platform to attack America and our allies.” https://www.npr.org/2020/01/06/793895401/iraqi-parliament-votes-to-expel-u-s-troops-trump-threatens-sanctions https://www.npr.org/2020/01/06/793895401/iraqi-parliament-vo... Even when a country’s leaders unanimously tell us to withdraw our troops, we say nah: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-withdrawing-iraq-agreement-lead-troop-reductions/story?id=114296946 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-withdrawing-iraq-agreemen...
- Henchman21 1y ago“Are we the baddies?” — Mitchell & Webb
- crote 1y ago
- jmyeet 1y ago[flagged]
- lurk2 1y ago> we're even sometimes deporting legal US citizens. When has that happened?
- papercrane 1y agoICE deporting US citizens is not a new problem. In 2021 the GAO estimated that between 2015-2020 70 potential U.S. citizens were removed. There are also cases where children who are citizens have been removed with a parent. In those cases the US government claims that they parents voluntary took the children, while the families claim that little no chance was given for the families to arrange for the children to stay. GAO Report: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487 Wikipedia has a good round of sources for the recent removals of US children: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_and_deportation_of_American_citizens_in_the_second_Trump_administration#Deportations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_and_deportation_of_A...
- lurk2 1y agoI am reading “potential citizen” as “a detainee who claims to be an American citizen whose citizenship status was not ascertained.” The article doesn’t really give a good indication of if these cases had any merit. Since officers are supposed to stop the interview if they believe the individual is a US citizen, I suspect that these deportations were warranted. Law enforcement can get things wrong, but in this case, I haven’t heard of any documented instances where this has happened. > Wikipedia has a good round of sources for the recent removals of US children: This article cites two examples, and in both instances the parents were residing in the country illegally with children who were not even in grade school yet. Jus Soli leads to all kinds of absurdities like this. The idea that a 2 year old being sent back to his mother’s country of origin is comparable to “American citizens being deported” is farcical; it’s technically true, but completely misleading. The people making these claims intend to frighten the audience into believing that regular immigration enforcement actions like these are somehow comparable to kidnapping people off of the street.
- salawat 1y agoThere was a commenter that got buried, where the person making it wasn't aware of the precedent for government mandated "apps". So i80and... Look no further than CALEA mandated forensics packages on most network backbone gear! https://www.subsentio.com/solutions/platforms-technologies/ https://www.subsentio.com/solutions/platforms-technologies/ https://www.fcc.gov/calea https://www.fcc.gov/calea You see, we've had government mandated "apps", but they are intentionally "hidden" (only by omission of course) from the layperson! So you, John Q. Public, are not exposed to them, but every regulated service provider is turned into a facilitator for law enforcement monitoring activity. Bumping it down to handsets simply hasn't been done because it's just easier to plug in upstream through Third Party Doctrine and it'd be self-defeating in a sense to straight up make and admit that handsets purpose is to surveil you for law enforcement purposes. Businesses can have compliance compelled through the threat of disincorporation, so can be relied upon to cooperate as a pre-requisite of doing business. Now, this software is generally considered "the good guys doing good guy things" so isn't generally considered problematic. As I hope is being learned by everyone; there is no line between a system that exists for well intentioned people to do good things with and a system capable of being used by evil people to do evil things, at scale with.
- bix6 1y agoIs there a way to prevent this snooping? Or at least make it less useful? From a tech standpoint eg use a VPN?
- shadowtree 1y agoPerfect for a real life DDOS. Want empty parking at a Dodger game? Use the ICE app. Also a great honeypot to query out all the users of this app and schedule them for a visit.
- woodruffw 1y agoFTA: > The app does not collect or store any user data, which TechCrunch confirmed by analyzing the app’s network traffic as part of a test.
- octo888 1y agoIt's just one auto update away from changing
- RunningDroid 1y ago> Also a great honeypot to query out all the users of this app and schedule them for a visit. In other threads people have noted that the Dev's decision to be iOS only means Apple has a complete list of users but the Dev does not.
- callahad 1y agoInteresting that Apple even allows ICEBlock on the App Store given that 13 years ago they blocked the publication of an app that notified users of American drone strikes abroad as "objectionable" content: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/apple-drone-strikes-and-limits-censorship https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/apple-drone-stri...
- jeroenhd 1y agoI think Apple hates the current American leadership enough that they'll take their sweet time to take down this app. ICE isn't the military, though. Effectively sabotaging American war goals is a bit different from warning American civilians. I can see why they were more uncomfortable with the drone strike app.
- genter 1y agoTim Cook was at Trump's inauguration, and donated $1 million to it. While I don't know what his private views are, his public ones are to cozy up Trump.
- darkoob12 1y agoThat was public ass kissing but it didn't work. Tarrifs hurt apple. Trump is fixated on making iPhone in USA which is not good for apple's business.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoI mean no one had his tongue farther up the golden hole than Elon and look where that landed him. The donation and inauguration appearance was probably to avoid some - not all - consequences.
- dotnet00 1y agoHell, you have Jared Isaacman, who also donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration to show some support, hoping to become NASA admin (for which he'd have been an uncharacteristically decent choice, being someone with a genuine interest in aerospace, and not having been all that outspoken politically). Only for Trump to throw out the nomination as part of his falling out with Elon, saying Isaacman was a democrat.
- egorfine 1y agoWe had the same thing happening in Ukraine. Conscription agents are sweeping the streets and forcefully kidnapping people. So, yeah, it did not took long before public chats with real-time reporting popped up and became country-wide phenomenon. Welcome to the club, America!
- atemerev 1y agoO hi. Well, they are one logical leap away from realizing that instead of sending undesirables to CECOT they can send them to their guerre du jour instead. I guess Erik Prince could use a penal battalion or two.
- oxqbldpxo 1y agoCan Sauron use his Palatir to get info from this app?
- SomeHacker44 1y ago[flagged]
- ews 1y ago[flagged]
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoi want to assume you have good intent here, but you have to understand that this is kind of tone-deaf in the face of my neighbors being forced into vans and disappeared. i'm truly happy that you haven't had to experience the same kind of abuse and i hope that ICE doesn't start disappearing people who fly private planes alongside fruit vendors and day laborers for the crime of being brown.
- csto12 1y agoI think it’s important to take a second and reflect that in 2025 America we need an app like this at all.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoif this app is the "hmm" moment for anybody, god help us.
- pyuser583 1y agoGrowing up reading cyberpunk, this is both expected and welcome.
- herbst 1y agoWhenever I hear anything about the US in the last months it sounds like from a bad movie.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoTrump always wanted to be in show business, not real estate. Now he runs the government like he's playing the role of Mafia boss on The Apprentice.
- philipallstar 1y ago[flagged]
- unethical_ban 1y agoThis is not a dichotomy. Border and deportation reform can coincide with accepting the practical reality of undocumented residents currently in the US. Republicans allowed this willingly, too. Ripping apart millions of families and snatching peaceful residents off the streets, out of churches, off of farms and out of courtrooms with masked agents is not the only way. Separately: Birthright citizenship is a fair topic to debate. What is not normal is pretending it isn't one of the most plain and direct clauses in the Constitution. There are other paths.
- janalsncm 1y agoIs the stat they keep repeating relevant? Attacks on ICE agents increased 500%? If attacks went from 1 to 6 that is an increase of 500% but if there is also 6x more ICE activity the baseline rate of attack is the same. It’s like complaining there’s more shark attacks in the summer vs winter and concluding sharks have seasonal mood swings.
- kevingadd 1y agoThe baseline number of attacks was in the single digits, yes.
- jvergeldedios 1y agoI also have a feeling their definition of "attack" would differ from mine.
- frob 1y ago"Attack" is when your arms get in the way of their baton swinging at your face.
- syedkarim 1y agoWhy is this an app and not a website?
- cess11 1y agoFor one users don't have to say they consent to data extraction as often, and some people don't use web sites very much.
- jeroenhd 1y agoCheaper and easier to build. Apple's SDK offers a lot of options and doesn't require a lot of credit card details, unlike some of Google's APIs. Plus, web apps are gimped on iOS (no notification support without going through a cumbersome PWA installation flow and data getting wiped every 14 days if you're just letting it run in the background).
- aendruk 1y agoIt can monitor your location and notify you about nearby reports.
- Vektorceraptor 1y agoI will never understand people defending migration for ideological reasons. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Your empathy or moral display is of no interest to me, yet upholding a social order and public safety is. So why should everyone sacrifice the first for your moral display?
- willmarch 1y agoWhat exactly do you believe you’re sacrificing because of immigration? Immigrants commit fewer crimes in the US than native born Americans, so I’m finding your comment all around confusing.
- apparent 1y agoInteresting that this is an iOS app, not Android or web app. What percent of illegal immigrants who are worried about being randomly swept up (i.e., those who can be visibly profiled) have iOS devices? I was under the impression that iOS devices were prevalent among wealthy and aspiring wealthy Americans, but that middle class and lower class Americans were much more likely to have Android devices.
- mijoharas 1y agoPart of the article said this: > The app is only available on iOS, because it would have to collect information on Android that could put people at risk. Can anyone describe what this means? I don't know of a requirement to collect data on android? Is there something I'm not thinking of? [EDIT] carried on reading the comments and it appears to be answered here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44445392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44445392
- xoa 1y ago>I was under the impression that iOS devices were prevalent among wealthy and aspiring wealthy Americans, but that middle class and lower class Americans were much more likely to have Android devices. I think your impression is pretty dated, like to 2010 or something?Apple has generally kept iPhones fully updated for a good 5-7 years, with some security updates after and apps typically supporting n-1 or n-2 OS. Current iOS 18 supports devices back to the iPhone XR/XS released in 2018. And the pace of progress has leveled off a huge amount since the heady early days in the steep part of the S-curve. But prices still fall fast on used phones. Even if you go back fewer years, iPhone 11s and 12s can be had for a few hundred bucks or less and still work well (I had a 12 until recently). Battery replacement can be done for ~$30. So while sure, if someone was always on the newest phone that'd have some premium, it's definitely not any big deal or sign of riches to have an iPhone. They're all over the US market space.
- apparent 1y agoI'm just going based off of what type of devices I see people using. The wealthy people I know who are not devs generally have iPhones. The people I see working in positions that may not require legal status seem to be much more on the Android side of things. Back in 2010, low-income people did not have smartphones, period. I'd be curious if there's any data available on current trends.
- wnevets 1y agoICE is a waste of tax payers money, I rather have satellite data for hurricanes.
- DaveChurchill 1y agoI am worried the app is just a honeypot made by bad actors to get a create a database of the "rebels" they will soon be hunting down.
- aidenn0 1y agoSlightly OT, but TIL that I've never heard of the 2nd most popular social networking app on the App Store ("threads").
- lizardking 1y agoIt's Meta's response to X. It started quite popular, but at this point it's almost all engagement slop.
- guywithahat 1y agoIt's funny how quickly those apps become terrible. It was the same with the conservative versions of twitter when they were banning republican politicians; something about how when there are a lot of users looking for things to interact with and limited spam prevention algorithms you end up with terrible content.
- UmGuys 1y ago> "because it would have to collect information on Android that could put people at risk." What's this about? Surely it's technically possible to implement. Can someone add more detail?
- yahoozoo 1y agoSurely this won’t be used by trolls.
- vorpalhex 1y agoA lot of folks about to discover that interfering with law enforcement is in fact a crime.
- Bolwin 1y agoPolice reporting is already common in like waze though
- mingus88 1y agoLet’s wait and see Waze has had a way to report speed traps for years. Where are those subpoenas? That at least is a loss of revenue. This also assumes that this can be traced back to whoever reported it in the app, and it would be trivial just simply not log any PII on that
- ranger_danger 1y ago> loss of revenue That assumes people were going to break the law in the first place by speeding... you can't be guilty of the crime of not helping someone else commit a crime. Maybe if they had some way to prove that you knew it would help them avoid police in order to speed... but that seems like a pretty high bar of evidence would be required (and they would have to attempt to go after you in the first place). >Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity
- lovich 1y agoI agree with you but only because I believe they will make it a crime. Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity, but like I said, that’s just ink on paper. It effectively means nothing now and yea, I wouldn’t download this app because of it
- gopher_space 1y agoInterfering with these specific people is also a civic duty, so I’ll need to draw inspiration from Thoreau on decisions like this.
- marky1991 1y ago
- jjwiseman 1y agoBecause law enforcement officers have so much more power than an average citizen, they must be held to much higher standards and have even more accountability. Law enforcement radio should be unencrypted, there should be public databases of officers for facial recognition, and their vehicles and persons should be publicly trackable. The same techniques they use to surveil the citizenry should be applied to them. https://icespy.org https://icespy.org is a site where you can do facial recognition on ICE employees.
- crote 1y ago> Law enforcement radio should be unencrypted I disagree. Every single criminal is going to have a scanner the next day, and it'll become impossible to apprehend genuine criminals. On the other hand, I would support mandatory recording and archiving of law enforcement radio, just like we are already doing with air traffic control. Combine this with independent incident investigations with public disclosure, and you've essentially achieved the accountability you are asking for.
- jjwiseman 1y agoDid you know there are currently many large police agencies that use unencrypted radios and they don't usually have any issues with it?
- voidhorse 1y agoAmericans give criminals way too much credit. Policing in many countries is way less extreme and dystopian than it is in the states and they tend to have less crime (part of that is that they actually give a shit about their citizens and have funded healthcare, and do reasonable things like ban guns etc)
- justin66 1y agoSuch a genuinely odd comment. You must realize that encryption of police radio is a recent thing and that, yes, police were capable of apprehending criminals prior to the adoption of encrypted communications.
- _aavaa_ 1y agoHong Kong waves from the past. I wonder how long until this one gets removed under the same ridiculous pretence. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/apple-removes-police-tracking-app-used-in-hong-kong-protests-from-its-app-store.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/apple-removes-police-trackin...
- perihelions 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678 ("Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store", 893 comments)
- mikestew 1y agoIn reference to the app developer: we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out... So they're not even trying to disguise the fact anymore that they're a bunch of goons? And this, coming from a person that went to law school. Meanwhile, I'm going to download the app right now. Thanks, Streisand effect!
- meragrin_ 1y ago> Meanwhile, I'm going to download the app right now. Thanks, Streisand effect! You know they could be going for the Streisand effect. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to add false incidents to reduce the effectiveness of the app. Nothing will get those people riled up like a court ruling in favor of the app. In the end, it could work to the administration's favor to have the app up and running. Nothing like acting all offended in public then celebrating privately as unnecessary fear and confusion sets in with false reports.
- dyauspitr 1y agoIt can be validated like a lot of the traffic apps to verify the authenticity of a report.
- GillianBates 1y ago[flagged]
- facet1ous 1y ago[flagged]
- unethical_ban 1y agoI disagree that the raids have been going on with this frequency or with this level of going after people in neighborhoods, preying on them at courthouses and so on. It is critical to consider the context as well. The Trump administration demonizes all immigrants, legal or illegal. Listen to Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, or Laura Loomer. The terror is the point.
- ncr100 1y agoWell, this IS different - ICE has not previously arrested en-masse the first-time visa overstays via felony responses. It's typically a misdemeanor offense, and should receive a different response from ICE.
- facet1ous 1y ago[flagged]
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoI don't care if it's "productive" in some narrow sense. If I discover that someone works for or with ICE during the current administration, I am precommitting to lose my mind over it. I'll block them, undermine them, blacklist them, do whatever I can to punish them for their heinous actions. I understand and accept that this diminishes the incentives for ICE to behave incrementally better, because I don't think that behaving incrementally better is adequate. ICE has a lot of hiring coming up with their new budget, and I want every applicant to understand that taking the job will ruin their life.
- immibis 1y agoIf I were you, I wouldn't publicly precommit to antagonizing the Gestapo. That will just make them more likely to come for you sooner.
- anitil 1y agoA question as a non-American that I hope will be taken in the spirit of enquiry. I am hearing a lot more about ICE raids, particularly on reddit. Is this an artefact of more attention to raids that have been going on for years, or is there an increase in the number or impact of the raids? I find it hard to tell as I'm in somewhat of a bubble in terms of the US news I come across.
- bix6 1y ago70% of farm workers are not showing up to work in California. This is unprecedented.
- mixmastamyk 1y agoThey have been some in the past but big increase in frequency and scope with the new administration.
- unethical_ban 1y agoThese raids are objectively more frequent and more brazen than they have ever been. The volume of going after people peacefully about their business and picking up people at courthouses is unprecedented.
- ncr100 1y agoMore raids because being in USA illegally is being INCORRECTLY treated as a FELONY by ice when, for first occurrences, it's usually a MISDEMEANOR. So, ICE is incorrectly enforcing the law, under the Trump administration.
- snthpy 1y agoReminds me of Warn A Brother (https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513-ahwUxZL.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513-ahwUxZL.jpg). Pity that it's not open source and decentralized using something like iroh.computer, especially given the lacking Android support.
- raver1975 1y agoThe app isn't available on Android because it supposedly cannot preserve anonymity. Why is that? That doesn't make any sense.
- VladVladikoff 1y ago>The app does not collect or store any user data, which TechCrunch confirmed by analyzing the app’s network traffic as part of a test. Actually pretty decent tech reporting if true. This is a non trivial task that can take some time to setup and analyze. If the app is secure and uses certificate pinning it would require reverse engineering it to patch over the pinning before you could MiTM the traffic and actually see it decrypted.
- oceansky 1y agoApple still has all the download and push notification data. They can hand it over to the government real quickly. The author does not provide a Android version and does not specify why. Edit: ok, the author does specify why, see the replies below.
- bstsb 1y agothe author has specified why, in a pretty detailed post about it (https://www.iceblock.app/android https://www.iceblock.app/android). they quote your exact concern as the reason they only support Apple: > Apple’s ecosystem allows for push notifications to be sent without requiring us to store any user-identifiable information. edit: however, GrapheneOS disputes this: https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w
- mrbombastic 1y agoiOS dev but not expert in how push notifications are implemented but confused by this claim, both platforms you need a device specific token because? of course you do? I feel like I am missing something
- gumby271 1y agoRight? I'm confused how APNS could do this differently from FCM. At least an Android app could implement push notifications without involving Google. This seems like a dev that doesn't really understand Android outside of the GMS features.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoThis seems fine under the 1st amendment. I will enjoy hearing the closing arguments when it finally reaches the Supreme Court.
- chasd00 1y agoyeah, i'm certainly not the "police officers are biggest monsters in the history of the universe" type but this app seems like a nothing burger from a legal standpoint. If there was an ice raid near me i'd like to know so i can avoid the traffic. Besides, people have to report the sighting when they see it so it's not like it gives a warning to a raid before it happens, only during or after the fact.
- meragrin_ 1y ago> If there was an ice raid near me i'd like to know so i can avoid the traffic. So a traffic app?
- perihelions 1y agoThose commenting on HN should know that ICE has a contract to buy bulk AI profiles on HN commenters (among other specific sites), https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/ https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-co... ("The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is Monitoring")
- frob 1y agoIf you're not on multiple naughty lists by the end of this administration, you're doing something wrong.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bix6 1y agoThey’re watching everything but they will never win because regular people love America too much! They not like us.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago[flagged]
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoI'm fine with that. I call ICE the Gestapo under my real name too. Unless and until they start rounding up citizens en masse, anyone who can has a duty to.
- jekwoooooe 1y ago[flagged]
- bix6 1y agoIs this actually legal? When I looked into something similar it said gray area but most likely illegal as they can claim obstruction of justice?
- bstsb 1y agoapparently the developer has consulted attorneys on the matter. in any case, i would have thought that simply reporting an officer's presence is completely legal as you aren't really obstructing them
- rexpop 1y agoHow is it any different from Google Maps' "Police Reported Here" feature? In the U.S., sharing the location of police officers is generally protected by the First Amendment, as long as the information is obtained legally and is publicly available. This is why apps like Waze and police scanners are lawful and widely used. For an act to qualify as obstruction of justice, there must be a clear and intentional effort to hinder or delay law enforcement in the investigation, arrest, or prosecution of a crime. Since that's obviously the intent with this app, it's relying on a thin veneer of plausible deniability.
- bix6 1y agoSo would using public street cameras to track known ICE license plates be legal?
- m3talsmith 1y agoWhelp, that's one less application that I feel compelled to make
- 34679 1y agoNice. We need less of a surveillance state and more surveillance of the state.
- throwaway106382 1y agoDon't want to see ethnics at Costco? Boy do I have the app for you!
- TacticalCoder 1y ago[flagged]
- grumio 1y agoThat's a lie. https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/10/16/undocumented-immigrants-voting/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/10/16/undocumented-immigran... People are critical of ICEs practices because they ignore the due process constitutional rights of people in the US (all people in the US not just citizens). They abduct people and send them to foreign gulags where they are tortured. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/kilmar-abrego-garcia-tortured-cecot https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/kilmar-abreg... You misrepresent ICE by acting like they just fight crime.
- mindslight 1y ago> I have zero tolerance for people turning our high trust societies into low trust ones. > It is my understanding democrats rely on the votes of many illegals to have the representation they have but is this really what this has come to? Import as many illegals as possible to "beat the republicans"? Bruh. Your uncritical consumption and repetition of Faceboot nonsense is exactly what is turning our society into a low trust society. Is a shred of self-awareness too much to ask for?
- cooper_ganglia 1y ago[flagged]
- danielspace23 1y agoAfter reading their blatant misinformation on Android support (https://www.iceblock.app/android https://www.iceblock.app/android, which makes no sense as explained in https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w), and seeing their refusal to publish the source code, I can't help but wonder if it's an honeypot.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- black_13 1y ago[dead]
- ipogrjegiorejkf 1y agoPerhaps it went viral because MAGA are downloading and flooding it with false reports to make the app useless?
- guywithahat 1y ago[flagged]
- knowitnone 1y agothis can just be flooded with fake data making it useless
- _V_ 1y agoAs an non-American, this situation seems really crazy and is quite hard to understand for me. Why would anyone want to prevent deportation of someone, who is in the country illegaly? Is this a cultural thing? Because I've heard that US immigration laws kind of suck (long waiting times etc), but I don't really see how this is a solution to anything? The techical aspect I get of course - I use Waze & I'm glad when someone reports cop with a radar etc. But ICE is not really something, that should concern normal citizens, right? They don't normally interact with US citizens, so as long as you have some kind of ID, they can check that and that is the end of your interaction with them. Or am I missing something? I'd honestly be glad, if someone could explain that to me, I'm genuinely interested in understanding what is going on.
- favflam 1y agoYou have never been accosted by police and assumed to be a criminal, especially in a country foreign to where you live? I think this experience would shed light on your question. ICE is different from other police agencies. The "punishment" is deportation, which ICE insists requires no time in court in front of a judge to mete out this "punishment". And as we have seen with guy sent to the El Salvador gulag, "deportation" is not simply getting put on a plane back home. It means getting sent to a foreign prison or war zone (South Sudan). So, you have a small risk of a catastrophic outcome when interacting with ICE. And you will have no recourse in court because ICE intends to make you disappear first. And for many Americans, this whole situation is an affront to American way of life (no due process, very nazi like behavior with the Florida concentration camp). Lastly, the US is different from other countries because the states are partially sovereign. State law and federal law don't generally intersect and state/local police have no duty to enforce federal law. They aren't supposed to enforce federal law either. In other countries, there is typically a national police agency all police operate under and provincial governments operate under national law.
- _V_ 1y agoI have been checked like that as I travel a lot through the Europe. And atleast in my case I just showed them my ID, they ran it through the database and that was the end of it. It sucked, but it was a one-off, so I shrugged it off. I would argue that deportation is not really a punishment. It is just ejecting you from a place you should not be in the first place - basically a state-operated bouncers. From the perspective of the citizen, I'd want people like that out - for my sake, and their. Because they will create gray economy & not pay taxes. And not only that - since they are in the grey zone of the economy, the people who will employ them can 1) really abuse them as they have no legal/work protections and 2) those companies can get quite a big advantage over other as they have much lower labor costs. Which in turn hurts companies that are employing legal workers, which in turn hurts tax revenue. Regarding being sent to the active war zones - I always thought that US do have asylums for people esaping from war etc? Meaning those people should be able to get some permit to stay & therefore should not be affected by ICE at all - or is this not a thing in the US? For some reason I thought that this is a part of some kind of international treaty or something, that you cannot deport people who are escaping from war. Regarding the El Salvador, I read quite a lot about CECOT and about (recent) history of El Salvador and to be frank, I totaly get why the people in El Salvador chose to do what they did. The amount of atrocities that local gangs were commiting was incredible and given the sheer amount of the gang members and their violence, there is really nothing "human" you can do. Granted, I have not visited El Salvador, so my information may not be 100% correct, but right now I shed no tears for the gang members in their gulags. We really are not talking about people that you can reason with. I knew US states were partially sovereign, but I always thought that federal laws are applied country wide & are enforced like that on all levels. And the local laws are on top of those. I did not know that the local police does not/should not enforce federal law I thought that if you commit something like wire fraud, local police will be working with the FBI to catch you. But as far as I understand it, local police is not really involved in those deportations, right? I always saw ICE agents (= federal) running around & rounding people up. Thanks for the comment & explanation
- hereme888 1y agoThe amount of intellectual dishonesty in the thread... People avoid ICE because they're breaking the law themselves, or have hysteria over illegals being deported (a benefit to tax-paying citizens). That's all there is to it. It has nothing to do with "our country is being turned to a police state", because that's what Biden did with his 87,000 armed IRS agents.
- DaSHacka 1y ago> The amount of intellectual dishonesty in the thread... Woah, HNers being intellectually dishonest? I could never have guessed! Who could tell, then they go all "woe is me, the US will be wholly irrelevant in less than a decade because Trump" without a smidgen of irony or self-reflection ad-infinitum in these threads. We're called "Orange Reddit" for a reason.