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I’m not sure who you’re expecting to convert. Most people- thinking of people like my parents- think any app that hinders police must be a bad thing. The idea

I’m not sure who you’re expecting to convert. Most people- thinking of people like my parents- think any app that hinders police must be a bad thing. The idea that something like ICEBlock is benevolent and doesn’t make the user a criminal by association just doesn’t register.

gottorf 1y ago
Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?
- jjj123 1y ago
  Why is that a bad thing? Was the Underground Railroad a bad thing?
  - gottorf 1y ago
    In a society with rule of law, it is generally understood that adhering to laws, even ones you don't personally like, is a good thing; and that it would be a bad thing to pick and choose which laws to follow and enforce. I suppose you're making the argument that current US immigration law is unjust and immoral to begin with and therefore should be actively circumvented?
    - JoshTriplett 1y ago
      https://xkcd.com/3081/ https://xkcd.com/3081/ Immigration is a veneer around "grab whoever we want with no due process".
    - mindslight 1y ago
      > In a society with rule of law We no longer have a society with the rule of law. The fish rots from the head. You can thank everyone who voted for the wanton criminal promising everything yet nothing but destruction, now creating cruel spectacle after cruel spectacle to distract from the fundamental fact that he should be in prison. And additionally his enablers in Congress and on the Supreme Council who've decided that our Constitution is worth less than toilet paper.
  - james_marks 1y ago
    In the norms of its time, I am sure many thought it was a bad thing. Slave owners, certainly. It’s only looking at it through today’s drastically different norms that it’s an obviously good thing.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  Depends on the law and how it's enforced. You could argue the current status-quo is law breaking by law enforcement, so circumventing them is enforcing the law.
- 1659447091 1y ago
  Only if subjectively cherry picking. VPN apps "help circumvent the law", I wouldn't call them a bad thing
  - gottorf 1y ago
    VPNs can serve a legitimate purpose, like shielding your traffic while using a public network. Seems to me the better technology analogue to ICEBlock is The Pirate Bay; maybe there's some flimsy pretext of it being used for a legitimate purpose, and maybe it's not outright illegal, but everyone knows that it's almost always used for an illegal purpose.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      ICE is abducting citizens and generally stirring up chaos to make pretexts for escalating federal occupations. Anyone would be an utter fool to voluntarily put themselves in the presence of the new "American" Gestapo. And since the number of citizens is much larger than the number of iLlEgAlS (regardless of what the fearmongering on boomers' TVs would have you believe), an app to help avoid the lawless thugs is in the same exact category as a VPN.
      - JuniperMesos 1y ago
        I haven't heard about ICE detaining any US citizens who weren't either actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate anti-immigration-law-enforcement protest, or closely associating with actual illegal immigrants. Detaining people who are actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate protest is something I think it's reasonable for any kind of police to be able to do - there's no reason why fellow citizens in a democracy should inherently privilege the violence protesters do in order to prevent the enforcement of a law over the violence that the police do to in order to carry out that enforcement, it all comes down to your political opinion of the law. Detaining US citizens while in the process of detaining illegal immigrants also seems reasonable, since there's no way to tell if a suspected illegal immigrant claiming to be a US citizen is lying or not until law enforcement actually checks. This is no different than cops being able to arrest a person on suspicion of a crime and then let them go with no charges when they realize they were mistake, which is a power cops already have in our society.
- lenkite 1y ago
  With that attitude in 1775-76, the US wouldn't have won independence. Would you tug your forelock (and empty your purse) and Kneel to the King ?
  - gottorf 1y ago
    I assume your point is that not all laws are just only by virtue of being laws. I agree with this. And of course, not all lawbreaking is equal in severity. We all can tell that jaywalking is not the same as vehicular homicide. At the same time, we should also be able to agree that selective following and enforcement of laws is disparaging to the spirit of a nation of laws. Do you find the current American immigration laws, and the enforcement thereof, to be unjust? Do you see it as your moral duty to abrogate them, and help others do so? If so, can you explain why?
    - lenkite 1y ago
      Yes, the current American immigration laws are dysfunctional and thus unjust - they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government. Sure, you can kick out the criminals and gang-bangers - no issues there. But kicking out restaurant owners and other tax-payers is ridiculous. Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises. Sure, you can argue that Americans elected Trump and so he can do whatever he wants, but the cruelty has gone off the deep end now. The power given by his electoral win has not been applied judiciously. From a constitutional point of view, I also see this App as simply representative of the right given by the First Amendment. If you block this app, one has set an extremely dangerous precedent.
      - JuniperMesos 1y ago
        > they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government. The question of whether it is good to give a path to citizenship for people who immigrated illegally and have lived illegally in the US for many years is a major point of partisan political disagreement in the US. There are huge numbers of people who think that it is very bad that these illegal immigrants weren't arrested and deported many years ago, and want immigration enforcement to make up for the lax polcies of previous administrations, not give a path to citizenship to people who were by law not allowed to be present in the US to begin with. > Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises. If you think that the presence of people given Temporary Protected Status many years ago by a previous president is bad for the united states, then not only do you want your elected officials to remove this temporary protected status, you probably want your legislators to repeal the law giving presidents the authority to grant this status at all. In any case, there are many voting citizens in the US who clearly do not believe it is a bridge too far, and want the president to revoke this status and not offer it in the future.
- magicalist 1y ago
  > Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association? Much like Miranda rights. Surely outright informing people in custody they have the right to remain silent is a bad thing, right? Actually, thinking about it now, there's a whole lot of things people have the right to do that make enforcing the law way harder than it needs to be. Or maybe it's more important to maintain your rights as a human being and citizen, especially in the face of an overreaching executive branch willing to justify anything in order to overreach a little more.
- JuniperMesos 1y ago
  Depends on your opinion of the law that people are circumventing.

gottorf 1y ago

Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?

jjj123 1y ago
Why is that a bad thing? Was the Underground Railroad a bad thing?
- gottorf 1y ago
  In a society with rule of law, it is generally understood that adhering to laws, even ones you don't personally like, is a good thing; and that it would be a bad thing to pick and choose which laws to follow and enforce. I suppose you're making the argument that current US immigration law is unjust and immoral to begin with and therefore should be actively circumvented?
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    https://xkcd.com/3081/ https://xkcd.com/3081/ Immigration is a veneer around "grab whoever we want with no due process".
  - mindslight 1y ago
    > In a society with rule of law We no longer have a society with the rule of law. The fish rots from the head. You can thank everyone who voted for the wanton criminal promising everything yet nothing but destruction, now creating cruel spectacle after cruel spectacle to distract from the fundamental fact that he should be in prison. And additionally his enablers in Congress and on the Supreme Council who've decided that our Constitution is worth less than toilet paper.
- james_marks 1y ago
  In the norms of its time, I am sure many thought it was a bad thing. Slave owners, certainly. It’s only looking at it through today’s drastically different norms that it’s an obviously good thing.
array_key_first 1y ago
Depends on the law and how it's enforced. You could argue the current status-quo is law breaking by law enforcement, so circumventing them is enforcing the law.
1659447091 1y ago
Only if subjectively cherry picking. VPN apps "help circumvent the law", I wouldn't call them a bad thing
- gottorf 1y ago
  VPNs can serve a legitimate purpose, like shielding your traffic while using a public network. Seems to me the better technology analogue to ICEBlock is The Pirate Bay; maybe there's some flimsy pretext of it being used for a legitimate purpose, and maybe it's not outright illegal, but everyone knows that it's almost always used for an illegal purpose.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    ICE is abducting citizens and generally stirring up chaos to make pretexts for escalating federal occupations. Anyone would be an utter fool to voluntarily put themselves in the presence of the new "American" Gestapo. And since the number of citizens is much larger than the number of iLlEgAlS (regardless of what the fearmongering on boomers' TVs would have you believe), an app to help avoid the lawless thugs is in the same exact category as a VPN.
    - JuniperMesos 1y ago
      I haven't heard about ICE detaining any US citizens who weren't either actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate anti-immigration-law-enforcement protest, or closely associating with actual illegal immigrants. Detaining people who are actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate protest is something I think it's reasonable for any kind of police to be able to do - there's no reason why fellow citizens in a democracy should inherently privilege the violence protesters do in order to prevent the enforcement of a law over the violence that the police do to in order to carry out that enforcement, it all comes down to your political opinion of the law. Detaining US citizens while in the process of detaining illegal immigrants also seems reasonable, since there's no way to tell if a suspected illegal immigrant claiming to be a US citizen is lying or not until law enforcement actually checks. This is no different than cops being able to arrest a person on suspicion of a crime and then let them go with no charges when they realize they were mistake, which is a power cops already have in our society.
lenkite 1y ago
With that attitude in 1775-76, the US wouldn't have won independence. Would you tug your forelock (and empty your purse) and Kneel to the King ?
- gottorf 1y ago
  I assume your point is that not all laws are just only by virtue of being laws. I agree with this. And of course, not all lawbreaking is equal in severity. We all can tell that jaywalking is not the same as vehicular homicide. At the same time, we should also be able to agree that selective following and enforcement of laws is disparaging to the spirit of a nation of laws. Do you find the current American immigration laws, and the enforcement thereof, to be unjust? Do you see it as your moral duty to abrogate them, and help others do so? If so, can you explain why?
  - lenkite 1y ago
    Yes, the current American immigration laws are dysfunctional and thus unjust - they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government. Sure, you can kick out the criminals and gang-bangers - no issues there. But kicking out restaurant owners and other tax-payers is ridiculous. Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises. Sure, you can argue that Americans elected Trump and so he can do whatever he wants, but the cruelty has gone off the deep end now. The power given by his electoral win has not been applied judiciously. From a constitutional point of view, I also see this App as simply representative of the right given by the First Amendment. If you block this app, one has set an extremely dangerous precedent.
    - JuniperMesos 1y ago
      > they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government. The question of whether it is good to give a path to citizenship for people who immigrated illegally and have lived illegally in the US for many years is a major point of partisan political disagreement in the US. There are huge numbers of people who think that it is very bad that these illegal immigrants weren't arrested and deported many years ago, and want immigration enforcement to make up for the lax polcies of previous administrations, not give a path to citizenship to people who were by law not allowed to be present in the US to begin with. > Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises. If you think that the presence of people given Temporary Protected Status many years ago by a previous president is bad for the united states, then not only do you want your elected officials to remove this temporary protected status, you probably want your legislators to repeal the law giving presidents the authority to grant this status at all. In any case, there are many voting citizens in the US who clearly do not believe it is a bridge too far, and want the president to revoke this status and not offer it in the future.
magicalist 1y ago
> Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association? Much like Miranda rights. Surely outright informing people in custody they have the right to remain silent is a bad thing, right? Actually, thinking about it now, there's a whole lot of things people have the right to do that make enforcing the law way harder than it needs to be. Or maybe it's more important to maintain your rights as a human being and citizen, especially in the face of an overreaching executive branch willing to justify anything in order to overreach a little more.
JuniperMesos 1y ago
Depends on your opinion of the law that people are circumventing.