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ICE and the Smartphone Panopticon

(www.newyorker.com)
217 points fortran77 | 2 comments | 31 Oct 25 01:13 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Terr_ ◴[31 Oct 25 02:36 UTC] No.45767735[source]▶
> Eyes Up provides a way for users to record and upload footage of abusive law-enforcement activity, building an archive of potential evidence. [...] Then, on October 3rd, Mark received a notice that Apple was removing the app from its store on the grounds that it may “harm a targeted individual or group.”

In other words, [0] somebody in Apple declared that ICE agents, on duty, operating in public, executing federally-authorized violence, have somehow qualified as a "targeted group" just like transgender people.

> Pressure on the tech platforms seemed to come from the Trump Administration; after a deadly shooting at an ICE field office in Dallas in late September, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that ICEBlock “put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”

It makes for an extra-ridiculous backdrop, since absolutely nobody needed any kind of app to determine that ICE agents will be present at... the big building near the highway with a huge concrete sign on the lawn proclaiming "US Immigration and Custom Enforcement."

... I mean, what're the odds?

> Like other forms of self expression, digital-communication technology has become dangerously circumscribed under Trump; only the tools that exist independent of Big Tech seem like safe bets for dissent.

As these platforms start banning software written by private individuals, we'll have to see what kind of incident tracker some Democrats have promised to arrange. [1] I would expect the niche to be long-term documentation like the banned Eyes Up app, rather than real-time notification of, er, road conditions.

Either way, it highlights a different problem with Apple and Google working to prohibit us (users) from freely installing software we onto hardware we own.

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[0] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/apple-decides-ice-agents...

[1] https://gizmodo.com/democrats-will-launch-a-master-ice-track...

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1. noduerme ◴[31 Oct 25 03:55 UTC] No.45768253[source]▶
>> only the tools that exist independent of Big Tech seem like safe bets for dissent

The problem is that those tools will never be easy for the general public to use, and the big data problem requires the genpop to be onboard. I honestly don't see a good way out of this. At a certain point in the evolution of any authoritarian state, those apps or devices which run them will just be banned and punishable to possess. In America, we're just running up against the outskirts of what hard power can do to silence and intimidate people.

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2. deaux ◴[31 Oct 25 06:07 UTC] No.45768879[source]▶
I don't really get why these at least don't offer both "native" app and web. The people making these apps 1. surely understand that this was going to happen 2. are making them as fast as possible using hybrid frameworks (which is 100% the correct thing to do in this situation) 3. are easily capable of hosting them as a web app as well.

I don't want to be too harsh on people who made these apps but I am pretty peeved. They completely wasted the opportunity as now any new apps they'll get banned before they get onto the stores. I think all of us on HN could've told them this was inevitable ages ago and especially since they're engaged enough to be making these apps surely they knew themselves. If they from day 1 also hosted it as a webapp (as an alternative), that would be the immediate migration path. Heck, they could've advertised/linked it in the app itself. This is allowed and doesn't get one blocked from the stores unless there's payment options involved which is explicitly not the case here.