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ICE and the Smartphone Panopticon

(www.newyorker.com)
217 points fortran77 | 4 comments | 31 Oct 25 01:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.02s | 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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anonym29 ◴[31 Oct 25 07:31 UTC] No.45769257[source]▶
ICE is a targeted group, though.

They may not be a historically marginalized group, a vulnerable group, a protected class, or a group worthy of protection, but they certainly are targeted.

When you use proprietary software, you are kissing the ring of someone else's power. It's like voluntarily submitting to a big, bad, mean dude in prison. He's going to violate you. You voluntarily and willingly entered into the arrangement.

Either live with the predictable consequences of your decisions without complaining or make better decisions.

Whining about Apple or Google being tyrants after buying their proprietary crap and accepting the ToS is like complaining that we should have better gun control laws after you went to a gun store, legally purchased a firearm, and then shot yourself in the foot with it.

The free or nonfree nature of software (as in freedom, not beer) fundamentally boils down to power, control, and autonomy. Either you have it, or you're ruled by it. If you prefer shiny UIs and good UX over your dignity, autonomy, and freedom, that's your choice to make, just understand what your voluntary consent to the bad guys actually represents here, don't delude yourself about the arrangement or allow yourself to exist in a state of ignorance about the terms of the arrangement.

The obvious truth to anyone paying attention is that Stallman has been right all along, and everyone who looked at the free software movement the same way the popular kids looked at the misfits in secondary school is getting exactly what they were fairly warned about and dismissed condescendingly. The risks being highlighted by the FSF for decades wasn't paranoia, it was foresight, and the dismissal of that wisdom wasn't common sense, it was jumping off a cliff because all of your friends were jumping off cliffs, too.

You don't need to apologize for making the wrong choice, but you do need to put down the proprietary crap and reclaim your dignity. Or don't, if you prefer the slide into fascist authoritarianism. Stated preferences whisper, revealed preferences shout.

Welcome to real-world consequences coming bundled with your real-world decisions. You can't undo past mistakes but you can change your future course of action. Choose wisely. I recommend choosing freedom and encouraging everyone around you to choose freedom, too.

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danw1979 ◴[31 Oct 25 08:01 UTC] No.45769403[source]▶
> You don't need to apologize for making the wrong choice, but you do need to put down the proprietary crap and reclaim your dignity.

Are you making the argument here that there is a free software alternative to ICEblock that is suitable for novice technology users - the wider public - and offered the same guarantees of anonymity that Apple’s notification system offered ?

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1. anonym29 ◴[31 Oct 25 08:08 UTC] No.45769450[source]▶
Yes. Learn to code. Write it yourself. Host it yourself. Host it P2P. Do it on federated self-hosted platforms like Bluesky. Make it a web app. Set up a Briar group. Join such groups. Join such platforms. Switch off iOS. Switch to deGoogled Android handsets. Switch off smartphones and back to an x86 laptop or desktop computer. Switch off Darwin and NT, switch to Linux, or one of the BSD's. Children in hospitals have no problem learning how to use a kiosk with kid's games that runs on Xen / Citrix. Adults are capable of moving off the comfortable plantation, too.

You are not entitled to the first class pre-made internet infrastructure that the tyrants lured you in with and that you've taken for granted.

You are entitled to understand how the world really works, opt out of the broken, corrupt, existing systems, and opt into ones you can meaningfully control, but nobody's going to do the hard work for you, and you are not inherently entitled to the fruits of that hard work, either.

Literally all of recorded human knowledge is available to pretty much everyone in the US at zero marginal cost 24/7, and it's never been easier to access all of it than it is right now.

The honest excuse agaisnt this isn't "that's too hard" or "that's not realistic", it's "I'm too lazy".

It's not turnkey for novices, true, but if you see that as a problem, if you see turnkey solutions for the technically illiterate as the starting point you're entitled to and refuse alternatives for lacking, then you're really just reinforcing my point about revealed preferences for a slide into totalitarian fascism over stated preferences to not slide into totalitarian fascism.

Rejecting this because it's not turnkey is like declaring through action "I prefer sliding into fascist totalitarianism, because the alternative requires more effort than I care to put in to avoid fascism. The convenience and comfort of not having to learn anything is more important to me than the human rights of the marginalized and vulnerable."

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2. hikingsimulator ◴[31 Oct 25 08:31 UTC] No.45769599[source]▶
>learn to code

This is the most tone deaf answer I've read in quite a while. Learning to code, and everything you listed isn't available or possible by most people in a timely manner.

The question was what can be done now, by novice people. Not by people who must first acquire years of tech knowledge.

It's not reinforcing your point to say that. Not everyone can do it. And it shouldn't preclude them from being safe.

This is equivalent to pointing at some ivory tower of safety and say: "git gud."

3. danw1979 ◴[31 Oct 25 20:44 UTC] No.45776488[source]▶
There isn’t a jot of pragmatism in anything you have written.

Believing that the solution to ICEblock being banned by Apple is for the affected proletariat to rise up and run their own software and government-proof cryptography systems is fanciful, to put it mildly.

Most of the public don’t even know this is possible, let alone where to start with it, and even if they did you’re judging other people’s technical abilities as on-par with your own.

The solution I’m hoping for here is for Apple, a gigantic company with a reasonable track record in defending privacy and fending off government overreach, to stand up to the crooked old bully and stop giving him their lunch money.

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4. anonym29 ◴[01 Nov 25 08:07 UTC] No.45779988[source]▶
Apple has a track record of secretly coordinating with the government to violate your privacy and hand over bulk plaintext user data to the NSA for unconstitutional warrantless surveillance, in spite of what their Apple's marketing department may have led you to believe.