apple and Google Boiled downloads for phone applications that announce scenes American immigration agentsA few hours after the Trump Administration Administration, it demanded the special iPhone application in particular.
US Public Prosecutor Bam Bondi said that such a tracking exposes the enforcement officers and customs at risk. But users and developers in the applications say that their first amendment in obtaining what ICE is doing in their neighborhoods – and asserts that most users resort to these platforms in an attempt to protect their safety as President Donald Trump puts aggressive immigration application throughout the country.
It is the Iceblock, which is the most ice tracking app in the Apple App Store, among the applications that have been downloaded. Bondi said her office is an entrance with Apple on Thursday “demanding the removal of iCeblock” and claims to be “designed to put ICE agents at risk just to take their jobs.”
I soon complied Apple, and sent an email on Thursday to the application of the application, Joshu Aaron, which she said would prohibit more downloads for the application because the new information “provided to Apple via the law application” showed that the application broke the application store rules.
According to the email, which Aaron shared with the Associated Press, Apple said that the application has violated the company’s policies “because its purpose is to provide website information about law enforcement employees who can be used to harm these officers individually or as a group.”
In an interview on Friday, Aaron criticized the company because of the bending of what he described as a “authoritarian system”. Advocates of immigration rights such as Kika Matos, head of the National Center for Immigration Law, added that these measures were “an annoying example of how technology companies surrendered with Trump.”
“These applications are the lifestyle of societies that live in a state of uncertainty and fear of when the ice may appear to tear their families,” Matos said in a statement.
Application downloads such as iceblock have increased since Trump took office for a second term earlier this year. Haroun said he launched the application in April as a way to help migrant communities protect themselves from sudden raids or potential harassment. He said he had more than a million users.
Although there were no details of the total number of platforms removed, Apple confirmed to AP on Friday that they have removed “similar applications” due to the potential safety risks raised by the application of the law. Google followed her movement, saying that many similar applications violate Android platforms.
While some defenders do not find all these applications in particular useful – referring to possible wrong information and wrong warnings – they have been criticized for the moves for suppressing them.
“What really worries me is a kind of precedent around these groups,” said civil law lawyer, Eljandra Karaabalo, where the government can “mainly dictate the types of applications that people have on their phones.”
Karaabalo outside the United States said that government pressure on applications was a “kind of distinctive feature of an authoritarian system”, such as when he led the Chinese pressure in 2019 Apple to remove the app This enabled the demonstrators in Hong Kong to track the police.
Bondi warned during the summer of applications that allow people to communicate about the law enforcement staff and specifically called Aaron from iCeblock.
“We look at him and he is better than that because this is not a protected speech,” Bondi said in an interview with him in July. Fox news.
These warnings escalated last month after the gunman opened fire on Ice attachment In Dallas. Cash Patel, director of the FBI, said that the gunman had searched for applications that followed the presence of ICE agents, although they did not say if he was already using one of the applications or whether any of them played a role in the attack.
Harun said that linking the gunman to applications is not logical because the application works only if another person reports ICE activity within a 5 -miles radius for another iPhone user.
“You don’t need to apply to learn that ice agents are in the ice detention facility,” he said. “This is just an easy excuse for them to use their strength and the leverage to land something that was offering what they are doing – and this is the terrorism that calls them to the people of this nation every day.”
He also said that the app works similar to common navigation applications such as Waze, Google Maps and Apple Maps App, which allows users to report police speed traps.
“It is not illegal in any way, shape or shape, and no one does,” he said, adding that Iceblock is “an early warning system for people.”
Those who use applications or other online methods to monitor ice activity say most people who use them do this for their own safety or out of anxiety for their loved ones.
“People are very afraid,” said Sherman Austin, who founded the ice alert network in February. He pointed to the increasing concerns about racial stereotypes and violent arrests that affect families.
Austin said: “They want to know what is going on in their neighborhood and what is going on in their society,” describing the people who were violently thrown on the ground by the ice agents in broad daylight.
Also known as Stopice.net, the Austin platform is likely uses a collective outsourcing, but instead allows its users to track ice activity on the Internet or through text alerts, without the need to download a separate application. Austin says the platform has reached more than 500,000 subscribers from Friday.
The group has similarly criticized the Trump administration for what it says is retaliatory attacks targeting those who exercise the first amendment rights. Last month, the platform said it learned that the Ministry of Internal Security had called for a dead data on store.net’s Instagram account.
Austin said that Stopice.net immediately defied the procedure, adding on Friday that the summons was temporarily banned and awaiting a hearing with a judge.
Mita refused to comment on Friday. The Ministry of National Security did not respond directly to a request to comment on the summons order on Friday, and instead, it directed AP to a statement issued by the Minister of Assistant Trichia McLeulin, who repeated that “ice tracking applications put the lives of men and law enforcement in danger” and criticize the media outlets to secure the “Apple” decision.
Meanwhile, developers such as Austin say that removal of these federal applications and threats should remove everyone.
He said: “We are against a system, which is a administration that works in any way it wants – and threatens those who want to reach its way, in order to control information and control the narration.” “We have to challenge this and fight this in any possible way.”
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