New Delhi, Moscow, Oct 3 (UNI/SPUTNIK) US tech giant Apple removed the ICEBlock app, designed to track the location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, from its App Store after an explicit request from the Department of Justice, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
ICEBlock is a trafficking tool that allows users to anonymously report the location of ICE officers. It has been criticized by US authorities for endangering agents and helping illegal migrants evade the authorities.
The ‘ICEBlock app’ works as a crowdsourced and anonymous alert system for reporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent locations. Basically, users anonymously report sightings which then trigger push notifications and alerts to other users with a five-mile radius.
Developer of this app Joshua Aaron told 404 media “ICEBlock is no different from crowd sourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple’s own Maps add, implements as part of its core service. This is protected speech under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.”
“We are determined to fight this with everything we have. Our mission has always been to protect our neighbours from the terror this administration continues to reign down on the people of this nation.” Aaron added.
“We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so,” Bondi told Fox News.
Apple reportedly confirmed the removal of ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store, citing “safety risks” associated with ICEBlock as the reason.
In turn, ICEBlock creator and developer, Joshua Aaron, said he was “incredibly disappointed by Apple’s actions” in a comment to Fox News.
“Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move… Apple has claimed they received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock served to harm law enforcement officers. This is patently false,” Aaron was quoted as saying.
In late September a 29-year-old shooter, identified as Joshua Jahn, killed one detainee and injured two others at an ICE facility in Dallas, before taking his own life.
According to the FBI, the offender specifically targeted ICE agents. In months prior to the shooting, he downloaded a document containing a list of DHS facilities and searched apps that tracked the presence of ICE agents, including ICEBlock.
On his inauguration day, US President Donald Trump promised to immediately stop the influx of illegal immigrants into the US and begin the process of extraditing millions of immigrants.
