ICE and the Smartphone Panopticon
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Quite a lot of things this statement applies to lately.
It’s only a dangerous precedent if you believe your opponents will ever gain power. If you believe your political opponents will never have power again, then who cares about precedent?
Or are already in power.
And that kind of thinking in years past is EXACTLY why we're here annoyed by dozens of organizations having and using power they probably ought not to.
This is a dangerous president.
It's a staircase, not a cliff.
1. People are not harassing traffic enforcement, like they are harassing immigration enforcement.
2. Waze's information incentivizes people to follow traffic laws more deligently than they would which results in safer driving conditions for other people driving. ICEBlock did not have the benefit of making people follow immigration law better, or turn themselves in faster.
What you need is a gapless panopticon so that every suspect feels like being at the verge of getting caught, to enforce eg. traffic laws.
ICE does not target criminal behavior though. They literally disappear people based on appearance and any criminal record. Such a panopticon is an entirely different beast.
ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls: https://people.com/ice-agents-overnight-chicago-raid-1182308...
Feds detain WGN-TV staffer, slam into resident’s car in Lincoln Square: https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/10/feds-arr...
We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days: https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
Videos of violent ICE interactions flood social media: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/ice-agents-violent-...
This is not "immigration enforcement".
It's paramilitary thugs beating up and disappearing political opponents. The closest equivalent would be the SA.
Why were 30ish kids naked in an apartment building illegally? That sure sounds a whole lot like human trafficking, especially if the men arrested all had criminal records and gang affiliation.
Wow intentionally blocking a federal vehicle transporting a prisoner sure shoulds like interfering with law enforcement.
And in getting 30,000+ illegal immigrants into ICE custody, they've only detained 170 people? 130 of those were with criminal charges? That seems like a very low number.
This sounds exactly like immigration enforcement. Who are the politicians being rounded up? Who are the "political opponents" here? Not the 30,000 illegal immigrants who can't vote. Not the 130 citizens who committed a felony against agents.
I think the small percentage of the far left that feels like it is ok to have immigrants here that are not following the rules of immigration and the small percentage of the right that feel it is ok to violate our constitution to stop these immigrants have taken over while the big middle just watches with their jaws open at what is happening.
This is selective enforcement of ToS?
It's like saying "pardoning a human trafficker sets a dangerous precedent for pardoning human traffickers".
Which predates Trump and was happening under the Obama presidency. The real lesson there is that the application of the Jack Bauer principle ("good guys" are allowed to freely torture and murder "bad guys" without legal process) would eventually leak back into the mainland US. The same excuse - the concept that foreigners do not have rights - enables ICE to be incredibly abusive. And of course citizenship then becomes something that can be taken away by such a trivial matter as a cop deciding to throw away your ID. You might be able to prove you're a citizen if you had due process, but now you're a noncitizen you're not entitled to that.
Companies can enforce their terms of service as they see fit, including enforcing them selectively or not at all, with very few limitations. They're not bound by precedent as courts would be, nor do they need to be fair.
Can we force you into a career?
Can we force you to right a book?
What if you work with a few people? Can we compel you to right a book then?
What if you work with a lot of people, a few thousand? Can we make you write a book in that case?
Well, you can pick your friends. And you can pick your nose.
But you can't pick your friend's nose. In a democratic society, that is.
Can we say that if we only have two app stores and both are controlled by the government?
This was written re: IP law, but applies to your comment as well.
The underlying principle is not complicated; Apple can and will ban any app they don't like.
I bet that one could refactor it into a PWA.
EU folk, we really need a 3rd platform. Let's go.
In other words, a "well regulated Militia" in the Second Amendment is more important than "bear arms".
But no one talks about creating a Militia (yet) for some reason.
What examples are you drawing from when making this conclusion?
> In other words, a "well regulated Militia" in the Second Amendment is more important than "bear arms".
Originally standing armies were not allowed. Each state was expected to perform it's own defense. The governor could create and disband a militia to defend the state. It was expected they would appear with their own arms.
> But no one talks about creating a Militia (yet) for some reason.
Subservient to what power?
so you’re saying a governor could declare their state to be under attack and organize a militia maybe even using state funds?
The line between "private militia" and "terrorism" isn't very well defined. If the people are unsuccessful, they will be labeled as terrorists and potentially put to death. Most people don't want to be executed, and as far as I am aware there's only been one successful violent insurrection in the US [1], so the odds are very much not in your favor.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_massacre#Aftermath
E.g. separatism (like Texan or Californian) can be named insurrection.
Also when a force commits terror acts against other force (e.g. Russian military maiming captured PoWs) -- that's a war crime, not a terrorism either.
And why we so quick to jump to "attack"? There is a huge area the Militia can do without "attack"s. Sabotage, road blocks, building blocks, detention. Detention is violence, but it's not attack.
PS: of course the other side may call it "terror", that's for sure.
That's sort of what I'm getting at. I do think you could consider some of it terrorism in the classical definition of the word in that it would be ideologically motivated and it would be done by a comparatively small set of people. I don't think an attack on a big institution is a disqualifier either, considering that some people consider Guy Fawkes a terrorist [1], and he was trying to blow up British Parliament. If you have a small group of people using armed force in order to coerce politicians to act in a certain way, I don't think it's necessarily a stretch to call it terrorism.
Regardless, even if it doesn't fit into the classical definition of "terrorism" (though I really think we're splitting hairs on this and it's getting into "distinction without a difference" territory), there is no doubt that the Trump administration would classify all these people as terrorists and try and impose any and all "anti terrorism" legislation possible.
To be clear, I'm not assigning a value judgement to this, I don't think definitions like "good" or "bad" really work here.
[1] https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-education/depar...
So the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of US gun owners, especially if you look at who owns "tactical" guns and gear (a 3-round hunting rifle is one thing, an AR with a full 7-mag loadout in a plate carrier is a very different one) are people who actively support the present government, or castigate them for not going far enough. So the relatively small groups of armed lefties - mostly hard left, anarchists, SRA, some Black groups like NAAGA etc; but very few liberals and mainstream progressives - are largely inconsequential.
Also, "come and enforce it" is not undermining democracy. A law is only a piece of paper until a court upholds it. Even the federal government can write whatever it wants, if it's then ruled unconstitutional that's the end of that.
The problem going on right now is that so much is being broken that the already slow court system just cannot keep up.
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...
/s
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.
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.
Comparing ICE agents to transgender people might be the most inflammatory thing you could say to them or their masters.
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.
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 ?
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."
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."
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.
I don't know the answer, but I hope (although I'm not sanguine about it) the answer is zero.
That said, if DHS is prioritizing hiring such folks for ICE/CBP (as a paramilitary force bent on domination of the US controlled only by Trump and his minions), we're going to have serious problems getting the current administration to vacate on 20 January 2029, especially since these folks have a budget larger than most military forces around the world.
Is that alarmist? I don't know. Then again, so many unprecedented, authoritarian and outright illegal things have been done by the current administration.
As such, it wouldn't surprise me to see right-wing militia thugs on the ICE/CBP payroll. I hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm not.
[0] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/?meta_ex...
Edit: Maybe I'm paranoid, but so many of this administration's actions seem to come right out of the fascist/authoritarian playbook (cf. https://archive.ph/xbm1E although there are many other expositions of this as well).
Or any other number of ways to disrupt an election. Maybe not open Congress at all?
edit: They wouldn't arrest citizens you say?
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
Who said that? Not me. In fact, they've been doing so for a while. And beating them, even shooting[0] them -- because they can -- with impunity.
[0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/04/ice-shooting-chica...