Legal experts condemn Apple bowing to White House's request to remove ICEBlock

https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5561999

by pera • 10 months ago

66 39 10 months ago

text.npr.org

Simulacra• 10 months ago

A theoretical contrapositive: would Apple allow an app that allowed people to track anti-ice police? Antifa?

Clearly, they would not, and cannot have an app that tracks a protected class, but what about an app that told people that antifa was nearby?

I see the logic in tracking government officials, but I think it cuts both ways and maybe neither should be allowed.

Of course the same argument could be made for Waze, but I don't know where you draw the line without blowback to others. I think there is a line, I just don't know where it is.

Motives? Perceived danger?

glimshe• 10 months ago

Without getting in the merits of Apple's block, the problem in your argument is that the government is not equivalent to a group of citizens. It's in a position of power and it carries weapons ordinary citizens can't.

drweevil• 10 months ago

And in a Democratic society it is subject to citizen oversight (in principle). We have a right to know, iow.

mcphage2• 10 months ago

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron" —dril

haskellshill3• 10 months ago

my side is good and your side is evil, just because it is, okay?

hackable_sand• 10 months ago

You made a really inept "argument".

But you did show your hand so I guess we all benefited in some way.

haskellshill3• 10 months ago

I know nobody benefited from your comment either way, you're literally just stating somebody is dumb

potato37328422• 10 months ago

Until the peasant's ability to know the whereabouts both real time and historical of government agents they are interested in equals or exceeds the government's ability to know the whereabouts both real time and historical of peasants they are interested in I don't see the problem.

laserdancepony• 10 months ago

Why should a country tolerate an information system designed to circumvent the enforcement of the law, no matter how you individually feel about that laws. We boot fraudulent or illegal apps all the time.

What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

"Rules for thee, not for me."

samus8• 10 months ago

Such apps can be forbidden by law, and then this would be quite unambiguous. This is criticizing a company bending over backwards to what the government wants. Not really surprising, since none of these companies supports free speech for the sake of it, but to further its business, but still.

MichaelZuo5• 10 months ago

“ bending over backwards” seems to be just an opinion, or collection of opinions…?

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but clearly there has to be some credible argument why opinion X is better than opinion Y (held by company decision makers).

Assuming it’s just automatically better isn’t productive.

DoctorOW• 10 months ago

Why should a country tolerate an information system designed to circumvent the enforcement of the law

This is the party line, but in practice ICE is not acting 100% within lines of the law. Unfortunately, it's possible for politicians, and even entire government agencies to lie. The evidence shows that ICE has both failed to enforce the law, and even follow the law themselves. This puts ICEBlock within other crime mapping or offender identifying tools.

gruez2• 10 months ago

What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

Do you think apps like waze should also be illegal? What possible reason would you want location of speed trap except to speed with impunity? Moreover whether it "benefits criminals" is irrelevant here, because the current legal standard is imminent lawless action[1]. Otherwise that would be license to ban all manner of materials, from anarchists cookbook to DRM circumvention tools.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

CjHuber2• 10 months ago

So how do you explain that the government of France for example publishes the exact location of all speed cameras online?

CamperBob2• 10 months ago

What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

There's an unbounded downside to allowing government too much power, including the power to act unobserved. Empowering criminals also has obvious drawbacks, but they're limited in scope.

"Rules for thee, not for me."

Those sympathetic to the American political right don't get to use that saying anymore, not even ironically. Not because it's offensive, but because they've effectively turned it into a tautology.

mcphage2• 10 months ago

What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

What if the real criminals were ICE all along?

haskellshill3• 10 months ago

What if drug dealers are good guys actually?

jdgoesmarching• 10 months ago

So no country should tolerate Signal? If you’re someone who believes that ICE is only enforcing real laws and innocent people don’t need to be concerned, please get in touch with my bridge sales department.

potato37328422• 10 months ago

God forbid laws that don't have strong support among the people be nigh on impossible to enforce effectively.

I have zero problem with fed-cops not being able to "do their job" in unfriendly jurisdictions without bringing serious amounts of force with them.

jmclnx• 10 months ago

I hope no one is surprised by what Google and Apple did on their Locked Down devices, all the care about is their bottom line. Trump and his people have no qualms about destroying a companies' revenue.

These locked down devices seems to be future tech is being pushed to. I suspect the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows is a first step in Locking Down Laptops and Desktops.

Luckily Linux is not heading in this direction, yet. But I fear it will and baby steps may have already been taken. From what I have heard about OpenBSD and NetBSD, they will probably never lock down anything. FreeBSD, I am not sure about, but so far they are not going in that direction.

There was a story by FSF or maybe GNU detailing a possible future with using these devices. The story was you needed to get a license to use certain software. Debugging and Development tools required a specific license and permission.

I lost the link, but I think that is the future we are heading directly too :(

gruez2• 10 months ago

These locked down devices seems to be future tech is being pushed to. I suspect the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows is a first step in Locking Down Laptops and Desktops.

You mean the boogeyman that's been around for over a decade and precisely nothing has come of it? Moreover given the declining use of desktops/laptops, and the widespread prevalence of locked-down devices like smartphones, tablets, and streaming boxes, the battle over "locking down" has already been lost. If a company wants their app to run in a trusted environment, they can simply not offer a web version and enforce attestation (so you can't run it in an emulator or whatever).

ChrisArchitect• 10 months ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45457333

iamleppert• 10 months ago

The app itself (I still have it on my phone) wasn't very good, buggy and not user friendly. The author is a clout chaser and wanted to profit off the app.

Legal experts condemn Apple bowing to White House's request to remove ICEBlock

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