this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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I don't want to drag this conversation into American politics, but I will say ICE has been doing things against USA law. Things are not great here. Even noncitizens have rights that need to be respected, and ICE is failing to do that. They have also arrested lawful residents, citizens too, in their sweeps.
The ICE tracker app is a protest app/ direct action sort of thing, not a tool for criminality. Surely you can see the value of being able to use technology to resist a tyrannical government?
By the way, do you want the USA government to potentially control which software can be installed on your phone? Google is an American company. USA courts could decide (international company) is violating (American IP law or something else) and instruct Google to disallow their app from being installed entirely.
They can pull apps off the app store now, and they do that, but currently you can still side load stuff.
If the ICE app is breaking the law, and ICE itself is breaking the law, two wrongs don't make 1 right. There are legal ways to protest.
Like I said, earlier if you aren't breaking the law then if someone asks you to ID yourself , what's your fear? Loss of privacy?
You can't use privacy to hide the act of breaking a law.
Unless you're a developer it doesn't affect you anyway, you can still sideload apps. You just can't use a public highway like the internet to break the law and expect nothing to happen. I know it's not what any of you want to hear.
Tbh I'm not even sure the app is breaking any laws at all. Reporting on the presence of law enforcement is (not always but sometimes) protected speech here. I don't use the app, and I haven't heard that they are trying to arrest anyone in regards to it.
Honestly though... Have you thought through everything you're saying? Sheltering Jewish people during the holocaust was illegal in Germany.
Anyway, have a nice day, those are my thoughts.
I'm not a lawyer , but common sense dictates if you are going to make an app that's possibly illegal, you won't do it unless you are satisfied that it is legal. As far as comparing the sheltering of Jews illegally who were facing extermination and people who entered a country illegally is like saying I broke all the speed limit rules to attend an exam because I saw a person doing the same for a valid emergency. I'm not saying what Trump is doing is right at all, it's reprehensible, but don't try to equate it with the attempt to delete Jews from existence. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous .