I think it’s important to take a second and reflect that in 2025 America we need an app like this at all.
helixten · 2h ago
This is very American, The Green Book guided Black travelers to safe businesses during Jim Crow. The Underground Railroad was literally an information network to help enslaved people reach freedom. During WWII, communities helped hide Japanese Americans from internment. LGBTQ+ people created networks to find safe spaces during decades of criminalization. Native communities have long shared information about safe passage and resources.
HaZeust · 14m ago
Well said. A few days ago I made a response to a comment in a thread, where I laid out a list of some aspects of American Culture [1]. And, 2 of the BIG ones in the Beliefs category were, "fundamental distrust in government and a shared collective identity in those against it, free-speech absolutism"
Perfectly put. American as in the historic reality. Unamerican as in the marketing ideal.
unixhero · 1h ago
I was going to write expletives. But lets rather reflect. When is this ICE stuff going to end?
grumpymuppet · 1h ago
Well, they just got like $170 Billion budget passed, so they've got plenty of money to stay busy for a while.
HaZeust · 12m ago
3x more than the Marine Corps, for those at home keeping score.
A military branch (either de facto or de jure) that exists for the majority purpose to directly target, round up, and imprison or deport individuals on U.S. soil - especially with a proven record of limiting due process - should have NEVER happened.
herbst · 5h ago
Whenever I hear anything about the US in the last months it sounds like from a bad movie.
GuinansEyebrows · 7h ago
if this app is the "hmm" moment for anybody, god help us.
pyuser583 · 7h ago
Growing up reading cyberpunk, this is both expected and welcome.
_aavaa_ · 4h ago
Hong Kong waves from the past.
I wonder how long until this one gets removed under the same ridiculous pretence.
A lot of folks about to discover that interfering with law enforcement is in fact a crime.
mingus88 · 5h ago
Let’s wait and see
Waze has had a way to report speed traps for years. Where are those subpoenas? That at least is a loss of revenue.
This also assumes that this can be traced back to whoever reported it in the app, and it would be trivial just simply not log any PII on that
ranger_danger · 2h ago
> loss of revenue
That assumes people were going to break the law in the first place by speeding... you can't be guilty of the crime of not helping someone else commit a crime.
Maybe if they had some way to prove that you knew it would help them avoid police in order to speed... but that seems like a pretty high bar of evidence would be required (and they would have to attempt to go after you in the first place).
>Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity
gopher_space · 4h ago
Interfering with these specific people is also a civic duty, so I’ll need to draw inspiration from Thoreau on decisions like this.
AIPedant · 2h ago
Using this specific app is obviously protected by the 1st Amendment, which is why the relevant laws are much more specific than merely "interfering with law enforcement."
Bolwin · 5h ago
Police reporting is already common in like waze though
marky1991 · 2h ago
On what grounds? Could you give a simple search term for this?
This reminds me of the musk elonjet case on twitter. Generally, if I were to follow a person (in public spaces) and constantly report their location, is that against the law? (If yes, could you clarify which law specifically?) If it is truly against the law here, does it make a difference that here the reports are non-individual in nature, ie reporting that ice is present, not that a particular ice officer is present.
Is there something special about doing the same thing for police/ice?
I think I remember this kind of scenario coming up in supreme court cases before but don't remember specifics, and google isn't helping.
But I admit I generally feel that my response is "So what?"
which seems to suggest this specific scenario has not been addressed by the supreme court, but has been addressed by various appeals courts, and it claims that 61% of the population lives in states that have affirmed this right.
lovich · 5h ago
I agree with you but only because I believe they will make it a crime.
Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity, but like I said, that’s just ink on paper.
It effectively means nothing now and yea, I wouldn’t download this app because of it
facet1ous · 1h ago
IMO the knee jerk reactions to ICE the last few months have reached neurotic levels... not a fan of some of the shadier practices the Trump admin is prescribing, but ICE has been around a long time and this kind of thing was going on even in the Obama era. I don't think we should be losing our minds whenever we see ICE agents (in fact if they're identifiable that's probably a good thing).
1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=HaZeust#44411990
A military branch (either de facto or de jure) that exists for the majority purpose to directly target, round up, and imprison or deport individuals on U.S. soil - especially with a proven record of limiting due process - should have NEVER happened.
I wonder how long until this one gets removed under the same ridiculous pretence.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/apple-removes-police-trackin...
Want empty parking at a Dodger game? Use the ICE app.
Also a great honeypot to query out all the users of this app and schedule them for a visit.
In other threads people have noted that the Dev's decision to be iOS only means Apple has a complete list of users but the Dev does not.
> The app does not collect or store any user data, which TechCrunch confirmed by analyzing the app’s network traffic as part of a test.
Waze has had a way to report speed traps for years. Where are those subpoenas? That at least is a loss of revenue.
This also assumes that this can be traced back to whoever reported it in the app, and it would be trivial just simply not log any PII on that
That assumes people were going to break the law in the first place by speeding... you can't be guilty of the crime of not helping someone else commit a crime.
Maybe if they had some way to prove that you knew it would help them avoid police in order to speed... but that seems like a pretty high bar of evidence would be required (and they would have to attempt to go after you in the first place).
>Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity
This reminds me of the musk elonjet case on twitter. Generally, if I were to follow a person (in public spaces) and constantly report their location, is that against the law? (If yes, could you clarify which law specifically?) If it is truly against the law here, does it make a difference that here the reports are non-individual in nature, ie reporting that ice is present, not that a particular ice officer is present.
Is there something special about doing the same thing for police/ice?
I think I remember this kind of scenario coming up in supreme court cases before but don't remember specifics, and google isn't helping.
But I admit I generally feel that my response is "So what?"
which seems to suggest this specific scenario has not been addressed by the supreme court, but has been addressed by various appeals courts, and it claims that 61% of the population lives in states that have affirmed this right.
Reporting on the presence on police is protected first amendment activity, but like I said, that’s just ink on paper.
It effectively means nothing now and yea, I wouldn’t download this app because of it