Politics
JUST IN: Apple Removes ICE Tracking Apps After Surge In Violence
Apple made the decision Thursday to remove ICEBlock — a widely used tracking tool to monitor the movements of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, — from its App Store after the Justice Department formally raised concerns over safety to federal agents.
At the direction of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, senior DOJ officials asked Apple to remove ICEBlock from its App Store. The request came just days after a gunman targeted ICE agents at a facility in Dallas, killing two detainees before he turned the gun on himself.
“We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so,” Bondi told Fox News.
“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed. This Department of Justice will continue making every effort to protect our brave federal law enforcement officers, who risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe.”
ICEBlock, developed by Austin-based tech entrepreneur Joshua Aaron, has more than one-million users. Aaron claimed in a statement to CBS News that the app is designed to help “avoid confrontations with law enforcement, not to put agents at risk. “This is simply, I saw something in public and I am alerting other users that I saw something so that they can avoid that confrontation,” Aaron said.
“If you understand how ICEBlock works, it’s ludicrous to think it had anything to do with finding the location of ICE agents. He attacked an ICE detention facility. We don’t need to know from an app that police officers are at the police department,” he added. Aaron further told the outlet that he was not planning on shutting down the app, claiming that he was seeking to “protect” illegal aliens.
Federal officials have disputed Aaron’s description of the app’s services. “It’s no different than giving a hitman the location of their intended target. This is exactly what we saw happen in Dallas,” Marcos Charles, acting head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, said during a press conference last week.
Controversy over publicly available ICE tracking apps intensified late last month when investigators confirmed that the suspect in the Dallas attack.
The gunman in the Dallas ICE facility attack inscribed anti-ICE messages on shell casings
“The evidence is clear that this was intended as an assault on ICE personnel who come to work everyday to do their job,” Charles said shortly after the shooting. “Violent rhetoric has led to an over 1000% increase in assaults on ICE officers, and it has to stop.”
Apple confirmed in a statement Thursday that it had removed the apps and others like it from its App Store. “We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store,” Apple said.
In a statement of his own, Aaron said he was “incredibly disappointed by Apple’s actions today.”
“Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move,” Aaron said. “Apple has claimed they received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock served to harm law enforcement officers. This is patently false.”
“We are determined to fight this with everything we have,” the app creator added. “Our mission has always been to protect our neighbors from the terror this administration continues to reign down on the people of this nation.”
