[HN Gopher] ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sight...
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       ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings
        
       Author : exiguus
       Score  : 109 points
       Date   : 2025-07-02 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
        
       | shadowtree wrote:
       | Perfect for a real life DDOS.
       | 
       | 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.
        
         | woodruffw wrote:
         | FTA:
         | 
         | > 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.
        
           | octo888 wrote:
           | It's just one auto update away from changing
        
       | csto12 wrote:
       | I think it's important to take a second and reflect that in 2025
       | America we need an app like this at all.
        
         | GuinansEyebrows wrote:
         | if this app is the "hmm" moment for anybody, god help us.
        
         | pyuser583 wrote:
         | Growing up reading cyberpunk, this is both expected and
         | welcome.
        
         | herbst wrote:
         | Whenever I hear anything about the US in the last months it
         | sounds like from a bad movie.
        
         | pooty wrote:
         | You don't need the app.
         | 
         | Ice are the good guys
         | 
         | The left think evil is good and good if evil nowadays
        
         | helixten wrote:
         | 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.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44445180
        
       | vorpalhex wrote:
       | A lot of folks about to discover that interfering with law
       | enforcement is in fact a crime.
        
         | Bolwin wrote:
         | Police reporting is already common in like waze though
        
         | mingus88 wrote:
         | 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
        
         | lovich wrote:
         | 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
        
         | gopher_space wrote:
         | Interfering with these specific people is also a civic duty, so
         | I'll need to draw inspiration from Thoreau on decisions like
         | this.
        
         | marky1991 wrote:
         | 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?"
        
           | marky1991 wrote:
           | I googled some more and found this,
           | https://firstamendmentwatch.org/wp-
           | content/uploads/2020/06/C...
           | 
           | 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.
        
       | _aavaa_ wrote:
       | Hong Kong waves from the past.
       | 
       | 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...
        
         | perihelions wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678 ( _" Apple
         | Removes HKmap.live from the App Store"_, 893 comments)
        
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       (page generated 2025-07-02 23:01 UTC)