ICE and the Smartphone Panopticon

Both that removal and Google's removal of other ICE tracking apps on the basis that a government paramilitary enforcement force (much less one involved in executing an ethnic cleansing) constituted a “vulnerable group” goes beyond “dangerous precedent”, a description which implies that an act is not harmful in itself but only in what it may normalize down the road.

What an astounding and completely unforeseeable surprise, the old "they're a private company, they can do what they want [and if they are pressured by the government through back-channels and veiled threats, that's fine too]" is coming back around. Never thought that would happen ever.

> This sets a dangerous precedent

Quite a lot of things this statement applies to lately.

> This sets a dangerous precedent

This is a dangerous president.

> This sets a dangerous precedent for selective enforcement of ToS really

This is selective enforcement of ToS?

It's like saying "pardoning a human trafficker sets a dangerous precedent for pardoning human traffickers".

> This sets a dangerous precedent for selective enforcement of ToS really

It’s only a dangerous precedent if you believe your opponents will ever gain power. If you believe your political opponents will never have power again, then who cares about precedent?

I think they are different in that:

1. People are not harassing traffic enforcement, like they are harassing immigration enforcement.

2. Waze's information incentivizes people to follow traffic laws more deligently than they would which results in safer driving conditions for other people driving. ICEBlock did not have the benefit of making people follow immigration law better, or turn themselves in faster.

it goes as far as the king or his loyal enablers think it needs to go. the slope is very short, actually, because the moment you do that you'll have a target on your back and might receive a visit from a federal law enforcement agency.

https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

This was written re: IP law, but applies to your comment as well.

I’m going to guess if you opened a ticket the writer would provide it as a permissive licence.

As a person from an authoritarian country, I should say that firearms mean much less than coordination. Organized group of 100 with no guns is stronger than 10000 armed but poorly coordinated people.

In other words, a "well regulated Militia" in the Second Amendment is more important than "bear arms".

But no one talks about creating a Militia (yet) for some reason.

Just because the government is enforcing laws you don't like does not make it oppression. Imagine if everyone started using firearms in response to laws they considered oppressive, e.g. business owners who found regulation oppressive might say "come and enforce it". You would probably refer to this as "undermining democracy" if it was a law that you actually agreed with.

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>> only the tools that exist independent of Big Tech seem like safe bets for dissent

The problem is that those tools will never be easy for the general public to use, and the big data problem requires the genpop to be onboard. I honestly don't see a good way out of this. At a certain point in the evolution of any authoritarian state, those apps or devices which run them will just be banned and punishable to possess. In America, we're just running up against the outskirts of what hard power can do to silence and intimidate people.

> In other words, [0] somebody in Apple declared that ICE agents, on duty, operating in public, executing federally-authorized violence, have somehow qualified as a "targeted group" just like transgender people.

Comparing ICE agents to transgender people might be the most inflammatory thing you could say to them or their masters.

Allowing users to sIdEloAde apps will compromise user security and privacy. Furthermore, Apple has always stood in solidarity with marginalized people and will continue to do so.

/s

> Tomorrow it will surveillance[sic] and arrest of politicians

And the example you linked to support this non-sequitur is of a person indicted for obstructing government law enforcement?

I think Biden administration's spying on US Senators[1] creates a much more dangerous precedent.

[1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/biden-fb...

This may be a common, valid political position, but it's not the style of participation we're wanting on HN. The guidelines make it clear that HN exists for curious conversation, and we're hoping for this to be a place where people can discuss difficult topics with sensitivity and nuance. In the very best-case scenario maybe we can work together to find new ideas for addressing age-old societal challenges like this. In this form, such an argument is repetitive flamebait and makes HN seem more like a political rally than a constructive discussion. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines in future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

They do without scanning your and my social media profiles. You download the CBP one app after showing up to the border and handing over your passport from your home country which they confiscate before letting you in. They also dont need to throw you in a cage or deport you too an African country you have no connection to either. These aren't deportations it's terrorism.

What a deceptive thing to say. I don't doubt that you know very well that every US administration in the past 50 years agrees with what you said. The thing people don't like is goons dressed in military attire, and covering their faces zip-tying children, and US citizens, then disappearing them without trial or due process.

If they simply obtained warrants, arrested people, treated them with dignity, let them have a trial, and then deport them, then the only objection would be why $50B is being wasted on rounding up non-violent migrants, or why the business owners that hire them aren't in prison as well.

You can't claim that your goal is to enforce the law, and then find pesky little things like due process, and warrants inconvenient.

Do they just get to unilaterally trample over rights to do this? Any impediment should be removed at any cost?

Most of these apps are akin to filming police; protected speech in my book. I won't say anything bad about surveillance in the streets/online, but it's upsetting that they abuse their power to prevent monitoring and reporting their abuse of power

At the cost of misidentifying innocent citizens and deporting them? These surveillance technologies have way too many false positives.

Pray you never have to flee your country to escape violence or persecution. Most of these people are just desperate.

So why are American citizens getting detained?

one would argue that an immigration system that is actively hostile towards people who follow the rules (downright arcane) results in this issue. even a fairly skilled h1b worker (say a doctor working in rural area) has no real pathway to citizenship, let alone a temporary farm labor... i am not condoning the illegal immigration, just pointing out the root cause. we wouldn't be in this situation if we had a true reformed immigration system.

And people should have the technology to monitor this kind of overreach.