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Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

foxbusiness.com

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Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#61

Post by beeflet »

rekttrader wrote: post #37
saurik wrote: post #8

FWIW, everyone who claims that Apple fundamentally needs the centralized ability to control apps on their platforms "for everyone's safety" -- despite how that obviously and repeatedly makes them become patsies for governments all over the world to enforce their censorship regimes -- are complicit in this stuff (in addition, of course, to the people who build it at Apple...).

When’s your next court date against Apple? Let’s hope the California government can stand against this type of federal overreach.

I have no hope that the solution can be solved through lawfare. The ability of one company to control what the vast majority of people can do with their phones is unacceptable, regardless of what happens with this one app.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#62

Post by valleyer »

xvector wrote: post #47
valleyer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an Apple shareholder. My Apple shareholder interest is for Apple to preserve its reputation in the long term, including when Trump is long gone. Please stop repeating this "shareholders only care about short-term money" idea.

I'm also a shareholder and I'd say I'm pretty happy with Apple not needlessly getting involved in fights. The most important thing is not getting tariffed. Their reputation will be fine, no one but the terminally online are going to stop buying an iPhone because of this. Pretty sure most of their shareholders feel similarly.

I agree that most people will not hear about this app being removed. (Though note that it's being reported here in "normal people" news, not tech news.)

But it's far from the only way Cook has aligned himself with Trump in just the last few months. The dumb gold-glass plaque and the UK royal visit are two much more visible examples.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#63

Post by andsoitis »

saurik wrote: post #8

FWIW, everyone who claims that Apple fundamentally needs the centralized ability to control apps on their platforms "for everyone's safety" -- despite how that obviously and repeatedly makes them become patsies for governments all over the world to enforce their censorship regimes -- are complicit in this stuff (in addition, of course, to the people who build it at Apple...).

> are complicit in this stuff

I don’t know that that is fair.

This framing is designed to shame people into feeling guilty for their point of view, rather than their actions.

Being complicit means to be knowingly involved in or facilitating an illegal or wrongdoing act. In my books, it requires a level of participation that I don’t think your characterization meets.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#64

Post by Spivak »

mariodiana wrote: post #46

Back in 2011, Apple removed apps that crowdsourced warnings about DUI checkpoints. It remains Apple's policy today. According to Grok, "In March 2011, four Democratic senators—Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.)—sent letters to Apple, Google, and Research in Motion (BlackBerry's parent company) urging the removal of such apps […]" So, we have precedent wher…

And it was wrong then too. Preventing people from sharing publicly available, literally visible from the street, information has got to be the brightest line violation of 1A. I'm really over how much the supreme court—not just this supreme court—has let the government end run around the constitution using tricks like this. Especially with the tax and spend power. If the government couldn't pass a law doing X then the government shouldn't be allowed to achieve X by any means.

Congressional dysfunction isn't an excuse to allow the creation of a shadow government orchestrated by the executive but here we are.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#65

Post by toomuchtodo »

beeflet wrote: post #61
rekttrader wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When’s your next court date against Apple? Let’s hope the California government can stand against this type of federal overreach.

I have no hope that the solution can be solved through lawfare. The ability of one company to control what the vast majority of people can do with their phones is unacceptable, regardless of what happens with this one app.

Indeed. Web app, SMS, Signal, etc. Have to decouple from centralized systems.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#66

Post by toomuchtodo »

wstrange wrote: post #45

Reading the comments on that Fox site is depressing. A lot of hate for Apple, but for the wrong reasons (as in, completely missing the danger of centralized app stores..).

The median age for a Fox News viewer is 69, according to Nielsen.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#68

Post by no_wizard »

clarkmoody wrote: post #42
renewiltord wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For all the talk of Trump being Hitler, I never saw any real tax protest movement to defund the regime...

It’s simply not that easy to do, nor is it the best approach per se, as it’s wrought with foot guns everywhere. Frankly it’s a big risk from a number of angles, one of the most obvious is such a movement being co-opted by special interests

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#69

Post by charcircuit »

rekttrader wrote: post #33

So let’s level set… ICE can buy data from data brokers, and has active contracts with Cellubrite and Pegasus… but an organized opposition can only use rocks and spears. This isn’t a fascist regime at all.

[flagged]

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#70

Post by sandworm101 »

eviks wrote: post #58
sandworm101 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is certainly also not the first.

What was the first?

No idea, but i know that apple regularly responds to government takedown requests. This was from last year:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-removes-whatsapp-threads-from...

Apple even has a website about it: (there dozens of such takedowns each year.)

https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/app-removal-request...

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