ICEBlock, a new app that allows users to submit information about the location of ICE officers spotted in their community, has shot to the number one spot on the Apple App Store. And it’s largely thanks to publicity from the White House and President Donald Trump’s angry band of fascists.
The ICEBlock app was created by developer Joshua Aaron, who told CNN that he wanted to create something to fight back against the deportations he saw happening in Los Angeles. The city has been terrorized by masked thugs in recent weeks who are abducting people off the streets as part of Trump’s plan to purge the country of anyone deemed insufficiently white.
Trump was taking a tour of a new concentration camp for immigrants in Florida on Tuesday when he and Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, were asked by reporters about the app. They threatened to go after the news network in typical MAGA fashion.
“We’re working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them for that,” Noem said of CNN. “Because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations. And we’re going to actually go after them and prosecute them with the partnership of Pam if we can. Because what they’re doing, we believe, is illegal.”
Pam is a reference to Pam Bondi, Trump’s extremist Attorney General. And while Trump seemed to agree with Noem’s call for CNN to be prosecuted for reporting on the existence of an app, he seemed even more preoccupied with his recent illegal bombing of Iran.
“And they may be prosecuted also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran,” Trump said. “They were given totally false reports. It was totally obliterated. And our people have to be celebrated, not come home and say, what do you mean we didn’t hit the target?”
CNN, along with other news outlets, reported that Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities may have only delayed the country’s ability to produce a nuke (if it wanted to) by a few months.
Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, appeared on Fox Business on Tuesday to complain about the app as well. “I just can’t believe we’re in a place where a TV network like CNN is talking about this app and educating people on the existence of this app,” Homan told Stuart Varney.
“This is a dangerous job,” Homan continued. “And this app is going to give the bad guy a heads up that we’re coming. Which means more bad guys are going to escape arrest, which makes this country less safe, which is a public safety issue.”
Homan continued that he was sick of people vilifying ICE agents as Nazis and that he wants something to be done by the U.S. Department of Justice.
ICE agents are indeed terrorizing communities across the country, though it’s not always clear that they’re federal agents. They often storm into a neighborhood with their faces covered, carrying high-powered weapons and refusing to identify themselves. There have been several incidents now where people have claimed to be ICE in attempts to rob other people using the exact same tactics.
Gizmodo emailed ICE to ask if the app has made it more difficult to arrest workers and separate families. The agency directed us to a statement posted online by ICE acting director Todd M. Lyons who called the app “reckless and irresponsible.”
“Advertising an app that basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs is sickening,” Lyons said in the statement. “My officers and agents are already facing a 500% increase in assaults, and going on live television to announce an app that lets anyone zero in on their locations is like inviting violence against them with a national megaphone.”
That 500% increase is bullshit, of course, as the Washington Post recently explained. When agents arrested New York City comptroller Brad Lander, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement claiming that he would be charged with “assaulting law enforcement.” But the incident was captured on video from several angles and shows Lander didn’t assault anyone. Lander ultimately wasn’t charged with anything after getting manhandled and thrown in jail. When Gizmodo followed up with ICE to ask for evidence of its claim of a 500% increase in assaults on officers, an unsigned email said it was actually 700%. No evidence was provided.
“CNN is willfully endangering the lives of officers who put their lives on the line every day and enabling dangerous criminal aliens to evade U.S. law. Is this simply reckless ‘journalism’ or overt activism?” Lyons continued in ICE’s prepared statement.
It’s not illegal to report on the existence of an app, of course. But Trump and ICE are operating so far outside the bounds of the law that it’s not out of the question that these guys could go after CNN for writing about ICEBlock. Or they could go after Gizmodo, for that matter. Because you’re currently reading an article about the existence of an app. And that’s apparently a very dangerous thing to do right now in Trump’s America.
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