This is great news at a time when the right of free speech is under attack in this country: a court has stopped the U.S. government from forcing Apple to take down ICE reporting apps from the App Store, due to it being a violation of the First Amendment, reports AppleInsider.
In February an Indiana man sued two top Trump officials for pressuring Apple to remove an ICE monitoring app he created to house hundreds of user-submitted videos of immigration enforcement, reported the Indy Star.
Eyes Up is a privacy-focused tool for documenting and mapping U.S. immigration enforcement activity, allowing users to securely record, upload, and share videos of ICE raids without needing an account. The app aimed to increase accountability for, say, 404 Media, but it was removed from the Apple App Store due to policies regarding “objectionable content” and alleged risks to officer safety
Apple removed Eyes Up and similar apps such as ICEBlock from its App Store in October. This came after months of take-down threats from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and other federal officials.
App creator Mark Hodges of Brown County told the Indy Star that Apple told him it received information from law enforcement and removed the app because it could be used to harm officers by providing their location — mirroring claims by Bondi and Noem that these apps put federal agents at risk of violence.
However, Hodges and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, say the move is a violation of their constitutional rights.
The Foundation, a First Amendment watchdog, filed a lawsuit Feb. 11 on behalf of Hodges and Kassandra Rosado, a Chicago woman who started a now-taken down ICE tracking Facebook page that amassed over 100,000 members.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, alleges the government violated their rights through coercing private companies, Meta and Apple, to censor protected speech. It said the government’s intrusion constitutes a violation of not just their First Amendment rights, but also those who use those channels.
“Americans typically value the whole idea of seeing is believing. We want to see things with our own eyes. We want to come to our own conclusions,” Hodges told the IndyStar. “The government recognizes this, and quite frankly, I believe they’re afraid of that.”
In February, a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) took aim at the U.S. government over the right to report the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
The preliminary finding, issued on April 17, lands in FIRE’s favor, with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice being prevented from coercing Apple and Facebook into removing apps and interfering with communications.
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