[laserdancepony]

Why should a country tolerate an information system designed to circumvent the enforcement of the law, no matter how you individually feel about that laws. We boot fraudulent or illegal apps all the time.

What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

"Rules for thee, not for me."

[gruez]

>What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

Do you think apps like waze should also be illegal? What possible reason would you want location of speed trap except to speed with impunity? Moreover whether it "benefits criminals" is irrelevant here, because the current legal standard is imminent lawless action[1]. Otherwise that would be license to ban all manner of materials, from anarchists cookbook to DRM circumvention tools.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

[CjHuber]

So how do you explain that the government of France for example publishes the exact location of all speed cameras online?

[DoctorOW]

> Why should a country tolerate an information system designed to circumvent the enforcement of the law

This is the party line, but in practice ICE is not acting 100% within lines of the law. Unfortunately, it's possible for politicians, and even entire government agencies to lie. The evidence shows that ICE has both failed to enforce the law, and even follow the law themselves. This puts ICEBlock within other crime mapping or offender identifying tools.

[CamperBob2]

What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

There's an unbounded downside to allowing government too much power, including the power to act unobserved. Empowering criminals also has obvious drawbacks, but they're limited in scope.

"Rules for thee, not for me."

Those sympathetic to the American political right don't get to use that saying anymore, not even ironically. Not because it's offensive, but because they've effectively turned it into a tautology.

[samus]

Such apps can be forbidden by law, and then this would be quite unambiguous. This is criticizing a company bending over backwards to what the government wants. Not really surprising, since none of these companies supports free speech for the sake of it, but to further its business, but still.

[MichaelZuo]

“ bending over backwards” seems to be just an opinion, or collection of opinions…?

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but clearly there has to be some credible argument why opinion X is better than opinion Y (held by company decision makers).

Assuming it’s just automatically better isn’t productive.

[potato3732842]

God forbid laws that don't have strong support among the people be nigh on impossible to enforce effectively.

I have zero problem with fed-cops not being able to "do their job" in unfriendly jurisdictions without bringing serious amounts of force with them.

[jdgoesmarching]

So no country should tolerate Signal? If you’re someone who believes that ICE is only enforcing real laws and innocent people don’t need to be concerned, please get in touch with my bridge sales department.

[mcphage]

> What about an app that reports every LEO (not just ICE) around you? What would that accomplish except benefit criminals?

What if the real criminals were ICE all along?

[haskellshill]

What if drug dealers are good guys actually?