ICE Tracking App Surges to #1 After Trump Admin Criticism

After the Trump administration threatened to prosecute CNN over their report on the ICEBlock app, the ICE-tracking app surged to #1.

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After the Trump administration threatened to prosecute CNN over their report on ICEBlock, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity-tracking app surged to #1 on Tuesday.

The ICEBlock app soared overnight, becoming the top downloaded app from the Apple app store on Tuesday morning, according to their Blue Sky profile.

The technology experts at The Verge noted that it was at the top spot on Tuesday and dropped down to the third spot Wednesday morning, and pointed out that a message “within ICEBlock says ‘it is not to be used for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement,’ according to CNN.”

That didn’t stop Noem from saying they are working with DOJ to see if they can prosecute CNN. Donald Trump added that he feels CNN should be prosecuted for what he called "false reports on the attack on Iran."

The app was launched in April they say, in response to Trump’s ICE raids. CNN reported that the app currently has more than 20,000 users, “many of whom are in Los Angeles, where controversial, large-scale deportation efforts have taken place.”

“When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back,” (app developer Joshua) Aaron told CNN, adding that the deportation efforts feel, to him, reminiscent of Nazi Germany. “We’re literally watching history repeat itself.”

The ICEBlock app works using the collective intelligence of its users to gather and share data about ICE sightings.

The app says it is a “completely anonymous crowdsourced platform” that does not store any data about its users, thereby protecting the users who make reports.

“Modeled after Waze but for ICE sightings, the app ensures user privacy by storing no personal data, making it impossible to trace reports back to individual users. Available exclusively for iOS devices, ICEBlock empowers communities to stay informed about ICE presence within a 5-mile radius while maintaining their anonymity through real-time updates and automatic deletion of sightings after four hours,” the app writes.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, better known for her provocative poses with guns and shooting of her family dog, called CNN’s coverage of ICEBlock an “obstruction of justice” on Elon Musk’s platform of misinformation previously known as Twitter.

“This sure looks like obstruction of justice. Our brave ICE law enforcement face a 500% increase in assaults against them. If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Noem wrote on June 30th above a CNN report on the crowd-sourced app.

The Trump administration calling anyone else out over “obstruction of justice” is… perhaps best seen as SEO manipulation given Trump’s history with what appeared to legal experts to be obstruction of justice during multiple investigations into his activities.

Now when someone Googles Trump obstruction of justice, they will get the accusation against CNN instead of the president’s long, disturbing history of behaving a lot like a mafia boss when it comes to obstructing justice.

Tech billionaires keep trying to steal our rights and privacy, but creative individual tech experts can fight back. This time, they created ICEBlock, which is an effort to protect women, children and men from traumatic seizure by armed, masked people who do not identify themselves and then take people off to places unknown for “detention.”

What do you think about the ICE Block app? Join the conversation in the comments below.