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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Is it illegal for Americans to track their authorities or are the corporations all doing this quite voluntarily?

It's the equivalent of posting on social media that you just saw some ice agents at such and such an address. Completely protected speech... At least it is unless the Roberts court shadow dockets it.

IANAL but I research this stuff quite a bit.

Doxxing of federal employees' personal information in certain circumstances is technically illegal (but many people think it isn't): https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/doxing-arrested/

But publishing location information of where authorities happen to be in public at a certain time... I don't think is actually illegal. The Apple app author also believes he is 100% legal and is seeking to go to court over this.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/science-technology/2025/10/03/lega...

Another point I forgot to make (can't edit anymore)...

It could possibly be found that the government illegally pressured or "coerced" a company like Apple/Google to remove "speech" (an app) they didn't want.

https://robertslaw.org/1st-amendment-protection-against-usin...

Not illegal, not exactly voluntary either. Companies are caving to threats from the Trump administration

It’s perfectly legal, but also perfectly legal for a corporation to choose not to sell or distribute a particular software application.

In a free market the consumer always has a choice between companies doing censorship and companies doing censorship.

How many times are we going to re-litigate this? Until there’s a law requiring side loading options, you have the web.

Everyone here was totally fine with the “gay cure” apps being pulled.

Most people also seemed to celebrate Parler and Gab being pulled/denied. It was perfectly obvious that the same logic could be used to do things like this, but many people seem to be totally surprised or oblivious.

The difference is the government's hands in such actions

We've had multiple leaks and reports that the government was directly involved in these censorship cases prior to January 20, 2025. So no, that's not the difference.

On this very forum, people (not you) argued it was perfectly acceptable because the government was only "asking", not requiring.

Unfortunately, the civil libertarians have been drowned out for years by people who believed that it was right to do whatever it took to shut down right-wingers/misinformation/disinformation/hate speech/Russian propaganda/conspiracy theorists/Hunter laptop posters/whatever. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they are shocked and outraged, even as they built the tools, institutions, mechanisms, and political support used to do this.

there's a difference between not allowing very harmful hatespeech and saying something like "I saw a cop at this address"

yes, the web exists, and while it's not functionally preventing all possible phone access to the app, it's increasing the barrier to entry in a way that meaningfully massively reduces its use

“I saw an abortion provider at this address”

the difference is there is an implicit call to violence there and it's private people, not representatives of the government.

the idea behind the ICE agent tracking is to avoid them. you don't need to avoid abortion providers, they're not sneaking up on people on the street and giving them abortions.

someone doesnt need ICE tracking apps to attack ICE agents, they're wearing vests with giant "ICE" text on them. that someone allegedly misused the app in this way is like saying we need to ban knives because someone used one to stab someone else

I have no problem saying that good things are good and bad things are bad. The idea that nobody is allowed to have content preferences is ridiculous and not actually a thing that anybody believes.

Yep and one day maybe we'll get one on mobile devices.

Today isn't that day alas.

Not sure you intended the double positive but I think it’s funny and apt.

Intended.

It is not legal for the government to induce a corporation to do that with threats of unrelated, bogus litigation, enforcement fishing expeditions, interference with the legally required government contracting process, or the like. Since the Trump administration has a consistent, well-established pattern of doing all those things, we can all assume that's what's going on.

When it's removed due to the chilling effect of the government attacking our first amendment rights this gets murkier. Do you think they make this choice if the regime weren't going after their political enemies?

Yes, I believe they would have removed this app during the Obama and Biden administrations if it had become associated with political assassination.

This hasn't happened.

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