Bondi previously claimed that ICEBlock’s service is not protected speech. “He’s giving a message to criminals where our federal officers are,” she said on Sean Hannity’s show. “And he cannot do that. And we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that’s not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted in June that ICEBlock “sure looks like obstruction of justice… 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.”
ICEBlock’s Bluesky account posted yesterday that Apple cited “objectionable content” in its message about the app removal. “The only thing we can imagine is this is due to pressure from the Trump Admin,” the social media post said. “We have responded and we’ll fight this!”
ICEBlock, which reportedly had over 1 million downloads, allowed people to report sightings of ICE officers and view reported ICE sightings within a five-mile radius. ICEBlock’s website says the app isn’t on Android because achieving the same “level of anonymity on Android is not feasible due to the inherent requirements of push notification services.”
Google removed Red Dot and other ICE-spotting apps from the Play Store, 404 Media reported.
Although popular, ICEBlock has been criticized by some who support its goals. “Because ICE sightings in the app aren’t verified in any way, it’s likely that most reports in the app aren’t actually ICE, even if they’re posted by people who mean well,” journalist and security engineer Micah Lee wrote last month. Lee also wrote that Aaron’s promise of anonymity isn’t “backed up with evidence,” and that he “chose to target only iOS, and not Android, because of a misunderstanding about how Android push notifications work.”
