[lenkite]

I guess the developers will need to learn HTML+CSS and self host this app on a Russian server. Will be good to showcase the freedom of the web!

I am going to use this news to hit every lemming in the face - those who claim corpo-controlled walled gardens are good for you and grandma.

[james_marks]

I’m not sure who you’re expecting to convert. Most people- thinking of people like my parents- think any app that hinders police must be a bad thing.

The idea that something like ICEBlock is benevolent and doesn’t make the user a criminal by association just doesn’t register.

[gottorf]

Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?

[jjj123]

Why is that a bad thing? Was the Underground Railroad a bad thing?

[gottorf]

In a society with rule of law, it is generally understood that adhering to laws, even ones you don't personally like, is a good thing; and that it would be a bad thing to pick and choose which laws to follow and enforce.

I suppose you're making the argument that current US immigration law is unjust and immoral to begin with and therefore should be actively circumvented?

[mindslight]

> In a society with rule of law

We no longer have a society with the rule of law. The fish rots from the head. You can thank everyone who voted for the wanton criminal promising everything yet nothing but destruction, now creating cruel spectacle after cruel spectacle to distract from the fundamental fact that he should be in prison. And additionally his enablers in Congress and on the Supreme Council who've decided that our Constitution is worth less than toilet paper.

[JoshTriplett]

https://xkcd.com/3081/

Immigration is a veneer around "grab whoever we want with no due process".

[james_marks]

In the norms of its time, I am sure many thought it was a bad thing. Slave owners, certainly.

It’s only looking at it through today’s drastically different norms that it’s an obviously good thing.

[magicalist]

> Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?

Much like Miranda rights. Surely outright informing people in custody they have the right to remain silent is a bad thing, right? Actually, thinking about it now, there's a whole lot of things people have the right to do that make enforcing the law way harder than it needs to be.

Or maybe it's more important to maintain your rights as a human being and citizen, especially in the face of an overreaching executive branch willing to justify anything in order to overreach a little more.

[1659447091]

Only if subjectively cherry picking. VPN apps "help circumvent the law", I wouldn't call them a bad thing

[gottorf]

VPNs can serve a legitimate purpose, like shielding your traffic while using a public network. Seems to me the better technology analogue to ICEBlock is The Pirate Bay; maybe there's some flimsy pretext of it being used for a legitimate purpose, and maybe it's not outright illegal, but everyone knows that it's almost always used for an illegal purpose.

[1659447091]

> but everyone knows that it's almost always used for an illegal purpose

And I would argue that to the general population (non-HN/tech types) a VPN is the "Pirates Bay" of banned or ID law content. Porn ID law goes into effect, tens of thousands of people suddenly sign up for a VPN. If they thought of it as "shielding your traffic while using a public network" they wouldn't be signing up en masse when laws happen that they want to circumvent; they would have already been using it.

As for ICEBlock et al, knowing they are raiding in a part of a city that happens to be on someones running or cycling/walking route while being a darkly pigmented citizen is a valid use of the app to know to stay clear of the area. It should not be a thing, but it is.

[mindslight]

ICE is abducting citizens and generally stirring up chaos to make pretexts for escalating federal occupations. Anyone would be an utter fool to voluntarily put themselves in the presence of the new "American" Gestapo. And since the number of citizens is much larger than the number of iLlEgAlS (regardless of what the fearmongering on boomers' TVs would have you believe), an app to help avoid the lawless thugs is in the same exact category as a VPN.

[JuniperMesos]

I haven't heard about ICE detaining any US citizens who weren't either actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate anti-immigration-law-enforcement protest, or closely associating with actual illegal immigrants.

Detaining people who are actively interfering with ICE activity as part of a deliberate protest is something I think it's reasonable for any kind of police to be able to do - there's no reason why fellow citizens in a democracy should inherently privilege the violence protesters do in order to prevent the enforcement of a law over the violence that the police do to in order to carry out that enforcement, it all comes down to your political opinion of the law.

Detaining US citizens while in the process of detaining illegal immigrants also seems reasonable, since there's no way to tell if a suspected illegal immigrant claiming to be a US citizen is lying or not until law enforcement actually checks. This is no different than cops being able to arrest a person on suspicion of a crime and then let them go with no charges when they realize they were mistake, which is a power cops already have in our society.

[array_key_first]

Depends on the law and how it's enforced. You could argue the current status-quo is law breaking by law enforcement, so circumventing them is enforcing the law.

[lenkite]

With that attitude in 1775-76, the US wouldn't have won independence. Would you tug your forelock (and empty your purse) and Kneel to the King ?

[gottorf]

I assume your point is that not all laws are just only by virtue of being laws. I agree with this. And of course, not all lawbreaking is equal in severity. We all can tell that jaywalking is not the same as vehicular homicide. At the same time, we should also be able to agree that selective following and enforcement of laws is disparaging to the spirit of a nation of laws.

Do you find the current American immigration laws, and the enforcement thereof, to be unjust? Do you see it as your moral duty to abrogate them, and help others do so? If so, can you explain why?

[lenkite]

Yes, the current American immigration laws are dysfunctional and thus unjust - they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government.

Sure, you can kick out the criminals and gang-bangers - no issues there. But kicking out restaurant owners and other tax-payers is ridiculous.

Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises.

Sure, you can argue that Americans elected Trump and so he can do whatever he wants, but the cruelty has gone off the deep end now. The power given by his electoral win has not been applied judiciously.

From a constitutional point of view, I also see this App as simply representative of the right given by the First Amendment. If you block this app, one has set an extremely dangerous precedent.

[JuniperMesos]

> they do not offer a clear path to citizenship for folks who have been here for multiple decades, who are productive members of society, who have obeyed (non immigration) laws and paid tax to the American government.

The question of whether it is good to give a path to citizenship for people who immigrated illegally and have lived illegally in the US for many years is a major point of partisan political disagreement in the US. There are huge numbers of people who think that it is very bad that these illegal immigrants weren't arrested and deported many years ago, and want immigration enforcement to make up for the lax polcies of previous administrations, not give a path to citizenship to people who were by law not allowed to be present in the US to begin with.

> Also, unilaterally revoking Temporary Protected Status for folks is also a bridge too far. Those were originally issued by Obama for very valid reasons - the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and later humanitarian crises.

If you think that the presence of people given Temporary Protected Status many years ago by a previous president is bad for the united states, then not only do you want your elected officials to remove this temporary protected status, you probably want your legislators to repeal the law giving presidents the authority to grant this status at all. In any case, there are many voting citizens in the US who clearly do not believe it is a bridge too far, and want the president to revoke this status and not offer it in the future.

[JuniperMesos]

Depends on your opinion of the law that people are circumventing.

[Pesthuf]

Then the government will just force ISP DNS not to answer queries for the domain. That's how easy you can block 99% of users, which is good enough.

And eventually, when all our hardware is runs-software-and-settings-signed-by-approved-entity-only, that last 1% can't do anything about it either.

[drnick1]

Aren't mobile apps more or less already HTML+CSS?

A basic website should be easier to write and maintain than any app, because you don't have to maintain both the server and the client.