The purpose of the app is to help illegal immigrants evade arrest, and to help “activists” assault and impede ICE. All illegal things.

“Kidnapped” lol. When someone is arrested for murder are they “kidnapped”?

The main difference is that speed traps and cameras etc are deterrents. They’re supposed to make people slow down, that’s the point of signposting them. Knowing where they are makes people slow down. Their existence is to try and stop people from breaking the law.

Knowing where ICE agents are doesn’t stop people from being in the country illegally.

And yes, again, intent matters. No matter how cute people think they’re being by pretending it’s not meant for X, not everyone is stupid and oblivious enough to fall for it.

Haven't followed it much

Oh lord, where do I even start? It's an entire shit show. And not the usual political shit show. A really scary one that's truly heartbreaking. I don't even really feel safe talking about it

Has to be shit is glowing

Fair point. I neglected to consider that we are talking about an app specifically for Americans.

if they can track those who are against them, it's easier to eliminate dissidents

There's one major problem with what you're saying. It's that ICE is actively jailing people without giving them due process. As an entity it is assuming guilt which is in direct conflict with the constitution. Because it's violating the rights of the people it is no longer a government agency acting for the people, and because it's actively breaking the law it is not protected. If you can't understand that without due process they can and possibly will arrest you and deport you somewhere regardless of your constitutional right to reside in the US then you are in fact missing the main point of this app and there's a reason people are down-voting you.

Also, you're making a lot of assumptions about what the app is for, and still posit no actual proof of your position. You have made an assumption here and when confronted about your opinion based on that assumption you have continued to double down instead of even considering the alternatives.

And speed traps aren't intended to be a detterant. I don't know why you think that's the case but in fact they are set up specifically to catch speeders. The deterrence is a bonus. But a lot of police departments make money for their municipality via speeding tickets. So don't try to play like we can just ignore this so you can feel like you've won.

You’ve made a potential error in underestimating just how horrible some peoples’ lives are and how filled with hatred they are over that fact.

What fact? People's lives are horrible BECAUSE of ICE. They're so horrible that I considered that nobody would be "on the fence" because either you drank the Fear-Of-Crime Kool-Aid or you are horrified at what ICE agents are doing to children and poor people. The entire reason there are people who don't think ICE needs to be abolished right now is because Fox News and other right-wing grifters have pumped out propaganda making it look like there is a "crime wave" like it's the Reagan Era, and people living in the Suburbs not knowing what the outside world is like. Not only do they choose to portray a crime wave, they have to do it, because otherwise people would see their president as the power-hungry maniac he is rather than a savior of order. No riot is actually making people miserable, only the police-reported, sensationalist coverage of protests.

This is really what drives so much of politics in the world–disgruntled people with no future who choose to hate others who have nothing to do with it.

That's just the American Suburbs. I hope American states can secede to change this. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, there is a high-speed rail being built. This is not driven by disgruntled people, people with no future, or people who choose not to hate others who have nothing to do with it. Neither is Iran defending itself from an imperialist regime, nor Australia having their left-wing Labour party completely outdo the right-wing Liberal party. America is the villain here.

Using the app becomes obstruction or terrorism. People who do that will also get sent to camps.

It seems far fetched but it's really not. After all, nobody would step to stop either of those things from happening.

That expression LOL
Obstruction of whatever cops do, OK.
But usually it has nothing to do with justice.

Lets build more ICE-tracking apps

The app merely informs of locations, you choosing to add all that bullshit to it is your own hangup. Citizens who don't want to be abducted by power tripping unidentified masked men - who've already been south to be violent and aggressive to random people regardless of status are also avoiding those areas. That's not illegal.

ICE are the ones breaking the law.

So you ignored every word of my comment to just say whatever idiotic thought popped into your head. Cool

Yes. When unidentified masked thugs who are not even in a coherent uniform show up to start beating in citizens and throw them into a van, that's just abduction.

How are the various NATURAL BORN CITIZENS who've been kidnapped in any way in violation of immigration law? Explain that one to me? The people with green cards who've been trafficked out of the country despite having all the paperwork saying they can be there?

You're falsely claiming these people are being accused of a crime, but there isn't one to accuse them of. That's abduction.

It's really hard for me to understand how iOS is better in this sense. The only way to get this app is via the app store and the ONLY way to use the app store is be registering yourself with apple. Seems to me that you are tracked either way.

IMHO the devs probably wrote this in Swift and just don't have experience working with android. Whole thing/story is just off IMO.

I'm really just sceptical about the whole thing being closed source really.

Maybe they're looking for pretense for more authoritarian action on digital services/internet. We already have a bill in process that opens the door for government censorship of the internet right? They could be priming the public to be ok with them stepping in to shut apps/sites down.