The creator of ICEBlock, an app that allows people in the US to report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, has dismissed threats from President Donald Trump's administration as “hot air” and said his creation has crossed an important threshold.
Joshua Aaron said that despite continuing threats of litigation, ICEBlock had exceeded one million downloads, adding that the app was growing its user base by at least 10,000 downloads each day.
Mr Aaron was speaking at the Hackers Of Planet Earth (Hope) symposium at Saint John's University in New York. Organisers allowed him to address the symposium remotely “due to the targeting of the speaker” by the White House.
“It's all been hot air,” he said at the event on Sunday. “They love to get in front microphone and they love to make threatening comments.”
The app aims to alert users to the presence of ICE officials within an 8km radius. It is powered by crowdsourced data, relying on people to report the location of ICE agents.
It also allows provides a notes section that gives users the option of adding context to the location and what they're witnessing.
Mr Aaron said Apple's iOS App Store initially denied the app when he submitted it for approval this year.
“It wasn't denied for any other reason than Apple went 'I don't know what to do with this, because nothing has ever been done like this before',” he told conference attendees. He said he went back and forth with Apple for several weeks, explaining that he wasn't monetising the app, collecting data or anything else that violated the company's policies.
“Their legal team looked into everything and said it was absolutely protected speech, and then they signed off on it.”
Mr Aaron said he thought it was unlikely that Apple would cave to pressure from the Trump White House to remove ICEBlock.
It is currently only available for iPhone and Mr Aaron said the privacy settings he deems necessary for ICEBlock are not yet possible on Android devices.
The app has continued to anger Mr Trump, who has made it a priority to increase funding for ICE, which has ramped up the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Critics say the agents arrest and deport people with little concern for their legal rights, including due process.
Mr Aaron, who is Jewish, previously told The National that he had decided to create the app after meeting Holocaust survivors and learning about Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has suggested that those promoting the app should face prosecution.
“We’re working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them because what they’re doing is actually encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activity operations,” she said in July.
Several weeks later, Mr Aaron's wife, who worked as a forensic auditor for the US Department of Justice in Austin, was fired from her job.
A representative for the department told The National at the time that Mr Aaron's wife Carolyn Feinstein had a “sizeable interest” in the app, and that the DOJ would “not tolerate” someone connected with a tool that encouraged threats against law enforcement.
Ms Feinstein told The National that she was not ruling out legal responses to her termination, and said she had nothing to do with the app's development.
ICEBlock's creator has continued to insist that the app is not unconstitutional or illegal, and has taken issue with the White House claims that it threatens the safety of law enforcement.
“Please note that the use of this app is for information and notification purposes only,” reads a disclaimer appearing throughout ICEBlock. Another warning states that the app should not be used “for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement”.
Mr Aaron compared ICEBlock to similar apps and tools which allow smartphone users to report police speed traps in the US.
“That's the same principle we have with ICEBlock,” he said, citing the legality of those apps.
Masked ICE agents have swept up thousands of migrants in a nationwide dragnet that has sometimes snared US citizens and green card holders. Current and former detainees have said they were kept in dire conditions in ICE custody, charges the agency denies.
When asked at the Hope conference if the Trump administration followed through with promises of litigation related to the app, Mr Aaron said the threats remained just threats.
He said that lawyers had reached out to him and agreed to represent ICEBlock pro bono.
“It's some of the finest legal minds I have ever come across,” he said, adding that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union are some of those taking part in his defence.
