"As the popularity of ICEBlock, an app where people can share sightings of immigration enforcement officials, has soared in recent days, Trump administration officials have threatened to prosecute its developer and CNN for reporting on the platform. But legal experts tell WIRED that there is nothing illegal about the app and prosecuting its creator would be unconstitutional.
The app, which launched in April, allows users to anonymously share the locations of ICE agents within a 5-mile radius. Joshua Aaron, the app’s developer, says ICEBlock is quickly growing, with more than 241,000 users. As of this writing, it’s the third-most-downloaded free iPhone app in the United States, after the Love Island app and ChatGPT.
US attorney general Pam Bondi was on Fox News Monday talking about ICEBlock, when she spoke directly about Aaron, the app’s sole developer. “We are looking at him,” she said. “And he better watch out.” Speaking alongside President Donald Trump outside a migrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida on Tuesday, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said the government was looking into prosecuting CNN.
“What they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities and operations and we’re going to actually go after them and prosecute them,” she said. “What they’re doing, we believe, is illegal.”
Image may contain Airport Neighborhood and Outdoors
Photograph Courtesy of ICEBlock
But legal experts tell WIRED that ICEBlock falls under protected speech. “That is as basic and uncontroversial a First Amendment principle as they come,” says Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “So, it's pretty shocking to see federal law enforcement officials suggesting that there's anything here to investigate.”"
