The DOJ told Newsweek: "For several weeks, the Department of Justice inquired into this former employee's activities and discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock. ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location. This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers."
In addition to the obvious problems of the US government illegally firing one family-member solely to punish a different family-member's constitutionally-protected free-speech... I'd also highlight these aren't even the same part of the federal government. ICE is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), whereas she is/was employed as a forensic accountant at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
To make an throw-back reference, this like the DOJ firing one of their forensic accountants just because her spouse gave out t-shirts at a convention with DeCSS source code on them and pissed off the Copyright Office.
Happy for her. She can retire early with an excellent settlement or get another job she is passionate about without worrying about money. It's pretty despicable, but I think in the end it will turn out for the better.
- ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture
- while endangering the lives of ICE officers
- by disclosing their location.
- This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement
or law enforcement officers."
Reality speak:
- ICEBlock is an app used by citizens who reasonably want to
1) be aware of what their government does
2) provide the only known oversight of ICE agents
3) avoid areas where risky, hostile militaristic patrols operate
- The DOJ will not tolerate citizen empowerment that it does not
expressly approve of.
- This DOJ will disingenuously reframe any attempt at oversight
of LEO as "a threat to law enforcement officers" and will freely
deploy government resources as revenge against those citizens.
According to this article, she self-reported to the DOJ ("Feinstein says that she took it upon herself to inform the DOJ of her relationship with Aaron after the backlash first kicked off more than three weeks ago.”). The people from the DOJ who contacted her initially were looking into ethical issues ("Within a week, she said that she was then contacted by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which said it was reaching out on behalf of an ethics committee.”).
She told the investigators that she didn’t have anything much to do with the app ("They asked me about my relationship to the ICEBlock App,” she said. “And I informed them in so many words that I really didn’t have any relationship or involvement in the app, I was married to the creator.”) However, she also admits to the journalist that she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company.
The Newsweek article on HN seems to have a lot less info than this one, though both have pretty inflammatory headlines.
Go ahead and see with your own eyes what a lot of HN commenters really think about other humans. It’s pretty plain to see and very sad. They’re the folks flagging everything.
No, the flagging brigade on HN is largely composed of a small minority of ultra right wing tech bros who had their wet dream come true when Trump got elected again.
Also, HN's algorithms have been set up to encourage and abet such behaviour and then blame the 'algorithm'. Not surprising given who owns this site.
13 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 35.8 ms ] threadThe DOJ told Newsweek: "For several weeks, the Department of Justice inquired into this former employee's activities and discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock. ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location. This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers."
To make an throw-back reference, this like the DOJ firing one of their forensic accountants just because her spouse gave out t-shirts at a convention with DeCSS source code on them and pissed off the Copyright Office.
According to this article, she self-reported to the DOJ ("Feinstein says that she took it upon herself to inform the DOJ of her relationship with Aaron after the backlash first kicked off more than three weeks ago.”). The people from the DOJ who contacted her initially were looking into ethical issues ("Within a week, she said that she was then contacted by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which said it was reaching out on behalf of an ethics committee.”).
She told the investigators that she didn’t have anything much to do with the app ("They asked me about my relationship to the ICEBlock App,” she said. “And I informed them in so many words that I really didn’t have any relationship or involvement in the app, I was married to the creator.”) However, she also admits to the journalist that she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company.
The Newsweek article on HN seems to have a lot less info than this one, though both have pretty inflammatory headlines.
Is this because readers don’t want to be reminded how absurd the world outside has become?
Users flagged the post as breaking the guidelines or otherwise not belonging on HN.
Moderators sometimes also add [flagged] (though not usually on submissions), and sometimes turn flags off when they are unfair.
Also, HN's algorithms have been set up to encourage and abet such behaviour and then blame the 'algorithm'. Not surprising given who owns this site.