This is one of those articles about activism that to me just reads as gatekeeping. The creator of the app clearly isn’t a bastion of knowledge about this stuff but he’s taking on incredible personal risk to try and do something. While it might just be theater, I don’t disagree about that, theater is still great at getting the word out and building a movement.
Damn, that sucks. If it ever came to android I was going to use it to silence the weekend lawnmowers and leaf blowers in my neighborhood. Boomers got too old to do it themselves but still insist on having every Saturday filled with machine noise.
As a non-American this is something I don't understand, so maybe someone with more context can explain. Why is this app even needed/desired?
As far as I can see there are two possibilities here: 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported, or 2) ICE is deporting illegal immigrants which don't have permission to be in the country so they shouldn't be in the country. In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason, and surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law like in so many corrupt countries around the world? Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US?
> As far as I can see there are two possibilities here
Most of it is (1), but even in the case of (2) the problem is that this is an outlaw organization which is not following any established law or process.
Legally, deporting people who are here out of status is fine. But to do that properly, you'd have to establish proof of who they are and why they are out of status, in front of an immigration court. ICE bypasses all that and just sends masked unidentified thugs to the street to grab people left and right and disappear them into secret detention centers with no access to lawyers. About as illegal behavior as it gets.
I fail to understand how this app could help anybody... beyond the false-positive issue, how is this not a tool that no matter how it's used it will cause more chaos on any possible situation. Nearly on every case scenario this will be more likely to get people in danger.
ICE would be perfectly happy Tiananmen Squaring 300 million people if they could just deport a single permanent resident with a meek opinion on Palestinian genocide. Good luck stopping that with an app.
It's theatre by people who don't understand how their own government works, nor cares to learn. So they look for shortcuts with ineffective protest theatre so they can pat themselves on the shoulder for "doing something about it"
Meanwhile their government continues rightward unimpeded.
I'm not a fan of the skirting of due process from the administration, but I also do not believe in obstructing them or outing officers to the end of hurting them in the personal and professional lives. There is lack of acknowledgement of reality from left leaning people that one of Trumps big campaign items was getting rid of illegal aliens and he won on this, it must be acknowledged or you are part of the problem.
My first point and last point can co-exist and did largely under the Obama administration(which held the deportation record prior to Trump). But what really intrigues me is why are they doing this in such a fast tracked way. All I can figure is they think a Democrat may win in the next election, and they don't want these people held up in courts so it can be reversed, they want them purged.
This is a disingenuous article that makes the author sound both pompous and jealous of iceblock’s success. Each fact presented proves that this is not activism theater, and that the author is the one play-acting.
This original creator is absolutely in over his head and now finds himself in a tough spot. Any help he is offered could be just as malicious as the false reporting and fake reviews. If the author actually gives a shit, they should try and educate the creator. Or maybe just focus on building an android app?
Some difficult questions for sympathizers of illegal immigrants.
1) Why is this app allowed on the App Store? It’s helping illegal activity within the borders of a sovereign nation.
2) Nations are allowed to determine who comes and doesn’t to their countries as per their right to rule as a sovereign nation and their national security interests. Nobody vetted the 11-13 million people who poured over the border. It’s impossible to imagine that democratic institutions will not change their behavior if you get an influx of 11-13 million people, who then have children who become citizens. I mean that votes are just a counting game. So if you get more voters who are anti-abortion but previously you were all pro-choice, then that changes culture. So why shouldn’t countries get to decide who comes and goes?
3) Why shouldn’t countries have their own culture? Or not want to be multicultural? If there are laws that prevent racism or discrimination against different religions, then that’s not multiculturalism, just civility. Why is assimilation unacceptable for someone who moves in?
4) If you want to talk about the injustices of colonialism, then note that a) there are many countries that overcame those barriers despite similar histories to the country of origin of these illegal immigrants. Look at India, for instance.
And b) not all illegal immigrants are more poor countries, but from thriving economies like China, India, Mexico or Brazil. Why is it justified that thriving or different economies should offload people who struggle in their own countries to other countries? How is that responsible governance? Countries should be responsible for their own poor people.
5) Many Latin American nations were already developmentally different, or delayed from another perspective, when colonialists landed on their shores. It’s clear there are cultural differences which produce incompatibility in how people want to live or govern. Ideally, nations whose people were subjected to racism or colonialism would use Japan or Brazil as models for national growth and development. Why should people be forced to live together if they don’t want the same things?
Interesting, in the first video Joshua mentions at 4m30s the user needs to have serious willpower to report every 5 min (ie. he feels the app is protection against a Sybil attack). I don't think this is the case. All you need is the following:
1) iOS VM (Corellium?).
2) Desktop automation on your host OS (e.g. AutoHotKey).
3) Spoof GPS with random USA-specific or carefully curated GPS coords (targeting neighborhoods they don't like?). This can be done with a SDR or a local application (which I know exist for Android but I am not sure for iOS; it'd depend on VM?).
A determined adversary would have multiple of these setups. It'd require a little bit of tech know-how, but as you can see it isn't rocket science, and an adversary with a lot of money to burn would just hire someone to do this. All in all, this application is not safe against a hostile US government, but a random low IQ MAGA idiot who is determined would even do this manually, in mom's basement indeed. You can even set an alarm every 5 min.
And remember, from [1]. The brownshirts were in numbers, and identifiable (at least after 1926 [2]).
In Belgium, you're not allowed to say you see traffic cameras on the highway. Result: people replace the word with something else: falling stars. So in Belgium on the radio they announce falling stars on highway E19 north of Antwerp. Everyone knows the meaning.
In Germany, you must only give a positive review as reference for a job application. Result: scale changes: 'performed' (worst), 'performed well' (OK) 'performed extremely well' (satisfied) -- with various levels of exaggeration. Everyone knows the meaning.
In both of these situations an authority who is known (radio host, employer) are a filter of information and purposefully use the wrong terminology to address the issue in a truthful manner. The problem is that curation costs resources (time/money/energy) which you may or may not have scarcity of. I'd say multiple reports of same location warrants a usable sign, but Micah Lee's experience says otherwise: still usually false positives due to people panicking and not analyzing the situation correctly.
What is the antidote for activism theater? As a motivated-to-contribute American, where do we find the resources for us to help out in a way that is meaningful?
19 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 42.4 ms ] thread[0]: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114789276549546469
As far as I can see there are two possibilities here: 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported, or 2) ICE is deporting illegal immigrants which don't have permission to be in the country so they shouldn't be in the country. In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason, and surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law like in so many corrupt countries around the world? Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US?
Most of it is (1), but even in the case of (2) the problem is that this is an outlaw organization which is not following any established law or process.
Legally, deporting people who are here out of status is fine. But to do that properly, you'd have to establish proof of who they are and why they are out of status, in front of an immigration court. ICE bypasses all that and just sends masked unidentified thugs to the street to grab people left and right and disappear them into secret detention centers with no access to lawyers. About as illegal behavior as it gets.
It's theatre by people who don't understand how their own government works, nor cares to learn. So they look for shortcuts with ineffective protest theatre so they can pat themselves on the shoulder for "doing something about it"
Meanwhile their government continues rightward unimpeded.
My first point and last point can co-exist and did largely under the Obama administration(which held the deportation record prior to Trump). But what really intrigues me is why are they doing this in such a fast tracked way. All I can figure is they think a Democrat may win in the next election, and they don't want these people held up in courts so it can be reversed, they want them purged.
This original creator is absolutely in over his head and now finds himself in a tough spot. Any help he is offered could be just as malicious as the false reporting and fake reviews. If the author actually gives a shit, they should try and educate the creator. Or maybe just focus on building an android app?
1) Why is this app allowed on the App Store? It’s helping illegal activity within the borders of a sovereign nation.
2) Nations are allowed to determine who comes and doesn’t to their countries as per their right to rule as a sovereign nation and their national security interests. Nobody vetted the 11-13 million people who poured over the border. It’s impossible to imagine that democratic institutions will not change their behavior if you get an influx of 11-13 million people, who then have children who become citizens. I mean that votes are just a counting game. So if you get more voters who are anti-abortion but previously you were all pro-choice, then that changes culture. So why shouldn’t countries get to decide who comes and goes?
3) Why shouldn’t countries have their own culture? Or not want to be multicultural? If there are laws that prevent racism or discrimination against different religions, then that’s not multiculturalism, just civility. Why is assimilation unacceptable for someone who moves in?
4) If you want to talk about the injustices of colonialism, then note that a) there are many countries that overcame those barriers despite similar histories to the country of origin of these illegal immigrants. Look at India, for instance.
And b) not all illegal immigrants are more poor countries, but from thriving economies like China, India, Mexico or Brazil. Why is it justified that thriving or different economies should offload people who struggle in their own countries to other countries? How is that responsible governance? Countries should be responsible for their own poor people.
5) Many Latin American nations were already developmentally different, or delayed from another perspective, when colonialists landed on their shores. It’s clear there are cultural differences which produce incompatibility in how people want to live or govern. Ideally, nations whose people were subjected to racism or colonialism would use Japan or Brazil as models for national growth and development. Why should people be forced to live together if they don’t want the same things?
1) iOS VM (Corellium?).
2) Desktop automation on your host OS (e.g. AutoHotKey).
3) Spoof GPS with random USA-specific or carefully curated GPS coords (targeting neighborhoods they don't like?). This can be done with a SDR or a local application (which I know exist for Android but I am not sure for iOS; it'd depend on VM?).
A determined adversary would have multiple of these setups. It'd require a little bit of tech know-how, but as you can see it isn't rocket science, and an adversary with a lot of money to burn would just hire someone to do this. All in all, this application is not safe against a hostile US government, but a random low IQ MAGA idiot who is determined would even do this manually, in mom's basement indeed. You can even set an alarm every 5 min.
And remember, from [1]. The brownshirts were in numbers, and identifiable (at least after 1926 [2]).
[1] ICE Is Nothing Like the Brownshirts, Because the Brownshirts Actually Identified Themselves https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ice-is-nothing-like-the-...
[2] https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Uniforms_and_insign...
In Germany, you must only give a positive review as reference for a job application. Result: scale changes: 'performed' (worst), 'performed well' (OK) 'performed extremely well' (satisfied) -- with various levels of exaggeration. Everyone knows the meaning.
In both of these situations an authority who is known (radio host, employer) are a filter of information and purposefully use the wrong terminology to address the issue in a truthful manner. The problem is that curation costs resources (time/money/energy) which you may or may not have scarcity of. I'd say multiple reports of same location warrants a usable sign, but Micah Lee's experience says otherwise: still usually false positives due to people panicking and not analyzing the situation correctly.