Bobby Allyn, reporting three weeks ago for NPR:
The developer of ICEBlock, an iPhone app that anonymously tracks
the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, has
sued the Trump administration for free speech violations after
Apple removed the service from its app store under
demands from the White House.The suit, filed on Monday in federal court in
Washington, asks a judge to declare that the administration
violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally
prosecute the app’s developer and pressured Apple to make the app
unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October. […]To First Amendment advocates, the White House’s pressure campaign
targeting ICEBlock is the latest example of what’s known as
“jawboning,” when government officials wield state power to
suppress speech. The Cato Institute calls the practice “censorship
by proxy.”
Good on developer Joshua Aaron for filing this suit and defending his work.
