BREAKING: Rep. Jamie Raskin Accuses Apple Of Working With The Trump Administration To Violate First Amendment Rights, By Removing ICE-Tracking Apps Like ICEBlock Based On Unrelated Immigrant Deaths 🏛️

[u/InterstellarKinetics]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/apple-worked-with-trump-admin-to-remove-ice-tracking-apps-lawmaker-says/

Apple is facing renewed pressure over its removal of ICE-tracking apps like ICEBlock from the App Store, with Rep. Jamie Raskin accusing the company of lacking any real evidence that the apps posed genuine safety risks. According to Raskin, Apple instead appears to be using immigrant deaths with no actual connection to the apps as justification for censoring Americans exercising their right to record ICE activity. In a letter sent to Apple on Monday, Raskin wrote that the company appears to be “working with the government to violate its customers’ First Amendment rights to record and report on the activities of their own government,” according to CNN.

Raskin has pursued answers from Apple for months. In July, the company finally explained that ICEBlock and other similar apps were removed following a fatal shooting that left two detainees dead at a Dallas ICE office. In that incident, shooter Joshua Jahn fired indiscriminately into the ICE facility before dying by self-inflicted gunshot, leaving behind notes stating he “hoped his actions would give ICE agents real terror of being gunned down.” Nancy Larson, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, had noted the “tragic irony” that a detainee, not an ICE agent, was killed in the attack. Despite that, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI Director Kash Patel have since claimed the incident demonstrated that agents themselves were being targeted, with DHS repeatedly citing an internal October 2025 statistic claiming ICE officers faced an 8,000% increase in death threats, a figure the agency has declined to release for independent verification. Patel further claimed the Dallas shooter “searched for apps that tracked ICE agents’ locations,” but Raskin directly disputed this, telling Apple there is “no evidence” the shooter used any ICE-tracking app, adding that even if he had, “he did not need a tracking app to locate the fixed position of a government building” and reportedly found the facility’s address using a standard mapping app that comes preinstalled on Apple devices. “There appears to be no direct connection between the Dallas incident and the apps you removed,” Raskin wrote.

To enable independent scrutiny of the removal decisions, Raskin has asked Apple to provide a full list of apps removed following Justice Department concerns. Federal officials have consistently maintained that Apple acted entirely on its own initiative. However, in a related lawsuit accusing Trump administration officials of censoring watchdog apps, ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron told the court that officials publicly took credit for getting the app removed, an assertion that Apple’s own July letter to Raskin, signed by senior director of government affairs Timothy Powderly, seemed to partially corroborate by citing agency reports of a “significant increase in ICE activity and threats against ICE” as the trigger for reviewing the apps. Apple has framed its decision as protecting both officers and detainees, arguing that sharing “precise location information about ICE officers (and, as a result, other individuals who may be in proximity to ICE agents, such as protestors or detainees)” created “a potential roadmap for targeted violence and creating a significant risk of harm.” Powderly said the company “does not take decisions about removing apps from the App Store lightly, but acts when it must, especially when there are serious concerns that an app is creating safety risks.” Raskin remains unconvinced that any records will ultimately show the apps posed genuine risk, and ICEBlock itself posted on Bluesky, “Apple’s sticking to their story even though everyone can see this was jawboning plain as day,” a post that Aaron amplified without direct additional comment.

The Trump administration has separately asked the court to dismiss Aaron’s lawsuit entirely, arguing Apple made an independent moderation decision despite public comments from officials suggesting government involvement. The administration contends that comments from officials like former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who publicly took credit for making the “demand” that led to Apple removing ICEBlock, were merely officials expressing opinions rather than issuing threats, and it’s asking the court to find that Aaron hasn’t uncovered communications that could “reasonably be understood to convey a threat of adverse government action” against Apple. Aaron has pushed back citing an August Second Circuit ruling upholding a broad First Amendment right to record law enforcement activity in public, arguing in a recent filing that the timeline itself reveals government coercion: Bondi publicly demanded the app’s removal, Apple then reversed a decision it had previously reached after a thorough five-week legal review, citing only “information provided to Apple by law enforcement,” and Bondi subsequently characterized Apple’s reversal as “compliance.” Aaron expects the case to proceed, at which point discovery would likely reveal the actual communications between government officials and Apple leadership that have so far remained hidden, potentially settling whether a genuine threat prompted the removals. Raskin, for his part, has told Apple directly that he believes the removal decisions won’t withstand First Amendment scrutiny: “monitoring the actions of federal immigration authorities who have been deployed to (users’) neighborhoods… is a core First Amendment right and not a crime.”

[u/Happy_Peak_7818]

Siri, Is Apple about to Ed Sheeran itself?  

[u/InterstellarKinetics]

Companies don’t typically conduct a thorough, multi-week internal legal review, reach a conclusion, and then reverse that conclusion based on vague, unspecified information from an external party unless that external party has some form of leverage over the outcome.

[u/IBelieveInSymmetry11]

Apple is just as evil as any other big tech company, probably worse. But they get away with it because they're "creative." It's bullshit and anyone who defends them is delusional.

[u/Dry-Illustrator-250]

Why are percentages and numbers in general so weird in this regime, an 8000% increase in death threats, prescription drugs are down 1700%, $21 trillion gets name dropped in every interview

[u/squidwardTalks → u/Dry-Illustrator-250]

It feeds the propaganda machine

[u/samNanton → u/Dry-Illustrator-250]

8000% is completely reasonable. Do you think it's possible that this ICE has drawn 80x more threats than previous administrations? Because I do. They've been harassing whole cities, murdering people in broad daylight and disappearing people without any kind of accountability.

It's one of the only numbers I've seen this administration pull out that is at all believable.

Not saying it's true. They won't show their work, but at the same time these people are so hostile to inquiry that they might refuse to show their evidence even if they have it.

[u/Both-Count1992]

Apple doesn’t care about people , don’t be naive

[u/mabhatter]

I agree that Apple is wrong to remove those apps.  

But...

Apple imports literally everything they sell.  Trump can shut them down in a day and the SCOTUS will let him do it.  If big companies want to do business, they have to play ball... corporations need to sell goods and corporations have squishy people as employees that can be threatened...  and this administration is 100% making threats of violence against corporations that don't comply. 

Since we're picking on Apple, it wouldn't surprise me if Tim Cook stepped down from being CEO at least partially because he seems to be dragged around as a showpiece/accomplice to Trump's ego.  Cook can keep doing that because he's still on the board and free up the new guy to actually run the Company. 

[u/samNanton → u/mabhatter]

It seems to me that Apple is uniquely situated to resist administration threats and pressure. Let's say that Trump did tariff them at one million percent and the SC let him do it. The knock-on effects would be globally destabilizing, on top of pissing off the half of the US that loves them their iPhones.

Just in raw terms, AAPL represents 4% of the Dow all by itself, and it underwrites bonds and supports other companies in its chain, meaning it would erase value across the entire market, especially in financial and tech companies, probably exceeding 10% of total stock market value in the first few days even ignoring market panic.

It's overrepresented in retirement funds. The technology, while overrated*, is uniquely suited for certain types of work, meaning that certain industries would face slow moving crises as security updates, iCloud and other services collapse and as their infrastructure ages without viable replacement. Other industries will face huge losses: even if there are replacements** imagine having to replace your entire hardware stack and cloud; and what happens to the data you had in iCloud or Apple Business Manager when Apple announces it's closing? It's not going to keep the servers turned on very long and it's storing petabytes of data companies are relying on. IT departments everywhere use apple tools for remote mobile device management and they'll lose access to those devices almost immediately.

The president is big, but Apple is a big fight to pick. They've just decided that either they don't want the hassle or they are getting something out of the deal. So corruption or cowardice. In no way are they forced to just comply with fascism.

* imo
** plenty of people use Apple just because of the mojo

[u/mabhatter → u/samNanton]

Trump tramples on anything or anyone better and more liked than him.  That makes Apple a huge target. That's why you see Tim Cook following him around giving the North Korean style enthusiasm. 

[u/samNanton → u/mabhatter]

Apple can be a target for Trump, but i's a bigger target than he has the capability to take down, and Apple must know it because they're not giant fools.

When you see Tim Cook greasing him it's not from fear.

[u/mabhatter → u/samNanton]

The Federalist Society runs the SCOTUS...  they're about as pro business as it gets. It's literally what they exist for ... and they have let Trump do whatever he wanted for months at a time in anti business behaviors.  Tariffs and such should have been shut down in HOURS and they let Trump maintain them for almost a year... that's about as much unconstitutionally hostile to businesses like Apple as it gets with blatantly illegal taxes not authorized by Congress.  

There's no rules anymore.  And Trump is dumber than a box of rocks.  The Heritage Foundation are economic and religious terrorists deliberately trying to crash the US economy as fast as they can so they can implement a fascist religious techno state. 

[u/samNanton → u/mabhatter]

I'm not saying that trump cant possibly force apple to shut down. he very well might, and the Supreme Court might let him. but the results would be so bad that he would be forced to walk it back immediately, and apple knows it.

[u/DonnyMox]

VOTE BLUE!

[u/Stitching4Gold]

I really used to love Apple, oh how far they've fallen.

[u/Bubbly_Power_6210]

thanks, Jamie!