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.
"discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock"
I'm not sure what hen's employee contract reads.
There are some limitations on US government employees engaging in political action though (Hatch act).
Perhaps hen sent a text relating to All U during work hours?
This situation is pretty clear cut. The administration isn’t being coy about purging anyone they think might be less than blindly loyal.
In both terms, the Trump Administration has been full of top-to-bottom, flagrant violations off the Hatch Act by loyalists.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they start firing anyone who even downloaded the app.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/us/politics/fbi-polygraph...
> "Some senior officials who have taken the test have been asked whether they said anything negative about the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel."
It will be interesting to see if hen violated it during the lawsuit
The "someone fact checking my political propaganda is not okay" people?
Or like the "objective facts are not neutral because they they imply I'm probably fascist when spreading fascist leaning propaganda" people?
- 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."
- 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.> ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture
is highly dehumanizing language you normally find only and autocratic regimes ruled by force and despotism instead of law
if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm you alarm bells should ring in overdrive
historically speaking language like this has pretty reliably an indicator of a country going to commit mass murder (lets hope it doesn't come to this)
>if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm
The term "illegal alien" has been the norm in the United States my entire life and I'm 51. Only recently has it started to not become the norm, because the youngest generations have unbridled enthusiasm for the euphemism treadmill, so first they became "undocumented", and then lately differently-citizenated or whatever.
If I illegally enter Japan or Mexico, am I not committing a crime? I would expect to (and both of these countries would) be arrested and returned to the US, usually after being fined and not allowed re-entry.
An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident.
Someone who illegally enters a country is an Illegal Alien.
Are Japan and Mexico on the verge of committing mass murder?
This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified.
Reality is more than large enough for it to both be used my "citizens who reasonably want to provide oversight" and be used by criminals who will use it to evade capture and target ICE agents. It is even reasonable for someone who works for that agency to wonder if such citizen activism might not be turned (in the future, I have not heard of specific incidents so far) to threats against its agents.
If there were a SWAT raid in progress, with officers sneaking up behind a building blaring "Oh no, the popo's here!" on a loudspeaker might well be judged to put their lives at risk. Not only would I expect it to lead to criminal charges (and past that, conviction), I don't much imagine anyone here would argue that the punishment was unwarranted. This doesn't change just because you have a different opinion about illegal immigration than a bank hostage situation or illicit meth factories.
That's a pretty broad brush, all sorts of free speech could (and is) used by criminals to evade capture or target law enforcement agents. Are you proposing that we should ban phone and chat applications?
More specifically aren't there apps in the US that report the location of speed cameras, breath testing stops etc? I thought I even heard this being broadcasted on the radio. Are you arguing this is illegal?
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.
That’s a lot more than a footnote. If the app development company owned the app and she had ownership in the app development company, there’s no way to argue she didn’t have an interest in the app.
Nobody can expect to have a side interest in an app that works against their employer and continue to keep their job. You have to be divested from one or the other. Due to the marriage, there likely any way to divest from the app unless her husband also divested from it. Even then, the damage was done.
Really? So if my wife works for Google and I work for Facebook, she has to get me to quit Facebook? Or if my wife works for Google and I found a start up making a search app, then she has to get me to wind up my start up?
Because I work for a tech company, and some of the stocks I own could, tangentially or otherwise, be competitors to my employer.
This administration sucks, but being a shareholder isn’t the same as your spouse just working on a project. She should have resigned a long time ago.
The person in this case worked for the US Government, and is subject to ethics laws and agency policy.
In most cases, a mutual fund isn’t an ethical issue for most roles - although in a more normal time some elected officials would put investments in blind trusts to ensure there wasn’t an appearance of corruption.
Owning a portion of a private company run by your spouse whose principal activity is directly opposed to those to whom you serve at the pleasure of is going to be a problem. If you fail to report it, you’re going to get fired.
Let's suppose this means she is directly linked to this anti-ICE app, profits from it (if it even has any revenue?) and is interested in the apps success. Does it mean that she has ethical conflict with her DOJ position?
Is this because readers don’t want to be reminded how absurd the world outside has become?
arunabha•7h ago
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."
amanaplanacanal•7h ago
1. I would guess that ICE agent isn't even in the top 20 most dangerous occupations in the US.
2. If knowing the location of law enforcement endangers their lives, why do the great majority of law enforcement officers wear distinctive uniforms and drive around in clearly marked vehicles?
defrost•3h ago
For comment, see:
from:DHS Still Pretending 15 Assaults A Month Is Evidence Of Widespread Violence Against ICE Officers
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/23/dhs-still-pretending-15-...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics
toomuchtodo•6h ago
https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-sections/right-to-r...
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police
mcphage•4h ago