CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois ruled in favor of Brown County, Indiana, man Mark Hodges, the creator of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tracking app called Eyes Up.
FULL INJUNCTION BELOW
Hodges sued the federal government in February, claiming it pressured Apple to remove the app from its app store and had violated his First Amendment rights by coercing Apple into suppressing protected speech.
The app, created in August, allows users to share videos and information about ICE activity. Eyes Up and several similar apps, including ICEBlock, were removed from Apple's App Store in early October at the request of the Trump administration.
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Court documents said then-Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News on Oct. 2: "We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App store — and Apple did so." And, on Oct. 8, Bondi made a public statement that "we had Apple and Google take down the ICEBock apps."
Court papers say Apple told Hodges it had removed Eyes Up from the App Store after receiving "information" from "law enforcement" that the app violated Apple's guidelines. Apple said the app violated guideline 1.1.1, which prohibits "defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content."
However, Apple had previously and independently reviewed Eyes Up in August, and it already had knowledge of the purpose of the app, the videos available on it and how it worked. At that time, Apple raised "no concern" that Eyes Up violated guideline 1.1.1.
The judge wrote that Apple had changed its position and removed the app "immediately after" the company was contacted by the government, and then made public statements taking credit for the fact that Apple had removed the content.
The judge also found that the actions of the federal government can "be reasonably understood to convey a threat of adverse government action against...Apple in order to suppress" Hodges' speech.
Eyes Up is still unavailable on the App store.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction in Hodges' favor on April 17. The ruling blocks the government from forcing the platforms to censor the content.
Court papers say the injunction will "allow Apple to reach its own decisions" about the Eyes Up app "rather than be pressured by" the government.
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