POLITICO reports that House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has launched an investigation into whether the Department of Justice pressured Apple and Google to remove ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store and Play Store. Here are the details.
‘Bondi could ignore the letter, though it could lead to further issues’
According to the report, “Raskin demanded the Justice Department turn over all records of its communications with Google and Apple related to discussions about apps that crowdsource sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.”
Last October, hours after Apple pulled ICEBlock from the App Store, US Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that “we reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”
At the time, Apple justified the removals by stating:
“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”
Now, Raskin has requested a formal accounting of the DOJ’s involvement in the app removals to determine whether federal officials improperly influenced Apple and Google’s moderation decisions.
According to POLITICO, Raskin wrote:
“The coercion and censorship campaign, which ultimately targets the users of ICE-monitoring applications, is a clear effort to silence this Administration’s critics and suppress any evidence that would expose the Administration’s lies, including its Orwellian attempts to cover up the murders of Renee and Alex, […]”
The report also notes that while Raskin’s request might very well be ignored, this could amount to just a temporary delay in case Democrats win back control of the House in this year’s midterm elections, “as Raskin is likely to take over the committee’s chair.”
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