Federal judge rules in favor of Indiana man who launched app tracking ICE

CHICAGO (WISH) — A federal judge in Illinois on Friday ruled in favor of Brown County, Indiana, man Mark Hodges, the creator of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tracking app called Eyes Up.

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.

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.”