Former Apple bosses slam decision to take down ICEBlock

Apple is facing pressure from a former executive and senior manager over its decision to remove the ICE-spotting app, ICEBlock, from the App Store. In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook,

Wiley Hodges says he’s “deeply disturbed” by the move, as spotted earlier by Daring Fireball.

Hodges worked at Apple for more than 22 years and spent more than a decade serving as a director of marketing and product management, bringing products like Xcode and Swift to market, according to his LinkedIn profile. “I used to believe that Apple were unequivocally ‘the good guys,’” Hodges writes. “I passionately advocated for people to understand Apple as being on the side of its users above all else. I now feel like I must question that.”

Apple removed ICEBlock and other ICE-spotting apps last week in response to demands from the US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who claims “ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.” Google followed suit by removing Red Dot and similar apps, though it reportedly didn’t receive a request from the Department of Justice.

In his letter, Hodges says Apple’s fight against breaking into a San Bernardino shooting suspect’s iPhone marked a “turning point” for people skeptical of its privacy and security practices. “That act of lawful, principled defiance of government intimidation and jawboning helped to convince people that Apple’s actions and stated ideals were in alignment,” Hodges says. 

But Apple’s recent removal of ICEBlock from the App Store “squanders that same good faith,” says Hodges, while opposing the company’s key principles that state Apple will remain committed to an open society even if it “disagrees” with a country’s laws. “The removal of ICEBlock without evidence of the government either providing a lawful basis for such a demand or following a legal process to effect its removal represents an erosion of this principled stance.”

Alex Horovitz, a former senior manager of manufacturing systems and infrastructure at Apple, wrote a similar letter that calls out the impact of ICEBlock’s removal. “Apple is more than a corporation; it is a cultural institution built on courage and principle,” Horovitz writes. “Every time it yields quietly to political pressure, it strengthens the hand of those who would centralize power and weaken the freedoms the company once championed.”

Horovitz and Hodges are asking Cook for more information about why Apple removed ICEBlock, and whether the government’s demands had any legal backing.

“I hope you recognize how every inch you voluntarily give to an authoritarian regime adds to their illegitimately derived power,” Hodges writes. “It is up to all of us to demand that the rule of law rather than the whims of a handful of people — even elected ones — govern our collective enterprise.”

The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.