ICEBlock developer's wife sacked from US government job
Joshua Aaron, developer of ICEBlock told The National that his wife, who is an auditor, had nothing to do with the app that's, which has become a source of anger at the Trump White House. She was fired nonetheless.
He told The National that Laura Loomer, a far-right activist well known for her controversial and xenophobic comments, posted information about his wife on X last week. 'I reviewed Carolyn's LinkedIn page, and she has been working for the DOJ (Department of Justice) since January 2021 when Joe Biden assumed office,' read just some of Ms Loomer's post.
Mr Aaron said that Ms Loomer then passed along information about his wife, Carolyn Feinstein, to White House Border Czar Tom Homan, who told the right-wing news outlet Newsmax that he flagged the information to US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
'On Friday, my wife was fired from her position with the DOJ, Office of US Trustee,' he explained, adding that his wife was a forensic auditor in one of the DOJ's offices in Austin, Texas 'who loved her job and always had stellar annual performance reviews'.
Mr Aaron said he's certain she was fired because of his development of ICEBlock, along with his activism related to undocumented immigrants.
In a statement to The National, a DOJ spokesperson defended its actions in terminating Ms Feinstein.
'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, Incorperated, the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock,' the spokesperson said.
'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.'
In an interview with the blogger and podcaster Allison Gill, host of The Daily Beans, Ms Feinstein said that she was fired via email with no explanation.
Mr Aaron said that contrary to speculation, his wife's job had absolutely nothing to do with immigration policy. 'She handled bankruptcy fraud and had nothing to do with ICEblock,' he reiterated.
During an interview last week with Newsmax, the White House Border Czar acknowledged that he received information about the developer's wife.
'Laura Loomer sent that to me and I sent it to the DOJ, so we'll see where it goes,' Mr Homan said, adding that ICEBlock was also under investigation by the Justice Department as well. 'What he's doing is giving a heads up to criminals,' claimed Mr Homan, saying that the app puts ICE agents in danger. 'If it's not illegal, it should be,' he added.
Meanwhile, ICEBlock has been downloaded more than a million times from Apple's iOS App Store. It continues to attract attention and a methodical rise in popularity as President Trump increases funding for ICE, whose mandate includes detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Critics say the agents arrest and deport people with little concern for their legal rights, including due process. 'When I saw what was happening in this country I knew I had to do something to fight back,' said Mr Aaron, who spoke with The National last week about the app.
Mr Aaron lives in Texas, a state with a large undocumented immigrant population. Mr Aaron, who is Jewish, told The National that he had decided to create the app after meeting Holocaust survivors and learning about Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany.
The app aims to alert users to the presence of ICE officials in an 8km radius. It is powered by crowdsourced data, relying on people to report ICE agents wherever they might be.
The app also allows for users to describe the vehicles ICE might be using and their attire. When a sighting is reported, push notifications are sent to other users nearby. Mr Aaron acknowledges criticism that the software could be misused, as the Trump administration has claimed violence against ICE agents is on the rise.
'Please note that the use of this app is for information and notification purposes only,' reads a disclaimer appearing throughout ICEBlock, with an added warning that the app should not be used 'for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement'.
Despite the disclaimers, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has suggested that those promoting the app should face prosecution. 'We're working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them because what they're doing is actually encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activity operations,' she recently told a reporter.
As for Mr Aaron, US Attorney General Pam Bondi recently told Fox News that the Justice Department was 'looking into him'. Various legal precedents, however, have tended to protect those who report the potentially illegal actions of law enforcement.
Mr Aaron is continuing to stand by the app, saying that there is nothing illegal about it. 'This app is to inform, not obstruct,' he said last week.
Mr Aaron also accused ICE of having complete disregard for individual circumstances with their arrests, referring to college students being targeted for their decision to protest, mothers being separated from their children, or detainees not being given access to legal representation.
'That is not something I can abide and is the reason ICEBlock was created,' he continued, referring back to the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. 'We are literally watching history repeat itself.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Khaleej Times
3 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Harvey Weinstein drops lawsuit against brother Bob
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein has dropped a lawsuit against his brother Bob, in which he accused his sibling of "financial betrayal" that led to the collapse of his company, according to Variety. Weinstein is in jail awaiting sentencing after he was convicted in June of sexual assault for a third time. In February, his lawyers filed a counterclaim in a long-dormant lawsuit that sought to blame his brother and two other employees for the collapse of the Weinstein Company. Harvey Weinstein was exposed to dozens of sexual assault and harassment allegations in the fall of 2017, leading to his ouster from the company. Fatally wounded, the company declared bankruptcy a few months later, and its library was ultimately acquired by Lionsgate, as reported by Variety. In the countersuit, Harvey alleged that Bob and David Glasser took millions of dollars in improper payments prior to the company's bankruptcy. He also accused Reiter, the company's longtime accountant, of failing to stop them. Harvey's lawyers filed a notice last week that they were dropping the case against Bob, though they are still pursuing Glasser and Reiter, reported Variety. "Harvey's filing of this notice fully resolves the claims he asserted against Bob in this case," said Bob Weinstein's lawyer, Brian Kohn. "Bob entered no settlement with Harvey and paid him no consideration in exchange for the dismissal." Bob Weinstein loaned the company $11.1 million (Dh40.81 million) to keep it afloat before it went bankrupt. He was not repaid as part of the 2021 bankruptcy settlement. Attorneys for Glasser and Reiter have also filed motions to dismiss the case against them.
Zawya
7 hours ago
- Zawya
Trump's Fed attacks puncture veneer of central bank independence: McGeever
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) ORLANDO, Florida - If U.S. President Donald Trump's public attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell have achieved one thing, it has been to thrust the issue of central bank independence firmly into the spotlight. But this raises the question, what does 'independence' really mean? Central bank independence is widely considered a bedrock of modern-day financial markets. Economists, investors and policymakers almost universally agree that monetary policy should be set for the long-term good and stability of the economy, free from short-term and capricious political influence. But maintaining that theoretical separation between policymakers and politicians is very challenging in practice. Ultimately, central banks are creations of – and, to varying degrees, extensions of – their national governments. The legislatures determine their statutes, parameters, goals, and key policymaking personnel. One need only look at the intertwined and often coordinated responses of countries' central banks and governments to the global financial crisis and pandemic for evidence that complete independence doesn't actually exist. DE FACTO OR DE JURE 'Independence' has two primary meanings in studies of monetary policy. Academic studies often refer to 'de jure' independence, essentially legal or institutional independence, and 'de facto' or operational independence. Importantly, de jure independence is no guarantee of de facto independence or vice versa. Perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. scores pretty low on a de jure basis, mainly because the Fed's statutes have barely changed since it was created over a century ago in 1913. Davide Romelli, associate professor at Trinity College Dublin, has updated a central bank independence index created by Alex Cukierman, Steven Webb, and Bilin Neyapti in the 1990s. The index, in which 0 is no independence and 1 is total independence, shows the US scoring 0.61. That suggests the Fed is a less institutionally independent body than the European Central Bank, which scored 0.90, and even the People's Bank of China, which scored 0.66. But on a de facto basis, the Fed would almost certainly rank as higher than the PBOC, given its design, transparency, and accountability mechanisms such as the chair's regular press conferences and appearances before Congress. And look at how the Fed resisted the clamor to raise interest rates when inflation first exploded after the pandemic as well as its patience in lowering them now given the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. trade agenda. You can argue the wisdom or folly of the Fed's actions in either case, but both episodes put its operational independence on full display. 'BANANA REPUBLIC' When experts talk about threats to central bank independence, they are usually referring to concerns about de facto independence. Indeed, this is why Fed-watchers have grown increasingly troubled by Trump's excoriating verbal attacks on Powell over the last six months for not cutting interest rates. If there is a line demarcating political interference, however amorphous, Trump has crossed it. "The words that Trump uttered are the ones one expects from the head of a banana republic that is about to start printing money to fund fiscal deficits," former Fed Chair and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told The New Yorker earlier this month. Of course, even if Trump were to replace Powell with a more amenable chair, this would not completely eliminate Fed independence. The Fed chair does not single-handedly set interest rates and represents only one of 12 votes at each policy meeting. But in many ways he or she is the first among equals, as University of Maryland's Thomas Drechsel shows in a recent working paper. Analyzing over 800 personal interactions between Fed officials and each U.S. president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama in 2016, Drechsel found that 92% were with the Fed chair. President Richard Nixon interacted with Fed officials 160 times, reflecting his infamous efforts to influence then chair Arthur Burns, while only six interactions took place during Bill Clinton's two terms. To be sure, not all meetings or telephone calls involve political pressure, and for purely logistical reasons, it makes sense that the president would prioritize speaking with the head of the monetary policy body as opposed to all its members. As such, appointing the governor is a key area where a central bank's independence can be damaged. In a 2022 academic paper titled "(In)dependent Central Banks" revised in February analyzing 317 governor appointments in 57 countries between January 1985 and January 2020, the authors noted that as central banks' powers – and perceived independence – have expanded, political incentives to control them have intensified, "especially in an era of growing global populism." Thus, in many cases, the more power a central bank has to ignore political pressure, the more motivated government leaders are to apply it. If that is a global trend, Trump appears to be at the vanguard. (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) (By Jamie McGeever. Editing by Mark Potter)
Zawya
8 hours ago
- Zawya
Google says some SharePoint hacks carried out by 'China-nexus threat actor'
WASHINGTON: Alphabet's Google said in a statement on Monday that at least some of the hacks carried out against servers using Microsoft's SharePoint system have been carried out by a "China-nexus threat actor." The cyber espionage operation has compromised about 100 different organizations as of the weekend. (Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Leslie Adler)
