Free speech’s great leap backwards
In early December, Joshua Aaron, the developer behind the ICEBlock app - designed to let people alert others about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents - filed a federal lawsuit alleging his First Amendment rights were violated. The Department of Justice had urged Apple to remove Aaron's app from its App Store, which the suit called unconstitutional. And Apple had complied - in the process, setting its own precedent for suppressing anti-ICE speech.
The year 2025 has marked perhaps the biggest leap back for American free speech in generations. The Trump administration's war on immigrants and civil liberties has le …