tao Posted June 20, 2018 Share Posted June 20, 2018 A letter signed by more than 100 Microsoft employees has called on it to stop working with the US Border Patrol. The call comes as the Trump administration faces intense criticism over the separation of children from their families at the Mexican border. The letter, posted on an internal message board and published by the New York Times, said the employees "refuse to be complicit”. Microsoft has shared a response penned by its chief executive Satya Nadella. "I am appalled at the abhorrent policy of separating immigrant children from their families," he wrote. "This new policy implemented on the border is simply cruel and abusive, and we are standing for change. "I want to be clear: Microsoft is not working with the US government on any projects related to separating children from their families at the border." However, the company does have a $19.4m (£14.7m) contract with the US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement agency, known as ICE. Mr Nadella said this was to support tasks involving email, calendar, messaging and document management. In January, Microsoft posted information about how its cloud computing platform, Azure, was being used to facilitate data “security and compliance”. The post read: “We're proud to support this work with our mission-critical cloud.” 'Gut-wrenching' The signees of the letter to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella demand the company ends this association with ICE, and "other clients who directly enable ICE”. Their efforts chime with the thoughts being expressed by employees at many of Silicon Valley’s top firms. On Tuesday, some of the region’s top chief executives made statements on the issue. “The stories and images of families being separated at the border are gut-wrenching,” wrote Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, on Twitter. "Urging our government to work together to find a better, more humane way that is reflective of our values as a nation.” Apple boss Tim Cook, speaking after an event in Ireland, told the Irish Times the situation was “inhumane”. "It’s heartbreaking to see the images and hear the sounds of the kids. Kids are the most vulnerable people in any society. I think that what’s happening is inhumane, it needs to stop.” Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said: "We need to stop this policy right now." Other condemnations have come from the bosses at AirBnB, Twilio and Box. A fundraiser on Facebook had raised more than $6m on Tuesday, growing at a rate of thousands of dollars every minute. It is the largest amount ever raised on the platform. Employee rebellion recently saw Google drop its contract with the US Department of Defense. It had been aiding the development of software designed to increase the accuracy of drone strikes. A number of Google employees resigned and thousands more signed a petition against the project, known as Maven, fearing it would be the first step in artificial intelligence being used to kill people. < Here > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tao Posted June 20, 2018 Author Share Posted June 20, 2018 NY Times: Microsoft Employees Protest Work With ICE, as Tech Industry Mobilizes Over Immigration In an open letter posted to Microsoft’s internal message board on Tuesday, more than 100 employees protested the software maker’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked the company to stop working with the agency, which has been separating migrant parents and their children at the border with Mexico. “We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits,” said the letter, which was addressed to the chief executive, Satya Nadella. The letter pointed to a $19.4 million contract that Microsoft has with ICE for processing data and artificial intelligence capabilities. Calling the separation of families “inhumane,” the employees added: “As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit. We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.” From the Letter “We request that Microsoft cancel its contracts with ICE, and with other clients who directly enable ICE. As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit. We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.” Download the original letter. The letter is part of a wave of tech workers mobilizing this week against the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The policy has resulted in about 2,000 children being separated from their migrant parents, raising a bipartisan outcry. At Silicon Valley companies including Google, Apple and Facebook, employees have in recent days circulated internal emails asking for donations to nonprofit groups that support immigrants. Many have shared information about protests in San Francisco and Washington. And some of the workers have spoken to their managers about the issue or called on internal message boards for their chief executives to respond. The activity has had an effect. Late on Tuesday, after Microsoft’s employee letter went up, the company released a memo from Mr. Nadella in which he called the immigration policy “cruel and abusive” and said Microsoft was not working with the federal government on any projects to separate families. Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, also published a blog post titled, “The Country Needs to Get Immigration Right.” Their comments came after other tech chief executives spoke up on Tuesday. Apple’s chief, Timothy D. Cook, in an interview with The Irish Times, called the immigration policy “heartbreaking.” Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted that he was a “top donor” to the American Civil Liberties Union and said that “if there is some way for me to help these kids I will do so.” Sundar Pichai of Google, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber and Chuck Robbins of Cisco also tweeted their opposition to the policy. On Facebook, two former employees of the social network started a fund-raiser on Saturday to collect $1,500 for migrants who needed legal assistance because of the new policy. By Tuesday afternoon, the effort had garnered more than $5 million from donors who included numerous tech workers, according to a spokeswoman for the fund-raising drive. Among the donors were Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, a Facebook spokesman said. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg called for more donations and said the policy of splitting up immigrant children from their families needed to be stopped. Ms. Sandberg, in her own Facebook post, called the cries of the children taken from their parents “unbearable” and added that the practice “needs to end now.” The activity by tech workers is reminiscent of protests in January 2017 when many Silicon Valley employees were up in arms over an executive order from President Trump that suspended immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries. At the time, Google employees held rallies to object; Amazon and Expedia were among the companies that filed in court to stop the order. (Many tech companies comprise workers who are first-generation immigrants or who grew up in immigrant families.) Since then, tech workers have watched their companies increasingly come under scrutiny for their moral and ethical behavior. Many tech employees have begun organizing against actions by their own companies — in April, for example, thousands of Google employees signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence in weaponry. Image Immigrant children, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new policy by the Trump administration, walking in single file in Tornillo, Tex.CreditMike Blake/Reuters On Monday, the A.C.L.U. also demanded that Amazon stop selling a facial recognition software tool, called Rekognition, to police and other government entities because it feared it could be used to unfairly target immigrants. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., publicly promoted its work with ICE in January in a blog post, citing it as an example of the success of its technology. At the same time, Microsoft has been positioning itself as tech’s moral leader. Mr. Nadella and Mr. Smith have publicly said they want to protect user privacy and establish ethical guidelines for new technology like artificial intelligence. “We need to ask ourselves not only what computers can do but what computers should do,” Mr. Nadella said at Microsoft’s developer conference last month. Image Tech employees have circulated calls for protests of the immigration policy. The policy has spurred rallies, including in Los Angeles.CreditMario Tama/Getty Images Some Microsoft executives earlier objected to the Trump administration’s new immigration policy. On Sunday, Mr. Smith penned a LinkedIn post, saying the news of migrant children being taken from their families was “especially poignant.” Yet criticism of Microsoft’s work with ICE began to grow. One Microsoft engineer, Larry Osterman, tweeted on Monday to ask how working with ICE matched with the company’s “ethical stances.” Mat Marquis, an independent developer who works with Microsoft, also said in a tweet on Monday that he no longer planned to work with the company because of its ICE contract. When he receives his last payment from Microsoft, he said, he plans to donate the money to a group providing support to families that had been separated at the border. Late Monday, Microsoft issued a statement saying that it was not working with federal agencies to separate children from their families at the border and that it was not aware of its services or products being used for that purpose. It also said it was “dismayed” by the immigration policy and urged that it be changed. But for many Microsoft employees, that was not satisfactory. A group of about a dozen employees began working together to draft the protest letter, in which they said the company’s statement “does not go far enough.” The employees continued, “We are providing the technical undergirding in support of an agency that is actively enforcing this inhumane policy.” The letter added that Microsoft should not only cancel its contract with ICE but be open to a review of its contracts with government agencies domestically and internationally, and that it should create a policy stating it would not work with those “who violate international human rights law.” Microsoft declined to comment on the employee letter, which was posted internally on Tuesday afternoon. Within hours, it had received more than 100 signatures. It was only later that the messages from Mr. Nadella and Mr. Smith decrying the immigration policy were released. “We will always stand for immigration policies that preserve every person’s dignity and human rights,” Mr. Nadella said. < Here > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
“We request that Microsoft cancel its contracts with ICE, and with other clients who directly enable ICE. As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit. We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.” Download the original letter. The letter is part of a wave of tech workers mobilizing this week against the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The policy has resulted in about 2,000 children being separated from their migrant parents, raising a bipartisan outcry. At Silicon Valley companies including Google, Apple and Facebook, employees have in recent days circulated internal emails asking for donations to nonprofit groups that support immigrants. Many have shared information about protests in San Francisco and Washington. And some of the workers have spoken to their managers about the issue or called on internal message boards for their chief executives to respond. The activity has had an effect. Late on Tuesday, after Microsoft’s employee letter went up, the company released a memo from Mr. Nadella in which he called the immigration policy “cruel and abusive” and said Microsoft was not working with the federal government on any projects to separate families. Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, also published a blog post titled, “The Country Needs to Get Immigration Right.” Their comments came after other tech chief executives spoke up on Tuesday. Apple’s chief, Timothy D. Cook, in an interview with The Irish Times, called the immigration policy “heartbreaking.” Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted that he was a “top donor” to the American Civil Liberties Union and said that “if there is some way for me to help these kids I will do so.” Sundar Pichai of Google, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber and Chuck Robbins of Cisco also tweeted their opposition to the policy. On Facebook, two former employees of the social network started a fund-raiser on Saturday to collect $1,500 for migrants who needed legal assistance because of the new policy. By Tuesday afternoon, the effort had garnered more than $5 million from donors who included numerous tech workers, according to a spokeswoman for the fund-raising drive. Among the donors were Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, a Facebook spokesman said. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg called for more donations and said the policy of splitting up immigrant children from their families needed to be stopped. Ms. Sandberg, in her own Facebook post, called the cries of the children taken from their parents “unbearable” and added that the practice “needs to end now.” The activity by tech workers is reminiscent of protests in January 2017 when many Silicon Valley employees were up in arms over an executive order from President Trump that suspended immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries. At the time, Google employees held rallies to object; Amazon and Expedia were among the companies that filed in court to stop the order. (Many tech companies comprise workers who are first-generation immigrants or who grew up in immigrant families.) Since then, tech workers have watched their companies increasingly come under scrutiny for their moral and ethical behavior. Many tech employees have begun organizing against actions by their own companies — in April, for example, thousands of Google employees signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence in weaponry. Image Immigrant children, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new policy by the Trump administration, walking in single file in Tornillo, Tex.CreditMike Blake/Reuters On Monday, the A.C.L.U. also demanded that Amazon stop selling a facial recognition software tool, called Rekognition, to police and other government entities because it feared it could be used to unfairly target immigrants. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., publicly promoted its work with ICE in January in a blog post, citing it as an example of the success of its technology. At the same time, Microsoft has been positioning itself as tech’s moral leader. Mr. Nadella and Mr. Smith have publicly said they want to protect user privacy and establish ethical guidelines for new technology like artificial intelligence. “We need to ask ourselves not only what computers can do but what computers should do,” Mr. Nadella said at Microsoft’s developer conference last month. Image Tech employees have circulated calls for protests of the immigration policy. The policy has spurred rallies, including in Los Angeles.CreditMario Tama/Getty Images Some Microsoft executives earlier objected to the Trump administration’s new immigration policy. On Sunday, Mr. Smith penned a LinkedIn post, saying the news of migrant children being taken from their families was “especially poignant.” Yet criticism of Microsoft’s work with ICE began to grow. One Microsoft engineer, Larry Osterman, tweeted on Monday to ask how working with ICE matched with the company’s “ethical stances.” Mat Marquis, an independent developer who works with Microsoft, also said in a tweet on Monday that he no longer planned to work with the company because of its ICE contract. When he receives his last payment from Microsoft, he said, he plans to donate the money to a group providing support to families that had been separated at the border. Late Monday, Microsoft issued a statement saying that it was not working with federal agencies to separate children from their families at the border and that it was not aware of its services or products being used for that purpose. It also said it was “dismayed” by the immigration policy and urged that it be changed. But for many Microsoft employees, that was not satisfactory. A group of about a dozen employees began working together to draft the protest letter, in which they said the company’s statement “does not go far enough.” The employees continued, “We are providing the technical undergirding in support of an agency that is actively enforcing this inhumane policy.” The letter added that Microsoft should not only cancel its contract with ICE but be open to a review of its contracts with government agencies domestically and internationally, and that it should create a policy stating it would not work with those “who violate international human rights law.” Microsoft declined to comment on the employee letter, which was posted internally on Tuesday afternoon. Within hours, it had received more than 100 signatures. It was only later that the messages from Mr. Nadella and Mr. Smith decrying the immigration policy were released. “We will always stand for immigration policies that preserve every person’s dignity and human rights,” Mr. Nadella said. < Here >
tao Posted June 20, 2018 Author Share Posted June 20, 2018 Also: Microsoft Executives Try To Reason With Employees Who Want Them Out Of ICE Contract Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humble3d Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 Why not also protest the big business of jails for all those who enter... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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