Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#71

Post by dagw » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:07 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #54

int_19h wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience talking to different people in US, most of them on both sides of the immigration debate have zero clue what their immigration laws are even like. One theme that's particularly common is hearing "they should just get into the line and wait for their turn". They genuinely don't understand that there is no line for the majority of those people - they don't have any legal avenues for immigration at all…

But that isn’t true. Asylum applications can be submitted to a US consulate. There is a process. Syrian refugees didn’t just show up in Laredo. Asylum can also be requested at a legal port of entry. These unlawful entry arrests are from aliens entering the country while avoiding ports of entry.

Quoiting from the first sentence on the main page about asylum on usembassy.gov, which is the first hit I got on Google:

"The United States does not grant asylum in its diplomatic premises abroad. Under U.S. law, the United States considers asylum only for aliens who are physically present in the United States."

So I guess it's understandable that some people might believe they have to be physically present in the United States to be apply for asylum

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#72

Post by ggg9990 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:07 AM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #57

ggg9990 wrote: post #48

I just don't think we're tracking towards a healthy world where your email vendor pulls the plug on your contract because of your activities. I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer. Edit: Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to. Leave those policing problems t…

This cuts both ways, and a precedent has already been set, recently, with the wedding cake debacle. If a business can refuse service due to soneone’s gender or sexual orientation (I.e. it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality), why should a business not be able to refuse because they morally object to their client using their product or services to harm human beings? Honestly, I don’t see the distinct…

> it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality

I just don't think this should be allowed to matter. If you want to sell widgets, sell them or don't sell them. The problem of controlling what people do with those widgets should not be allowed to rest in business owner's hands, because the largest corporations are more powerful than they ever were, and that is allowing a few CEOs, completely unaccountable to the public or in some cases even their shareholders, to control too much of society's behaviors.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#73

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:10 AM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #39

mehrdadn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it only becoming more clear or are they actually becoming more intertwined too?

I think both as tech becomes more ubiquitous, but I think the clarity is coming from a lag in perception because of the exact sentiment of "keep politics out of tech". I think a lot of programmers, particularly ones from a generation older than the average tech worker today, got into the field for partially the reason of that separation. It's honestly a great way to live a fulfilling life without having to address th…

> It's honestly a great way to live a fulfilling life without having to address the bigger problems in the world personally.

I thought it's a great way to actually address the bigger problems in the world personally. Because most political involvement is precisely the opposite of effective helping.

Politics is arguing that climate change is a communist/leftist/whatever invention. Tech is launching a satellite letting us quantify the actual impact. Politics is talking that education is important (except it must be the right education). Tech is giving people access to it (all of it) for free. Politics is driven by conflicting ideologies, and mostly detached from reality. Tech culture used to stick to the real world. Dilution of that is what people complain when they lament tech mixing with politics.

(Yes, I'm probably older than average tech worker.)

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#74

Post by madaxe_again » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #72

madaxe_again wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cuts both ways, and a precedent has already been set, recently, with the wedding cake debacle. If a business can refuse service due to soneone’s gender or sexual orientation (I.e. it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality), why should a business not be able to refuse because they morally object to their client using their product or services to harm human beings? Honestly, I don’t see the distinct…

> it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality I just don't think this should be allowed to matter. If you want to sell widgets, sell them or don't sell them. The problem of controlling what people do with those widgets should not be allowed to rest in business owner's hands, because the largest corporations are more powerful than they ever were, and that is allowing a few CEOs, completely unaccountable t…

But they are accountable. Money talks, bullshit walks - and as more and more businesses move towards a service rather than ownership model, this becomes more and more likely, and the power of other businesses and consumers to use a different service and hit them in the wallet grows.

I mean, as it is, I cannot use Microsoft or Apple products to design or proliferate nuclear, chemical or biological weapons (its in the EULA) - is this an infringement on my rights? Where should this line be drawn?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#75

Post by cm2187 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #70

cm2187 wrote: post #66

The problem is that "doing evil" is in the eyes of the beholder. To some it is performing a gay wedding. Are we supporting a world where it is ok to refuse to sell a cake because it would be used in a gay wedding? Is it a good thing that the major cloud providers and OS makers enforce a democrat agenda on their clients? I think this is undesirable and dangerous. Already there are many calls for social medias to step…

That last part is just the slippery slope fallacy though. There are many cases where you are not allowed to lie, and knowingly helping someone lie is also a criminal offence.

Was Trump's water sport in Moscow story fake news? It has been widely used by CNN. As far as I know it as never been proven. Political debates are riddled with half truth, exaggerations, and carefully selected statistics. It is a slippery slope. It's not as binary as a computer program where it is either correct or not correct.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#76

Post by jgaa » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:21 AM UTC

bkor wrote: post #69

jgaa wrote: post #45

Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil. When I wrote the War FTP Daemon in 1996, as freeware, this became a problem to me. I did want to give away my work for free, but I did not want any government agency to abuse it. So I came up with a solution - a GPL license with an additional clause - that the government - any government - could not use it for any purpose…

> Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil. If a lot of people assume this, then eventually behaviour happens according to the expectation. Within Netherlands I assume the government is usually there to make things better (though there are exceptions). What is considered better might be completely different, but still, it's assumed to be better. I've since have a…

>> Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil.

>If a lot of people assume this

I come from Norway - by many assumed to be among the most human and decent countries in the world.

When a refugee storm hit Norwegian borders a few years ago, the cabinet assigned Antichrist herself, Sylvi Listhaug, to deal with it. It would not surprise me if Trump's advisers had her misdeeds (and results) in mind when they designed their current policy.

That's Norway - the country who hands out the Nobel Peace Price.

Do yo know how Norway gets rid of it's aging population? They thirst them to death. No assisted death option like in the Netherlands. Just unimaginable pain and fear at the and of life.

In Norway today, a man is serving life in prison for murdering and raping a 8 year old girl. He is innocent. Everybody knows he is innocent. But the Justice system is incapable of admitting mistakes - so he remains in jail.

I don't want to make software for governments. Because, even those who hand out Peace Prices and pretend to be soo accepting and liberal - even those commit unimaginable evil every single day of the year.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#77

Post by allenz » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:27 AM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #48

I just don't think we're tracking towards a healthy world where your email vendor pulls the plug on your contract because of your activities. I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer. Edit: Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to. Leave those policing problems t…

When ICE violates human rights, it's no longer a free speech issue. Microsoft shouldn't work with ICE in the same way that banks shouldn't work with sanctioned oligarchs.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#78

Post by cr1895 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:27 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #52

Weird, employees had nothing to say in 2014 when these images were published: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/18/photos-ob... Kids were being separated then and being housed in the exact same facilities being used now. Interestingly, this story “breaks” the exact same week the FBI inspector general’s report was released. I am not judging the wrongness or rightness of what is and has happened in terms…

>Kids were being separated then

Incorrect; the story you linked describes unaccompanied minors. Separating families is solely the doing of the Trump Administration.

"Detaining child border crossers was a policy during the Obama administration, where Breitbart Texas exclusively reported on the conditions in which unaccompanied minors were being packed into crowded cells and holding facilities."

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/politics/new-us-effort...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/us/us-sets-up-crisis-shel...

>Were Microsoft employees sleeping when reports of these sorts of situations where being reported in 2014? Or was it more acceptable then because it was a different president?

The key issue here which is different from what you suggest is the same in 2014 is that the Trump administration separates children from their parents. The Obama administration, rightly or wrongly, detained unaccompanied minors. The Trump administration is detaining children who had their parents with them, and in cases deporting parents without their children. Surely you see this as a different situation??

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#79

Post by refoundglory » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:29 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

everdev wrote: post #9

As I get older, it's becoming clear how intertwined our morality is with our politics. And how that bleeds into business, sports, religion, etc. It's nice to think of aspects of life that should be free from politics, but in reality that seems hard to achieve.

People answering to you that "everything is politics" or that "separating tech and politics is naïve" are - perhaps unwittingly - doing a motte-and-bailey argument. The motte here is "whenever 3+ people meet, it's already politics" and "if it impacts people, it's politics". The bailey is political parties, ideologies, rallies, buzzwords, presidents. There are two definitions of "politics" at play that are being mixed…

If the people you meet and associate with and and the ways in which you impact other people aren't influencing and being influenced by the parties, ideologies, buzzwords and presidents you support, then you probably need to think a little more deeply about both of them.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#80

Post by zimpenfish » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:30 AM UTC

firic wrote: post #49

macspoofing wrote: post #12

>part of a backlash against the agency’s policy of separating children from their families at the U.S. border. Is that a policy that ICE can simply drop?

Not without the senate changing a ruling that has been in effect since before Trump or Trump choosing not to enforce a law that he is required to enforce.

I've seen a lot of people far more well-informed about US politics and law say that there is no such law - this is a pure policy decision by Trump.

Can you cite the law he's required to enforce here?