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

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#231

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #13

zasz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are asylum seekers. What they are doing is literally not illegal. According to USCIS, asylum seekers must be physically present in the US to apply: To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitar…

The legal way to claim asylum is to do so from official points of entry.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#232

Post by adjkant » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #128

adjkant wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing: that "how to use the result" part means that you have to get involved in politics as known by common definition and all its mess, inefficiency, terrible campaigning, and more. It's a game of slowly moving things by inches (not to say that radical thinkers and politicians don't have their effects, but rather they help pull towards a side). You clearly care about the morality and would want to have po…

I think you can avoid involvement with the common-definition politics to a large extent, and this is in fact a part of a change being effective. I see the political world as molasses; you stick your hand too far into it, and you won't get out. You (should) want people to have a say in how the new tech impacts their lives, but you probably don't want to get sucked into partisanship and endless bickering about politica…

That makes sense, can completely see that perspective. I think at this point it's more just semantics that I'm saying the thought and choices given to what tech you work on to "give more options" is a political and moral decision, one many engineers ignore. When I hear someone in tech say "they want to stay out of politics, I think often they use it as a way to avoid those problems. Thanks for the in-depth conversation here!

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#233

Post by sizzle » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

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…

Couldn't they just reweite the code after leatving your solution?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#234

Post by prepend » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 12:03 AM UTC

allenz wrote: post #223

prepend wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about oligarchs who aren’t sanctioned? What rule of law do you apply to determine oligarchs have committed some crime? Is there a certain number of tweets where you consider an oligarch sanctioned? Do you rely on an ICC ruling? A judgement from a single nation? A UN resolution? A case being brought to the ICC? The challenge I see here is that applying an arbitrary measurement to what constitutes “ICE violates hu…

Where to draw the line is a matter of judgment for each business. All ethics and justice relies on judgment. No murderer knows whether they'll be sentenced to ten years or twenty, just as there is no list of exact crimes that will get you sanctioned by the UN. So while I cannot answer your questions, I can point out that the UN human rights chief has denounced the ICE policy as "unconscionable". That seems like ample…

I don’t think this is a good idea as judgement requires due process. For significant decisions it’s important that rule of law is followed to reach determinations.

Since technology is becoming more and more essential for human rights (speech, assembly, etc), having providers exercise their corporate judgement (whatever that is) will lead to high variability and stands to come in conflict in areas against corporate motives. So it would require heavy regulation.

While the UN human rights chief is a reputable source it’s important to distinguish between ver official capacity and vis personal judgement.

This is why we don’t have repercussions from a judge denouncing policy as “unconscionable” personally. And in the US, governement figures are prohibited from making nonofficial statements that can be confused with official statements. [0]

Due procress applies so that rule of law can be as fair as possible.

So while this has the appearance of an injustice, I want a method for official determination so we don’t devolve into a lynch mob society making emotional decisions where systems of law are established and appropriate.

[0] http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unite...

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#235

Post by sheepmullet » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 12:46 AM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #229

sheepmullet wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just saying let's not make a Holocaust in its name, and these policies are literally starting to mirror those types of events. I think you have been mislead by the media - at worst it is applying the existing long standing detainment practice to another maybe 20% of cases. > Do you have the stuff to show it's actually hundreds of thousands? More than 20% of public school students in California are classified as…

So a few notes: 1. A single state is not representative of the entire country. Let's keep in mind this is probably the state hardest impacted along with Texas. 2. Of those English learners, what percentage are illegal immigrants realistically? What about citizens who speak Spanish primarily? In California, this is not uncommon. 3. How would you spend 30% of your income on education at the K-6 level (where 3/4ths of t…

> 1. A single state is not representative of the entire country

Yes that's why I said hundreds of thousands of kids are being negatively impacted and not millions of kids.

> All of this to say that your kid getting slightly less time in K-6 education

You mean an incredibly sub-par education for kids key formative years!

Why do you seek to downplay the issue? Why not seek to solve the issue - perhaps in other ways?

> I don't see how you can justify that.

It's an easy justification to make - you just don't care because you aren't personally impacted.

A couple of thousand kids temporarily separated from parents who are knowingly breaking the law in exchange for ensuring hundreds of thousands of kids get a proper education is an easy decision to make.

And that's only looking at a single issue!

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#236

Post by ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

sctb wrote: post #200

ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv wrote: post #58

Fire every single one of those Microsoft employees. People in ICE protect me, mine, and our way of life with their lives every day of the week. I'm not going to flippantly say fuck those people because the politics of the day are making a mockery of a law that was duly imposed and enforced by both parties spanning multiple administrations because it's the fashionable political protest fad of the day. Protest the lead…

We just said we'd ban you if you ranted like this again, and you did it again, so we've banned you.

Upvoted! Ban that dissenting opinion, can't have anything break group-think around here!

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#237

Post by throwaway37585 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 3:20 AM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #193

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…

Why do you trust people in business more than people in government?

Why not?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#238

Post by throwaway37585 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #117

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…

Corporations are no less evil than governments. If anything, they may be more evil, as they are motivated solely by profit and have no particular reason to care about the population at large. Why single out governments?

Corporations absolutely rely on the public at large. More so than governments. You can choose to stop doing business with a corporation, and can stop giving them money. Can’t say the same about government. Yet you claim governments care more than corporations about “the population at large”?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#239

Post by throwaway37585 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 3:26 AM UTC

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #218

jgaa wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations are no less evil than governments. If anything, they may be more evil, as they are motivated solely by profit and have no particular reason to care about the population at large. Corporations are accountable. They are accountable as entities, and as individuals (owners, managers, employees). If they do fatal decisions, the corporation may go bankrupt. If people act immoral, they may get fired. If they…

Meanwhile in the real world, many corporations get away with doing all these things, abusing labour, regulatory capture and the people running them get rich as Croesus doing it.

Meanwhile in the real world, many governments get away with doing all these things, and much worse, and more frequently, and they have armies and police.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#240

Post by adjkant » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #235

adjkant wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a few notes: 1. A single state is not representative of the entire country. Let's keep in mind this is probably the state hardest impacted along with Texas. 2. Of those English learners, what percentage are illegal immigrants realistically? What about citizens who speak Spanish primarily? In California, this is not uncommon. 3. How would you spend 30% of your income on education at the K-6 level (where 3/4ths of t…

> 1. A single state is not representative of the entire country Yes that's why I said hundreds of thousands of kids are being negatively impacted and not millions of kids. > All of this to say that your kid getting slightly less time in K-6 education You mean an incredibly sub-par education for kids key formative years! Why do you seek to downplay the issue? Why not seek to solve the issue - perhaps in other ways? >…

So no comment on that 30% of income spent for public schools?

> You mean an incredibly sub-par education for kids key formative years!

This just sounds like scapegoating. I think the subpar education of public schools is not caused by immigration. Public schooling needs massive changes, immigration or not.

> It's an easy justification to make - you just don't care because you aren't personally impacted.

No, I'm caring about the kids of illegal immigrants as well as kids in the US. I don't value people differently by nationality or the status of their parents. And I value severity over quantity generally when it comes to moral issues.

> Why not seek to solve the issue - perhaps in other ways?

Again, I'm all for solving it, but I don't see how this was justified at all. Mind you, we don't even have any tangible numbers on the effects of this policy.