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Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

theregister.com

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Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#71

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

psychphysic wrote: post #47
sakjur wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d absolutely plant cab drivers to spy on my geopolitical adversaries. People who have a plausible explanation to be in and around hotels, airports, industrial areas, and a legitimate reason talk to lots of different people would seem like quite good candidates for spying. Maybe a bit too obvious.

They'd pick up absolute junk information.

Absolutely, the amount of yarns I regularly spin to taxi drivers would bankrupt the credulous.

My usual one being advice to invest heavily in manganese futures.

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#72

Post by JackFr »

csydas wrote: post #49
treme wrote: post #11

Just seems like a politically motivated punishment vs Elon. Out of all the corrupt things US Corps are doing, this is what they are focusing on?

It's not a punishment for punishment's sake, individuals were allegedly affected by SpaceX's incorrect (and apparently illegal) policy, and they lodged a complaint via the official channels. https://www.justice.gov/media/1311656/dl?inline There are 17 specific examples of instances where Musk/SpaceX were publicly and repeatedly disseminating incorrect information about their hiring requirements (sections 34-51), the…

It’s utterly malicious on the part of the government. Note the only complainant on the lawsuit is the Justice department, who have standing as part of the law. No one harmed individual is suing SpaceX.

The idea that SpaceX is pursuing some invidious scheme of anti-immigrant discrimination is ludicrous. If you read the complaint, every incident DOJ cites really appears to be a good faith attempt to comply with ITAR rules.

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#73

Post by elif »

firtoz wrote: post #7
fooker wrote: post #2

Meanwhile 'Uncle Sam' will also not let SpaceX hire non-citizen PhDs from US universities. Sometimes it feels like various branches of the US government are set up to sabotage each other.

> Explaining why this was way off-piste, the DoJ said in a statement yesterday: "Under these regulations, asylees, refugees, lawful permanent residents, US citizens and US nationals working at US companies can access export-controlled items without authorization from the US government. Therefore, these laws do not require SpaceX to treat asylees and refugees differently than US citizens or green card holders."

Yeah... But spaceX does have to face the consequences if one of them ends up being a foreign intelligence asset. Seems like a reasonable precaution to me considering the stakes.

Besides, they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country. It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#74

Post by [deleted] »

delfinom wrote: post #63
pc_edwin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company that has to follow ITAR does this. Its simply not feasible to determine and continuously monitor the legibility of asylees and refugees. Set aside how expensive it will be, you will inevitably end up breaking ITAR laws which is significantly worse.

Not even that, ITAR and other regulations are "vague" because a non-legal person just being in the room where ITAR work is performed can be considered a violation of ITAR. Then you have to spare significant expense sectioning off buildings, access control and security just to maintain that ITARness. This makes non-ITAR compliant janitors a harder bargain to hire. Same for the cafeteria workers the DOJ mentions, they…

[deleted]

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#75

Post by newsclues »

psychphysic wrote: post #47
sakjur wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d absolutely plant cab drivers to spy on my geopolitical adversaries. People who have a plausible explanation to be in and around hotels, airports, industrial areas, and a legitimate reason talk to lots of different people would seem like quite good candidates for spying. Maybe a bit too obvious.

They'd pick up absolute junk information.

99% would be. But 1% might be something useful.

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#76

Post by willcipriano »

eru wrote: post #64
1letterunixname wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government isn't a hivemind, it's a "city" unto itself with different factions with different interests. Only when one awakens to this reality can one see what is going on is not necessarily a malicious, cynical conspiracy by design but ambivalent neglect by Tragedy of the Commons for the most part. Except for campaign financing pulling the strings of the political class at the top, that adds a good 90% of the co…

Money isn't actually all that important in politics. Including campaign financing. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... for some numbers and a deeper analysis. (Also, whenever you hear about some scandal in the news that involves politicians and money, the sums are almost always laughably low compared to eg government budget or compensation for top CEOs in the private sector. See https:…

[flagged]

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#77

Post by TheAlchemist »

5452454 wrote: post #43
TheAlchemist wrote: post #35

At this point, I'm not sure if it's Elon trying to turn everything into a conspiracy theory or journalist are playing dumb. This is nothing burger - this is just basic enforcement of some laws, which happen all the time. Just look at the https://www.justice.gov/news/press-releases website and search "Justice Department Sues". They sue everybody and their mother - that's their job.

[flagged]

Did you read what I've wrote ? They're not "choosing" SpaceX - they're suing a lot of companies, all the time. That's their job. I guess if SpaceX chooses to settle, it will be something around 1M$ fine - peanuts.

If you did search their site, you would see, that they also sued pretty much every big company. Microsoft settled in a similar case in 2021...

I think everybody agrees that it's a weak case, and it's small one - nothing to write articles about. For some reason, those article are getting written.

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#78

Post by krisoft »

elif wrote: post #73
firtoz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Explaining why this was way off-piste, the DoJ said in a statement yesterday: "Under these regulations, asylees, refugees, lawful permanent residents, US citizens and US nationals working at US companies can access export-controlled items without authorization from the US government. Therefore, these laws do not require SpaceX to treat asylees and refugees differently than US citizens or green card holders."

Yeah... But spaceX does have to face the consequences if one of them ends up being a foreign intelligence asset. Seems like a reasonable precaution to me considering the stakes. Besides, they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country. It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.

> they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country.

What do you mean by that? How would that be even possible with ITAR?

> It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.

How can it be “not even a conscious choice”? This is a large company. They train their HR people who they can or cannot hire. How can that training be “not even a conscious choice”?

Re: Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

#80

Post by 546575 »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #77
5452454 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Did you read what I've wrote ? They're not "choosing" SpaceX - they're suing a lot of companies, all the time. That's their job. I guess if SpaceX chooses to settle, it will be something around 1M$ fine - peanuts. If you did search their site, you would see, that they also sued pretty much every big company. Microsoft settled in a similar case in 2021... I think everybody agrees that it's a weak case, and it's small…

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