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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

#81

Post by perihelions »

JackFr wrote: post #72
csydas wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ru…

- "No one harmed individual is suing SpaceX."

I think it is right and proper that low-income victims of labor law crimes don't need to be able to afford attorneys to resolve grievances, and that there exist public institutions that litigate on their behalf, for free.

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

#83

Post by Detrytus »

Nullabillity wrote: post #29
subroutine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a refugee who is also a highly qualified rocket scientist should raise some healthy suspicion at the least.

Do you think rocket scientists are just… immune to war?

I think that rocket scientists are usually cherished by totalitarian regimes, not persecuted.

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

#84

Post by llm_thr »

Nullabillity wrote: post #29
subroutine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a refugee who is also a highly qualified rocket scientist should raise some healthy suspicion at the least.

Do you think rocket scientists are just… immune to war?

[flagged]

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

#85

Post by stevofolife »

culturestate wrote: post #33
baq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Von Braun was a Nazi spy

> Von Braun was a Nazi spy He came to the US after the war in Europe was over. Pretty difficult to spy on behalf of a political regime that no longer exists. If he was spying for anyone - which I don’t think has ever been seriously alleged, let alone proven - it would’ve been the USSR.

All kinds of spies in all kinds of projects existed in American history. SpaceX being a relatively new organization and the roles they hire are both not immune to this. For example, “Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II.” from Wikipedia.

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

#86

Post by mannykannot »

ForHackernews wrote: post #23
fooker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying the government has made a technical mistake, I'm saying the regulation is nonsense. Sneaking in spies as refugees is a fairly common strategy.

> Sneaking in spies as refugees is a fairly common strategy. Is it really? Are there any examples we can point to? Refugees are often dispossessed and struggling to build a new life. I guess if you want your spies to gather intelligence on what it's like to drive a cab or bus tables in your geopolitical adversaries, then it might be a great cover identity.

Klaus Fuchs may not have been committed to spying when he arrived in Britain, but his case is close enough to show that spy infiltration under the guise of being a refugee is not out of the question (I believe there were even cases of precisely this in West Germany, but I don't recall a specific case offhand.)

Given the legal channels for immigration into the USA, having a technically-skilled spy infiltrate as a refugee may not make much sense, but that's a different argument. Furthermore, the arguments against infiltrating that way are based on the uncertainty of it succeeding and length of time it takes, not the false assumption that refugees are condemned to working in low-skill occupations.

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

#87

Post by moron4hire »

pc_edwin wrote: post #60
csydas wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

It's... not expensive at all? Companies don't do their own investigations. The FBI does them, and they charge the same rate for everyone. If the clearance application fee is what's going to break your company, you've got some bigger problems.

I've worked for several DoD contractors. The question on the job application is "is there anything that would prevent you from obtaining a clearance?" It's not "are you a citizen or green card holder?"

And all that doesn't even really matter. Export controlled information is Controlled, Unclassified Information (CUI). It's one of the lowest grades of information we handle. It's in the name, you don't need a clearance to have access to it. Thus you don't need an investigation. The most you need is a background check, which most companies do for everyone, anyway.

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

#88

Post by crop_rotation »

chr1 wrote: post #3

If they care so deeply about non-citizens maybe they should pull a Caracalla move and grant citizenship to everyone in their empire?

By the time Caracalla gave everyone citizenship, roman citizenship was a burden and not the same heavily sought after thing as before. American citizenship is still extremely heavily sought.

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

#89

Post by pc_edwin »

csydas wrote: post #70
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.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to communicate here. If this is the requirement for the type of business someone ones, it's expected they are following the law, and corrected when they are not. Ignorance might grant some clemency, but you still need to follow it. My above post is not commenting on the validity of the regulations surrounding ITAR, SpaceX, etc, it was responding to the implication that this effo…

Yes it is extremely difficult and expensive but thats besides the point, what I'm getting at here is its unworkable/unfeasible.

You will inevitably break ITAR, this is why most companies under ITAR (& gov agencies like NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa) does exactly what SpaceX is being prosecuted (persecuted) for.

This is a cut and dry case of political persecution. Not only was this practice not scrutinised, its commonplace and recommended by other agencies (intelligence/enforcement). Refugees/Asylees is a common way to get spies into the country.

SpaceX (any other company) would love to hire cheap labour that would be extremely gracious for the opportunity. They are literally using videos by Elon Musk in the case where he is saying ITAR laws are silly (I disagree btw).

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

#90

Post by throwaway290 »

Detrytus wrote: post #83
Nullabillity wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think rocket scientists are just… immune to war?

I think that rocket scientists are usually cherished by totalitarian regimes, not persecuted.

If you are smart enough to be a rocket scientist you are more likely to be smart enough to see when your country is being ruled by thieves and going to the dogs.

Either you hide it and leave ASAP, you don't hide it and try to change your country for the better (= jail, regime doesn't like people like that) or you suppress your conscience (or not have it) and enjoy a nice lifestyle. The last option is more rare because smart people are usually allergic to propaganda

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