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Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

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Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#181
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…

Curious, why doesn’t your license also exclude regular companies? Many of them act as if they are above the law and destroy the environment while ignoring human rights. Are you ok with them using your software?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trump/sessions specifically mandated this policy.

[flagged]

>How is this policy changed from when Obama was in office again? The fakenews that started all this was a few photos from 2014.

Under the Obama administration, families were not separated because the parents were not jailed. The photos to which you refer pertain to unaccompanied minors.

What is happening now is that the Trump administration is jailing parents and removing children from their custody; in some instances, deporting the parents back to Central American without their own children.

This is explicitely a discretionary change in policy ordered by Sessions and the Trump administration. The Obama adminstration did not have a policy of separating children from their families.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#183
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My post is describing the status quo as I understand it. I'm neither supporting nor condemning it. There is an important legal distinction which determines whether or not you're arrested and separated from your family: asylum seeker vs criminal migrant. If you walk up to the border patrol checkpoint and request asylum you will not be separated from your family. Once we make sure you're not a known criminal we basical…

That's not entirely true, though. Affirmative asylum seekers have been deported aggressively as well: https://eu.freep.com/story/news/2018/05/17/troy-cile-preceta...

Also this story linked elsewhere in a thread:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/migrant-seeking-asylum-say...

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#184
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…

Ah. I see this rhetorical slight of hand all the time. Didn’t know there was a name for it!

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#185
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm struggling to understand what you mean here. You believe being entitled to a life free from false imprisonment, torture and persecution is left-wing rubbish? Is this satire? The only people who are against the concept of basic human rights are those priviliged enough to never have been threatened in such a way. That can change very easily.

Well, I guess somehow these ideas are still divisive in the year 2018:

"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination [..] and against any incitement to such discrimination."

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

And so on and so forth.

Full text: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#186

Yet another reason to choose Open Source. There will be other political skirmishes. How to decide what to take a stand on? What if time reveals you made a mistake (i.e. NOW supporting Bill Clinton)? People are too easily manipulated.

> Yet another reason to choose Open Source.

I'm an open source fan but I fail to see your point.

Open source software can be used by anyone, including people you don't agree with. You can suddenly find yourself helping bad people just by maintaining or developing your open source software.

I have had it happen with one of my project, where people used it (and are probably still using it) for activities I disagree with. The only thing you can do is not interact with them, but they are still benefiting from the work.

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that one can live outside of politics comes either from naiveté or from tacit support for the existing status quo. The later option is the most common, people just figure that they don't want to put the effort needed to change the system and at the same time want to deny the morality of such decision.

There's been a sea change in America the past 25 years or so that made politics more important: the importance of nonwhite and nonchristian opinions and the political power to give them teeth. America is now a majority-minority country in many cities. If this had happened 25 years ago, it wouldn't have made the news, and nobody would really care about who Microsoft worked with unless it affected white christians, who…

turns out diversity isn't really a strength

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ELI5 what human rights is ICE violating in this case? Is due process not being followed?

Separating children from parents causes permanent changes to a developing brain due to toxic amounts of stress. It’s torture.

It seems like we are treating these children well (and I'm glad): "he seemed cheerful, “He shared how he was learning English, playing games and being well treated,” Ms. Ortiz said." [1]

However, I was appalled by the horrible "children in cages" photo taken during the Obama era. How was this allowed to happen? Wish I/we all had known about this, back then.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/us/immigration-deported-p...

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#189
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…

> I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer.

I do not understand your mindset. Why are you trying to force people to do something they do not want to do?

Re: Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separating children from parents causes permanent changes to a developing brain due to toxic amounts of stress. It’s torture.

It seems like we are treating these children well (and I'm glad): "he seemed cheerful, “He shared how he was learning English, playing games and being well treated,” Ms. Ortiz said." [1] However, I was appalled by the horrible "children in cages" photo taken during the Obama era. How was this allowed to happen? Wish I/we all had known about this, back then. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/us/immigration-deport…

> Under federal law, which adopts the United Nations definition, torture is: “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person … has committed or is suspected of having committed.” And though in theory any action inflicting such suffering is banned, that is what is inflicted by separating parents and children in border detention.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/0...

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