
EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid - wickedshimmy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/eff-files-amicus-brief-case-seeks-hold-ibm-responsible-facilitating-apartheid
======
taltman1
For those who might want a fuller description of IBM's active facilitation of
these kinds of crimes, you should read Edwin Black's book, "IBM and the
Holocaust".

Those tattoo's on Holocaust victim's arms? They were serial numbers directly
tied to IBM punchcards designed by IBM for the Third Reich.

It gives context to former NSA chief Michael Hayden's comment, "We kill people
with metadata".

~~~
Aloha
I've read the Edwin Black book - he makes a reasonably compelling but nearly
completely circumstantial case.

The case against IBM could be made against any multinational of the era, like
Ford and General Motors. The fact that IBM's business was information
processing does not add or subtract to their level of supposed conspiracy.

From the time of declaration of war (against the US), all american companies
were hands off - even before that the relationship between Dehomag and IBM NY
became more and more distant from 1933 on.

Beyond that, the technology was not held by IBM alone, Powers/Remington-Rand
and Siemens and Halkse also had similar equipment and technology - so while
IBM may have been the market leader, they were by no means alone - and
choosing IBM over Powers in my mind is different than buying a Ford-werke
truck over an Opel one.

~~~
shawnhermans
I haven't read the book, but I did read the EFF's brief
([https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-ibm-ats-
claim](https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-ibm-ats-claim)) which
seems to rely a lot on the alleged Nazi connections. Based upon what I have
read so far, there is no "smoking gun" that indicates IBM did anything to
knowingly aid the Holocaust or Apartheid.

In the case of South Africa, it seems IBM aided in the creation of South
Africa's national ID system. What I can't tell from the evidence presented is
if this aid was illegal or unethical at the time it took place. As a reminder,
the United States didn't officially outlaw segregation until the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.

I really haven't made up my mind one way or another about this, but I do think
people have a tendency to interpret historical events using the knowledge and
ideology of the present day.

------
jessaustin
There might be some network equipment vendors nervously observing this case.
They probably haven't done anything as awful as building a bespoke apparatus
of apartheid, and arguably they've done nothing technically different than
Room 641A. However, there are probably some dissidents who would make
convincing plaintiff's witnesses, were they ever to get out of the dungeons
and into an American courtroom.

~~~
higherpurpose
Cisco is probably feeling pretty nervous about this.

Some may say "but why does this matter _now_? It's all in the past."

The problem is I think we're going to see many more such cases in the next
couple of decades (at least). There are already companies that knowingly help
governments spy on their citizens and help them catch dissidents or even _kill
journalists_ (think the self-driving cars of the future or cars that have
remote controls).

History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. It's important to punish the
people responsible in helping totalitarian leaders (even within "democratic"
countries). Maybe such a case will prevent say Intel from installing a
backdoor in their chips in the future, or giving certain governments their
future SGX keys to secure applications.

Also, IBM already got off with helping the Nazis. If they would've been
punished for helping the Nazi, maybe they would've thought twice about helping
with the Apartheid.

EDIT: Apparently punishing companies that helped in the Holocaust and the
Apartheid isn't popular on HN.

~~~
gnoway
The only thing wrong with this comment (IMO) is the assertion that companies
help governments kill journalists. I'm not asserting they _don 't_, but I
don't consider it common knowledge that they do, i.e. please provide a source.

I upvoted.

~~~
yellowapple
I think that commenter is referring to military drones (and the manufacturers
thereof), though I'm not sure about the _journalists_ being killed.

------
fiatmoney
Be careful; "facilitating a human rights violation" is very, very close to the
rationale that France et al use to penalize entities like Twitter for
"facilitating hate speech". The UN in particular is an incredibly illiberal
organization, and their definition of a "human rights violation" encompasses a
hell of a lot.

------
lthornberry
For anyone interested in this story, or in the politics of biometric
identification more broadly, you should get your hands on a copy of Keith
Breckenridge's new book, The Biometric State, which is a history of the South
African government's efforts to create a biometric identification system to
help enforce racial legislation. Breckenridge argues that these efforts mostly
failed, but set the stage for the post-apartheid use of biometrics to
facilitate South Africa's social grant payments system (many, many poor South
Africans live on government cash payments, mostly old age pensions or child
grants). He further argues that the technology developed in South Africa is
now being exported elsewhere in the developing world, where similar grant
systems are used to justify increasingly intensive population registration and
surveillance programs.

------
bhouston
This is pretty sweet.

Given that corporations are people these days, I guess they can be charged
with knowingly facilitating war crimes?

~~~
vinceguidry
One does not even need jurisdiction in order to try someone for war crimes.
The Kuala Lampur War Crimes Commission tried and convicted George W. Bush and
Tony Blair for "crimes against peace" in 2011 under the principle of universal
jurisdiction. Their sentence was to be entered into a register of war
criminals to be published worldwide.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_War_Crimes_Commiss...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_War_Crimes_Commission)

~~~
Karunamon
The other guy said it more cynically, but how does this "trial" hold any
weight? A backwater nation, trial held in absentia.. doesn't seem very
legitimate, yknow?

~~~
vinceguidry
The idea behind universal jurisdiction is that some crimes pose so much of a
threat to the global order that no nation should give perpetrators safe
harbor. The need for a way to try people for acts that would be considered
horrific crimes elsewhere was quite pressing and universal jurisdiction was
considered a way of dealing with it in a sort of vigilante style. The setting
up of the International Criminal Court in 2002 alleviated much of the concern,
though apparently not all of it.

Such questions as which crimes are sufficiently serious to warrant violation
of sovereignty and what constitutes commission of them, the burden of proof
required for conviction, due process rules such as whether _in absentia_
trials are valid, and the like seem to get little consideration.

As a result, good-faith efforts like the KLWCC's to raise awareness wind up
not being very convincing and are easy to dismiss as political posturing. The
KLWCC was set up by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has
long been a strident critic of US foreign policy, even going so far to suggest
that the 9/11 terror attacks were staged by the US Government. So you can
guess as to the impartiality of the judicial proceedings. There's an
interesting analysis here:

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html)

------
fit2rule
I think the writing on the wall is this: we're all in some database,
somewhere, which can be used to exterminate us from the face of the planet.

Someone gets into power, they don't like those 'upstart hackers' .. well then,
HN seems like a pretty good resource for who goes up against the wall, then ..

~~~
sroerick
I wrote an outline for a short story that begins with the drone extermination
of all dissident hackers.

~~~
fit2rule
Sounds interesting and to be frank .. not at all far-fetched.

------
greyfox
They ought to hold IBM responsible for Facilitating the Holocaust as well...

[http://fluff.info/blog/ibm/ibm10000.jpg](http://fluff.info/blog/ibm/ibm10000.jpg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMgZ6515_EQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMgZ6515_EQ)

------
yellowapple
I'm sorry, but I'm failing to see how IBM actively facilitated _anything_
other than being able to more effectively process information on citizens -
something that most modern countries either already have or very strongly
desire.

    
    
        the national identification system was highly
        customized, requiring close collaboration with the
        South African government;
    

So are most IBM products on a large scale. This is no different from how IBM
typically treats _all_ of its high-paying customers, including large-scale
enterprises and - you guessed it - governments.

Now granted, IBM probably shouldn't have been doing business with the South
Africans in the first place, customizations or no. However, IBM wanting to
create a customized system for the specific needs of a major customer is not
out-of-the-ordinary by any means, nor is it any reason to be up-in-arms.

    
    
        racial classification was a primary identifying
        characteristic;
    

Racial classification is a significant identifying characteristic in virtually
_all_ citizen databases, censuses, etc. You'd be hard-pressed to find a
country whose census doesn't at least _mention_ race or ethnicity. I will,
however, concede that incorporating race in the identification number itself -
as the South Africans did - is highly suspect, but it's not stated whether or
not IBM was the one that actually implemented that aspect of the
identification system in question.

    
    
        and the equipment was leased.
    

What does this have to do with anything?

The EFF article is trying to claim that - by the mere merit of IBM having
helped South Africa develop a citizen identification system - it's complicit
in human rights violations. Guess what? _There exists a staggeringly-large
quantity of countries with citizen identification systems_ [0]. It would be
one thing if IBM designed the system _specifically_ for the purpose of
discriminating against blacks, but this article hasn't really made a
convincing argument of that (namely, it hasn't provided any real proof that
enabling apartheid was indeed IBM's goal). As far as I can tell, IBM was
simply helping South Africa develop the same sort of system that most other
countries either already had or would soon have. In other words, IBM's
involvement was to implement a general-purpose product which was then
subsequently abused by the South African government.

I _will_ admit that the implementation of a race code in the identification
numbers themselves is suspect, and perhaps that's what the EFF is going after
(if IBM was indeed involved in that particular element of South African
citizen ID numbers; the article doesn't really go into detail on that). It's
also suspect that IBM proceeded with this (according to the EFF, at least)
after having been disallowed from doing so by the U.S. government, and that
IBM was secretive about it. However, the act of creating an identification
system - on its own - does not seem as if it can be classified as "directly
facilitating" anything, let alone racism. The EFF would have a better case if
they focused on those individual elements rather than trying to claim that the
ID system _in its entirety_ was designed to facilitate that institutionalized
racism.

This is all not to mention that IBM actually has a very positive track record
for eschewing racial discrimination in its hiring decisions and workplace
environments[1]; creating something specifically to oppress a particular
racial demographic is quite a bit out-of-character for them.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identification_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identification_number)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM#Work_environment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM#Work_environment)

~~~
Aloha
I agree with you, the charge holds about as much water as a colander. I feel
much the same way about the charges against IBM and the Holocaust.

~~~
yellowapple
I _somewhat_ disagree with you on that second part, since it sounds like (I
haven't really looked into this, and I haven't read the book in question) IBM
was indeed aware of the Third Reich's genocidal intentions, and that the
systems IBM developed were indeed specifically designed for the processing of
Jews and other targeted demographics.

I do agree that trying to single-out IBM for designing products of war is
unfair to IBM when various companies have done that (and, in many cases, have
done that _exclusively_ ) without any particular complaint.

------
vince_refiti
TIL, "In fact, the famous five and six-digit number tattooed on the arms of
Auschwitz inmates began as a punch card system identification number."

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yup. I learned this today too. And I'm Polish, which has the benefit of being
taught a lot about Nazi concentration camps (especially Auschwitz) in school.
Somehow I never heard of IBM's involvement before.

------
foxhill
i'm sorry but this is _utterly_ ridiculous.

IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person
(although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser,
only instead of paperclips, it's cash.

it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact
that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing _exactly_
what it was made to do is madness.

if IBM didn't do it, another company would have done it. IBM could have
failed, in fact, as a result. or at least, they might not be in the position
they are now.

you may be tempted to argue that, morally, IBM should have not agreed to take
part, regardless of the effect on the company. you wouldn't be entirely wrong.
but _a company does not have morals_. not having morals is what allows them to
make such vast amounts of profits.

when health insurance companies fight to the death (sometimes literally) to
avoid paying out claims, where is this moral outrage? or when BP do literally
whatever they want to environment, where does the outrage dissipate to after
the media gets bored of talking about it?

we can not expect companies to be moral agents. we can not expect them to
value human life over cash. to punish an entity with no conscience makes no
sense. it would be akin to shouting at the wind for blowing, or kicking a
hatstand for falling over.

the best we can hope to do is stop companies from engaging in "immoral"
behaviour (whatever that means - they change over time) _whilst they are
committing it_.

otherwise, lets start legal action with hugo boss for constructing nazi
uniforms. or VW (literally, the "peoples car") for working with nazi germany.

~~~
Karunamon
While I'm not sure I agree with your overall thesis (a company is made up of
_people_ at the end of the day), I do feel there is a point to be made here:
Is the IBM of today the IBM of 20-40 years ago? A person is not controlled by
different beings at different times of their life, a corporation is.

The legal brief, from a quick skim, appear to reference actions taken in the
70's and 80's.

Is the IBM of today the same one that existed in the 70's? The same people
running it and making the same decisions?

If the answer is no, I'm not sure what significance this lawsuit holds, other
than a symbolic "sticking it to the corporations" one. The only people being
punished in such a case are those that had nothing to do with the original
wrongdoing.

~~~
URSpider94
So, by your logic, if evidence surfaces after 30 years that solves an open
murder case, we shouldn't prosecute the suspect, because they've changed a lot
in that time?

~~~
Karunamon
Same person, though. Without going all philosophical about it though, here's
an example: let's assume there are two companies, one a sole proprietorship,
the other a corporation with 10 employees.

Both companies commit the same crime, the nature of which is unimportant.

It takes 30+ years for the case to enter the judicial system. In the meantime,
the guy running the first company is still there, while the 10 employees of
the second company are no longer the original 10.

Is it as fair to prosecute the second one as the first one? I don't think so,
because at that point you're assigning way too much value to the legal fiction
of personhood. A company is made up of _people_ , and I really don't see how
there is any justice to be served in prosecuting _people_ who didn't actually
commit any crimes just because they work at a place with a certain name.

~~~
dalke
Corporations exist to move liability from the owners to the company, not as a
way to escape liability, which seems to be your proposal. Your argument seems
to be that so long as people pass through a company quickly enough, there's no
long-term liability for the company?

The company must maintain the liabilities of its history. If a refining
company dumped waste directly into the ground, then 30+ years later it should
still be held responsible for clean up, even if all of the people involved
have retired. Otherwise, who is responsible for the cleanup?

Or, suppose that we find that Disney had illegally acquired the copyrights and
trademarks to Mickey Mouse from Person X. All of the people involved are long
dead, though the inheritors of the estate of Person X were successful in their
lawsuit. Under your view, it seems that the inheritors could not sue Disney
because none of the people now at Disney committed the original crime. That's
an absurd conclusion.

------
pmalynin
Okay, while we're at it let's sue Intel for providing a platform to enable
digital crimes, CERN for developing a copyright circumvention mechanism, oh
and how about we sue Maybach for proving engines for the Panzerkampfwagen VI
Tiger Ausf.E and therefore enabling Hitler to start a World War.

This is just ridiculous, nobody holds the developers of Little Boy
responsible, instead we should hold the people and governments who exploited
the inventions.

Note, I'm not rationalizing or supporting any of the negative effects of such
activities, merely trying to look at this issue through a different
perspective.

~~~
SG-
It sounds like you didn't read the article, they dedicated the third paragraph
explaining why it isn't the case of simply going after general-purpose
technology that could be used.

~~~
yellowapple
It sounds like you didn't read the parent comment, then, which pointed out
multiple examples of technologies that would _also_ fit the criteria being
used to chastise IBM.

IBM creating citizen tracking software - in both the Nazi German and Apartheid
South African scenarios - is equivalent to a company building engines for
tanks or parts for machine guns. Does the EFF plan on suing every last one of
those companies?

And to be honest, building a citizen tracking system _does_ seem pretty
general-purpose; what government _doesn 't_ want to be able to store and
manage information about its citizens in an easy manner? Yes, doing this
requires working closely with a particular customer (in this case, it was a
government of a country that _happened_ to be infamous for institutionalized
racism), but that does _not_ automatically mean that every last action of that
customer is condoned by IBM.

~~~
icebraining
_Does the EFF plan on suing every last one of those companies?_

The EFF isn't suing anyone. They filled an Amicus Brief on a case started by
South African plaintiffs.

And the difference between what IBM did and those hypothetical cases is that
there were actually US sanctions that (allegedly) forbid them from making
those deals, so what they did was not only immoral but probably illegal.

~~~
yellowapple
I agree that IBM should be punished for violating American law. My point is
that the focus of the EFF's brief ought to be specific cases where IBM
actually did facilitate Apartheid (if they did, in fact, do so). Creating a
citizen database (for example) is not immoral, nor is recording race as
statistical information, but adding a race identifier to the ID numbers does
seem to be, and thus would be a better case. "IBM is bad because it
implemented a racial identification code in the second-to-last digit of
citizen ID numbers" is a much more convincing case than "IBM is bad because it
created a citizen ID numbering system".

