
Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims - Mz
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-oppose-muslim-database-20161214-story.html
======
Raed667
I just went on Facebook and created an Ad [0] that targets only people
"interested in Islam" and living the US, it took 30 seconds.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/NOrGA2N.png](http://i.imgur.com/NOrGA2N.png)

\---

Edit: Direct link

~~~
kevinburke
There is a big difference between advertising to users interested in Islam and
shipping that dataset (or clicks, or people who use certain keywords in
messages) to the government.

~~~
Raed667
Tell that to a FISA court.

~~~
kevinburke
FISA courts asking for the same data are also bad. The data asked for by a
FISA court must be gathered and shipped by employees and lawyers who have
agency. Those employees and lawyers can choose to fight, or not. This is a
public pledge that says "we will choose to fight."

Leaking FISA requests to the press, choosing to face jail time, or trying a
public battle over a FISA request are other options available to people at
these companies, instead of just rolling over.

I don't understand your argument.

~~~
gohrt
If something is harmful, ineffective grandstanding (and then losing a FISA
fight) are worthless.

------
wjossey
It's a lovely gesture, and an important sign of solidarity; however, it'a
merely that, just a gesture.

I hope that SV and the tech industry leverages its wealth and technical legal
capabilities to fight these sorts of actions in court, unlike their responses
to privacy intrusions by the federal government, British intelligence, and
other foreign groups.

~~~
kevinburke
Over 1000 people, some of them very prominent, have pledged to quit their jobs
if they are asked to do unethical things. How is that "merely a gesture"?

~~~
jerf
Have they destroyed any of this data yet?

As much fun as it may be to pretend this is a Trump problem, it's a Silicon
Valley problem. It's Silicon Valley waking up and realizing that it's all fun
and games until someone you don't like gets the data that they have already
painstakingly collected, polished, and devoted billions of dollars to
processing and extracting features of interest. The existence of people you
don't like and the fact that some of them will be someday be in positions of
power isn't news, it's a constant fact of life.

I find it a bit disgusting that _this_ is what finally crossed the line when
the line should have been considered crossed a long time ago, but I'll take
what I can.

Now, what has anyone _done_ about the excessive collection of data, beyond
virtue signaling that they don't like Trump? We don't need virtue signaling.
We need actions. One of the signs that action has actually been taken would be
that some of these companies are going to _make less money_. If that doesn't
happen, this is hot air, so much "it's OK when we do it, but not those guys
over there, no way! Now don't you feel better that we said that? BTW, here's a
popup that offers you the choice of either giving us everything you have on
your phone or being unable to use cell phones. (It's _choice_.)"

~~~
idlewords
You're complaining that "we need actions" in response to tech employees
actually taking action. That's weird.

I realize you want to see grander, significant results, but what do you think
that looks like at the outset? People starting to do something in an industry
that has been historically very wary of being "political".

~~~
zigzigzag
Signing a pledge is not "action". Actually quitting would be action. But there
are lots of signatures from people who work at large companies that make even
larger databases. Why didn't they quit already? Why didn't they quit years
ago? Why are the only issues the pledge talks about things that liberals care
about? Why not also pledge to never make a database of gun owners, to make the
conservatives feel included?

The industry is wary of being "political" for good reasons - engaging in
shallow political campaigns and especially being seen to both biased and
powerful is a good way to trash the reputation of the field. Software
engineering isn't as respected as medicine, but it's at least better respected
than journalism and politics.

The worst case scenario is that this kind of crap becomes widespread and
software ends up being like the social sciences: riddled with political
extremism (there are basically no conservative social scientists) ... yet
unable to see it because all people with opposing viewpoints were
systematically shit on and excluded for decades until the point was reached
where there were none left.

~~~
idlewords
It's dishonest to put "gun owner registry" and "Muslim registry" on the same
moral footing, or to assert that conservatives don't care about creating a
tracking database based on a religious test.

People haven't quit already because there is diversity of opinion about what
kind of data collection is inherently bad. There are people from Palantir who
signed the pledge. I don't pretend to understand it myself.

However, it represents a public commitment, and comes at a personal risk.
People are making a very visible public promise at a time when visible people
get harassed, and their own management is trying to make nice with the
incoming Administration.

Respect.

------
marchenko
The book _IBM and the Holocaust_ [0] gives an interesting historical
perspective on the misuse of databases and database technology. One
fascinating point with modern echoes is how often sensitive information (such
as having Jewish ancestry) was simply volunteered to officials such as census-
takers.

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

------
exabrial
Unfortunately, with firearms registration and no-fly lists, Muslim registries
are part of the slope we've set precedent for. A citizen should _never_ have
to register with the government to exercise a freedom explicitly granted in
the constitution.

~~~
lucaspiller
It's an interesting argument. How could that work for things like driving,
where you need to prove competency before you are legally allowed to do
something?

~~~
BeetleB
Because driving on public roads has never been a right in the US. It has
always been a _privilege_ that you are granted.

~~~
bpodgursky
That's not really accurate. Freedom of assembly is interpreted pretty
generously. It's fine to disqualify on not knowing how to drive safely, but
any other unrelated qualifier would be struck down as unconstitutional.

~~~
adrr
Thats a good point. If the US did a "no drive" list, there's no way it would
standup in the courts. Counter point would be a "no firearm" list which runs
counter to the 2nd amendment and may standup in the courts.

------
milge
Sadly, there will always be tech workers willing to do this for the right
price. As I get older, I'm starting to wonder if not following my "tech
morals" would've brought more success.

~~~
olalonde
I'm playing the devil's advocate here but there are also a lot of tech workers
who do not regard building such a database as unethical. A common fallacy on
HN is to assume people who hold differing views necessarily do so
egoistically, which is sometimes true but not always.

~~~
zodPod
Yeah it's entirely possible that there are a small percentage of tech workers
who would fully support this type of move. I too have noticed HN users seem to
just assume everyone shares their views.

~~~
zigzigzag
That's not "HN users", that's a trait that has cropped up repeatedly in 2016:
surely that's the lesson of the year, a widespread groupthink that "surely
most people are like us and are disgusted by $THING" and then meltdowns when
it turns out not to be true.

What makes you think it'd be a small percentage? I didn't notice the NSA
having trouble attracting very bright staff, apparently it's the opposite:
they were able to get their pick of the best despite uncompetitive salaries.
And the NSA has spent years taking part in targeted assassination programs of
innocent people who weren't in US jurisdiction, had no charges levied against
them and never had any sort of trial. They were just drone striked.

------
probably_wrong
Of course they won't. Any tech worker worth hiring would write a general
people database, and define 'muslim' as a query parameter.

(With apologies to Nathaniel Borenstein. Also, it's true)

~~~
kevinburke
Are you arguing the 1000 people who've signed the petition are not worth
hiring?

~~~
dimino
No he's making a tongue-in-cheek comment about implementation and how one
might sign this and also functionally implement it, because it's a little
vague.

------
kevinburke
I'm distressed at the amount of fatalism and hopelessness in this thread.
Every professional has agency and the ability to act ethically. They can
choose to stand up for people's rights or not; the best guess is that these
ethics will be tested by the next administration. Large scale human rights
violations require the complicity of a _lot_ of people who may be uncertain
about how to act in the face of moral ambiguity, and a public pledge to not be
complicit can help a lot.

People are making a public pledge. Other people who haven't signed the pledge
might read it and get encouraged by it, or see a name on there of someone they
look up to, and decide that everything isn't hopeless, or decide to act
ethically in the face of questionable decisions.

------
tptacek
I'm glad this is getting attention, but I urgently need to correct their
headline.

What tech workers pledged to do:

1\. Not to participate in the creation of these kinds of databases.

2\. To use every lawful method available to them to stop the misuse of these
databases where they exist.

3\. To sever their connections with their employers if efforts to prevent
misuse at those employers fails.

Lots of people are reacting to this by saying "the databases already exist".
The people who wrote this pledge are aware of that.

This is not a "petition" to convince Google and Facebook to stop building
databases. It's not a petition at all. It doesn't demand that companies _do_
anything. It's not up to the companies; it's up to the employees who sign.
That's the point of a pledge.

------
marchenko
This database essentially already exists as part of Facebook and another
companies producing social graph data, and in the nodes and interstices of
networked communications.

~~~
tptacek
The authors of the pledge understand that, which is why it's written the way
it is.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Doctors adhere to the Hippocratic Oath.

Nevertheless doctors worked in concentration camps, were experimenting on
humans, work as executioners currently in the US, work and worked in torture
chambers, sell their patients to big pharma for Rolex watches and on and on
and on.

This pledge may be a statement but is practically worth nothing.

~~~
kevinburke
People take cues and behave based on the norms and behavior of those around
them. If I know and like person X, and they exhibit unethical behavior Y, I
may conclude that Y can't be that bad because I know X and they are not bad.

On the flip side if leaders in my industry or community are declaring "it's
unacceptable to participate in this behavior and I will resign rather than be
complicit in it" it's more likely that I'll take an ethical stance. Here are
1000+ people taking a public pledge to quit their jobs if they're asked to do
unethical things. That might inspire others who are waffling, or faced with an
unethical decision, to find a similar backbone.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
The problem is that you only need say 10 people or less out of one million to
make it happen.

I respect people giving that pledge, would give it myself, but the practical
impact is 0.

Each day I walk by a large Bayer building who bought Monsanto who do ethical
questionable things. Still each day hundreds of people enter that building.
There is never a shortage of people who will do whatever they are questioned
to do if only they can feed their family. There will always be someone who
builds that Muslim database. There is always someone who can rationalize their
doings.

~~~
kevinburke
I think you are underestimating the number of people who need to comply to
enable human rights abuses on a large scale.

------
bwreilly
For everyone dismissing this as "too late" and "this data already exists"
should consider that this appears to be addressed in the pledge.

> to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and
> national origin data.

> Responsibly destroy high-risk data sets and backups

~~~
protomyth
Good luck getting Facebook or the US Census to do that. This is a useless
gesture that means very little. I guess some people get to feel better about
themselves.

The first step would be some reforms in consumer protection laws dealing with
privacy and information sharing. Just watch how much certain SV firms spend to
opposed those changes.

~~~
idlewords
The US census has robust protections against storing or disseminating
personally identifying information. They do it right.

Facebook has hundreds of employees mortified by what their management is
walking into (the Trump tower, among other things). They have a lot of
influence if they choose to use it.

~~~
protomyth
> The US census has robust protections against storing or disseminating
> personally identifying information. They do it right.

Can you point to the place where they say they don't store your personal
information because that is part of their job. They try very hard not to
release that data in an individually identifiable manner, but they have the
individual data.

If Facebook's employees are NOW mortified, then they haven't been paying
attention for a lot of years. They will just be outsourced or have people who
need the job take over.

------
ChuckMcM
That is an interesting headline, when I read it I immediately thought the coda
would be, "... but advertising networks offer to share theirs."

There is absolutely technology already out there that, without your voluntary
participation, puts you into arbitrarily precise boxes. One need only look at
the targeting options on a Facebook ad to realize just how deep that data
goes.

Adtech companies have invested billions in ways, legal, sketchy, and sometimes
downright illegal to put together databases on everyone who ever connects with
the Internet in any way on any platform. They do that because being able to
target ads accurately makes them more money.

~~~
idlewords
That's not really true. Look at the ads that are targeted at you, and you'll
see that adtech data is really quite inaccurate.

Ad companies collect the data so they can make impressive promises to
investors and clients, or just tick a box in a spreadsheet somewhere. Anyone
in the industry will tell you that they are bad at using it, and bad at
vetting it. Ad company data is nothing like what you could get from Google or
Facebook.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok. Try this experiment at home. Create a fictitious business and sign up for
a Facebook advertising account. Now call your assigned sales rep and say "Hi,
our business sells Halal meats for the Muslim community, what parameters
should I be using to target my ads to people who would be looking for that?"

------
1ris
It's a ridiculous and naive view of the world.

Of course it already exists. For example on facebook. For example in the
mosques.

Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. But most people
didn't give a fuck. Welcome is post privacy. I didn't need have to be that
way. We can still turn this into post-post-privacy. But only if we face what
we have already done.

~~~
coldtea
> _Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming._

There has been nothing coming. Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will
be done. Check back in 4 years.

Besides government agencies obviously already have detailed profiles of such
things, going far beyond the religion of a subject.

~~~
1ris
I'm talking about what is happening right now. If you find yourself in a
situation where you regret data having this deeply, you shouldn't have
collected them in first place.

The second statement is true, but unrelated. It's like saying you are fine
because others are worse.

~~~
coldtea
> _The second statement is true, but unrelated. It 's like saying you are fine
> because others are worse._

No, it's like saying "Whether I catch a flu or not is not really worth it to
fret about, given that I have a couple terminal illnesses going on anyway".

------
ori_b
How many are willing to get arrested over this? How many CEOs are willing to
get their company shut down over this?

I suspect that this is largely posturing, and when push comes to shove people
will comply.

~~~
idlewords
1200 people are willing to quit over this. Let's start there.

~~~
zigzigzag
No. 1200 people said they _might_ (it isn't binding) but only _if_ the
conditions of the pledge are violated. The pledge is written in such a way
that almost anything could be deemed as not violating it, if the signer wanted
that.

This is the direct equivalent of "I'll move to Canada if Foo gets elected".
Move-to-Canada declarations are actually much tighter than this pledge as they
tend to be triggered by simple, undeniable conditions. But how many people who
publicly proclaimed they'd do it actually do?

The solution to "the administration wants to build a database of Muslims" is
not to sign worthless pledges. It's to enter politics and put the argument to
conservative voters that they're wrong and should change their mind.

------
ris
It might be more fun (and possibly more effective) to just build a highly
dysfunctional one.

(I inevitably invite anyone with a beef against certain database technologies
to suggest some possibilities)

~~~
sharkweek
We could collectively all change our religion on FB to Muslim

~~~
whatshisface
Then you'd have a registry of Muslims (religion set before event) _and_
dissenters.

------
Animats
There's definitely going to be a database of visa overstayers. The plan to
match entries and exits from the US is coming back. It's not like that should
be hard.

~~~
btbuilder
There has been a database of visa overstayers for a very long time. Today it
is based on flight records, it used to be done via paper forms (I-94(W)) [1]

What is being talked about (and has been for years) is biometric identity
confirmation of the visitor leaving the country. I remember seeing the kiosks
at the airport at one point years ago.

[1] [https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-
visitors/i-94-instr...](https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-
visitors/i-94-instructions/i94-rollout)

------
darawk
A database of Muslims is not a special kind of database...You can use any old
off the shelf DB software for this. I'm not sure what the point of this pledge
is.

------
tn13
It is one thing to say that publicly but real test with be when NSA will come
with all their weapons. May be NSA can say give me all your data and we will
do something like s/mohammad/target/g.

The bigotry and utter disrespect for the privacy and freedom of own citizens
is the larger problem that is not just Tech industry's issue here.

------
return0
Haven't they already been doing it for > decade? Oh they just want to shield
from competition. nice one

------
zdean
Do we not have enough databases built already with enough data points to
effect this?

~~~
h4nkoslo
You don't even need a "database", the naming patterns are very distinctive.

------
louprado
All it takes is one developer to dissent and to crowd source the entire data
collection effort. The contributors get a promise that they will be
compensated at a future date when the government agrees to buy the database.
This would be an easy App to write and with good ML you can scrub out bad data
and identify malicious contributors.

It took me 30 seconds to come up with that idea and until this very moment, I
always thought of crowd-sourcing as a beautiful part of modern society. By
mid-2017 I'll likely be a full-blown nihilist.

edit: ++sadness

------
unabridged
Too late. There are only 7 billion people. If you don't think every major
intelligence service (and a few large companies) has built a database of every
person's vital statistics you are naive.

If I was the US government I would be in the process of building a full world
family tree using DNA collected from battlefields and attacks. I would want to
know when an attacker's cousin is entering a certain country.

------
atom-morgan
Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims yet people willingly
add their names to a public Github repo as a LGBTQIA or POC in tech.

~~~
exolymph
Do you not see how these two things are different?

~~~
lhnz
I think you can be reasonably certain that they are able to see the difference
in intention.

However, can such a database be misused? Yes. And, that's probably their
point.

(I agree that it's an edge-lordy comment that seems like it's intended to
annoy. But the reason it can annoy people is that there is an element of truth
to it.)

------
entee
I signed, I'm a fan. If in spite of all this, it or something like it does get
created, I think a complimentary strategy would be to overwhelm the database
and make it useless. For example, if there was a public registry, everyone
should register, making swamping the intended signal with noise. Make it
impossible to use the thing.

I hope we never get to that stage.

------
siegecraft
Oh, now suddenly they have a conscience? Where was this when they were
building the machines of surveillance capital?

------
juicerp
What a joke. As if Google, FB, and Palatir don't have us all in a NSA or CIA
database. I'm sure the government has no data on any of us and all of Eric
Schmidt's trips to Obama's white house were just for tea.

~~~
kevinburke
> As if Google, FB, and Palantir don't have us all in a NSA or CIA database.

They don't.

~~~
1ris
Cambridge Analytica claims to have profiles of 230 million americans. If you
substract babies and people over 70 that's about everybody. And Cambridge
Analytica is a shack compared to all the others.

------
Glyptodon
If any of them work for Facebook (et al.) I'm sure it will be quite a laugh.

------
soufron
That's exactly the reason why databases of people including their religious
opinions are forbidden under EU Law. And it has been that way in France and in
Germany since 1978.

~~~
gdelfino01
I lived in Germany. They asked my religion and made me pay religion tax
(Kirchensteuer). So they already have such a database.

~~~
germanier
They don't ask for your religion. They ask if you are member in one of a few
religious communities. You may say that this is nitpicking but it's really
not. They don't care about beliefs but just perform a service for those
communities that asked them to do it. That tax is best to be thought of a
membership fee that happens to be collected by the state.

If a religious community does not want to participate in that scheme they can.
Plenty don't use that service.

------
JustSomeNobody
Can we pledge never to allow backdoor access for the NSA, et al?

------
awqrre
Hundreds of tech worker said they would not do it, but I'm sure that they
could find just as many that would do it. A database is pretty simple to build
anyways...

~~~
tptacek
It's over 1200 now. But could you find 1200 tech workers to take the other
side? Yes, I think you could. 1200 is a tiny number relative to the number of
engineers who agree with the pledge, and just haven't seen it yet.

I think you're crazy if you think the profession as a whole is anything close
to 50/50 on these issues. _The American people_ aren't close to 50/50 on them:
they oppose both mass deportation and Muslim registries by wide margins. The
numbers get even starker when you restrict them to people with the educational
backgrounds of Silicon Valley engineers.

------
alva
Facebook are happy to provide a database of black people [0] to advertisers.
People don't choose their race, but they can choose their religion. Arguably,
allowing one over the other is supremely unfair.

[0]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/22/facebooks...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/22/facebooks-
ethnic-affinity-advertising-concerns-racial-profiling)

~~~
kevinburke
That may be distasteful but there is a wide, wide gap between letting
advertisers target ads to groups based on ethnicity, and sending datasets of
people with a certain ethnicity/religion to advertisers or to the government.
The pledge is mostly focused on the latter.

~~~
1ris
As if governments would take no as a answer. If the data is there it's
accessible.

~~~
kevinburke
In fact, they do. The USG was unsuccessful in compelling Apple to provide a
"golden key" to decrypt the San Bernardino iPhone, and the USG went along with
that.

People can refuse and the government can choose to try to send executives to
jail, or issue fines, but that comes with bad PR and companies can and do
fight those as well.

------
jugbee
Guys, i know article is about not building a muslim database and all, but what
about the outlook chats bypassed by nsa?

------
wdr1
Given FISA Courts & NSA wiretapping, I'm not sure the government would
necessarily need their cooperation.

------
rayiner
They already have. It's called Google.

~~~
tptacek
Rayiner, do you think the people who wrote this aren't aware of that?

------
eplanit
So, [http://neveragain.tech/](http://neveragain.tech/) will become a database
of tech workers who pledged to never build a database of Muslims.

~~~
lorenzhs
It's a pledge. People put their name on that list by choice. They want it to
be on there, and they want it to be publicly visible. The point you are trying
to make is not very well thought out.

------
soufron
Well you don't need that many of them to do it.

------
lizthedeveloper
The comments on this thread make me super sad

------
edblarney
What about a database of people from countries with high propensity for
radicalization, for example Tunisia, or Somalia?

Paradox: Tunisia is perhaps the most progressive of all the M/E Muslim
countries, and yet they are the #1 M/E country in terms of Jihadis. They are
overwhelmingly the greatest per/capita Jihadi producers in the world. By far.
Tunisia is very small. Networks are very small. 95% chance that a young male
Tunisian knows someone off to fight Jihad. This is very significant.

Somalia - is a stateless war-zone, people coming from their are massively
over-represented in other kinds of crimes. Wherever there is a 'new' Somalian
community, the crime (drugs and related) offenses are off the charts with
over-representation. In Toronto - a big slice of the 'violent murder' pie is
committed by Somalis - and they are near 0% of the actual population. Some
social workers have observed that they simply have absolutely no respect for
authority - it's meaningless to many of them. There is an overrepresentation
among Somalis in terms of 'domestic' (i.e. host nation) violence, that's
possibly 'terror' related.

Those are both good examples because it shows you how young men from
completely different places, are radicalized for completely different reasons,
and are associated with completely different kinds of violent people - and
their nationality (read: culture) is definitely a correlating (or even
predictive factor).

It's a moot point anyhow. The FBI has a database. You're probably in it.
There's a tag on your file that might indicate the likelihood you'll be
radicalized.

We have to be really quite careful of this kind of stuff, frankly, I'm more
concerned about the 'populist anti-muslim sentiment' that might arise, as
opposed to any kind of actual 'database' of muslims.

Anyhow - it's all moot. There will be no DB of Muslims.

~~~
Raed667
As a Tunisian I would like to add a comment:

1- Yes, there is a number of Tunisians that went to Syria. As you have said
per/capita it is a large number. There are around 10 Million Tunisians and
from 3000 to 8000 fighting in Syria (depending on the source).

2- This is due to several factors: Post-revolution politics, poverty, mistrust
in the state institutions and the police, and -most importantly- a previous
government that is (allegedly) complicit.

3- There are no official numbers, the Tunisian government said that they have
no idea on the exact number. Some Syrian/Turkish parties gave estimates (the
numbers you read in the press) but they are not to be trusted to be objective
or impartial.

4- If this "database" checks for first and second degree connections, then the
entire country would be flagged.

~~~
edblarney
Thanks for your comment.

And to be clear - I'm not 'blaming' anyone, I spent some time in Tunisia a
couple of years ago. I'm just indicating that 'cultures' and 'centers of
activity' and 'relationships' are important.

So 'I hear you' on that.

Still though - Tunisians tend to be great people, much more open minded and
educated than, for example Algerians or Moroccans ... and the Tunisian
government is not nearly as bad as others ... so it's still a paradox :)

Though it could actually be literacy, access to information, and basic
financing which enables them to head out to war ... ironically. Certainly, Al
Queda members were actually quite well educated, way more so than the average
street Arab.

~~~
Raed667
I was just adding some details to the valid points you have mentioned.

And indeed, I personally don't understand that paradox as well.

------
caseysoftware
The ignorance here is stunning.

 _Every_ background check system is a database.

If it includes religion, it's a query without being a "database of Muslims."
It works much the same (not as accurate) if you have country of origin
instead.

------
45hher6h
See "religion": [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference/use...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference/user/)

