
GitHub and US Government Developers - sabas_ge
https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-developers/
======
hnuser54
This is a measured and well-thought out response. I'm not really sure where
the detractors of Github here think the "cancelling" should stop. Should
everybody start building additional backdoors in their software that shuts it
down if it detects some sort of "bad" thing is being created, or possibly hook
it up to a Twitter feed and shut down if people are saying bad things about
the software operator?

Github emphasized that they don't know what is being done with the on-
premises, firewalled software they sold to ICE. What about the guy delivering
pizza to ICE headquarters -- is he cancelled too? He doesn't know if the "must
separate the children at the border" team or the "let's arrest the leaders of
this slave trafficking ring" is eating the pizza.

At least to me, some of the other protests in regards to ICE have been even
more obviously incoherent, like the demand for Wayfair to stop selling clean
beds for detained people to sleep in.

~~~
tehjoker
We need total non-cooperation with ICE. No one should even deliver a pizza for
them. They are the American gestapo. They put people in concentration camps
(there have been deaths!) and tear families apart. They use sneaky tactics to
kidnap people, even people who have been here most of their lives and then
deport them to places they have never known.

This one story alone is chilling:

"Diabetic Man Dies After Being Deported To Iraq: ACLU Jimmy Aldaoud reportedly
came to the U.S. as a baby and didn’t speak Arabic. He died after he was
unable to get insulin, his family says."

[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jimmy-aldaoud-iraq-
deported_n...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jimmy-aldaoud-iraq-
deported_n_5d4c1a23e4b01e44e4763b69)

~~~
jdm2212
> They are the American gestapo.

They're really not. It is possible to not like (some of) what ICE does and
also recognize that they are not rounding up a lawless autocrat's political
enemies for torture, indefinite imprisonment and execution.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Is the nebulous idea of "illegal aliens" (often the people in ICE facilities
are legally applying for asylum) not political enemies here? And is the
separation of families, including death of people in ICE custody and the
"losing" of children, with no information on how long any individual will be
kept under ICE custody, not altogether even remotely matching this idea you
depict?

~~~
jdm2212
If ICE were rounding up Democrats now (or Republicans under Obama) that would
be "political enemies". ICE is doing no such thing. Part of its mission is
enforcing US immigration laws, and it's doing that in a manner that's largely
consistent with what our democratically enacted laws say it can and should do.
You don't have to like it (I certainly don't) but it's not in any way
analogous to the Gestapo.

~~~
mattnewton
Whether or not their actions are consistent with our laws, and whether or not
they are similar to the gestapo is orthogonal to the morality of their
actions, and the morality of knowingly dealing with them. That's the real
question to be asked.

------
csande17
The real scandal here is that GitHub apparently calls their employees
"Hubbers".

~~~
reificator
Cutesy names for your employees/coworkers always comes off as creepy and cult
like to me. Huge red flag when choosing where to work.

~~~
askl83
So every venture-backed company in SF/SV?

I agree I hate it, but there are some companies that do it more jokingly than
others.

~~~
zzzcpan
It's the same thing as giving fandoms names, pretty manipulative and creepy.

~~~
askl83
I agree - the reason why companies do this is because creating a unified
culture, which this falls under, makes it easier to manage your rank-and-file.

Personally I avoid companies that talk about "culture" ad nauseam.

------
jna_sh
This internal letter was leaked last night on Twitter, via Fight for the
Future. It seems putting it on the official GitHub blog is a response to that
leak:
[https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1181745056698572802](https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1181745056698572802)

~~~
elliekelly
Putting it on the official GitHub blog seems to violate GitHub's Privacy
Policy. As much as I support GitHub's approach to dealing with ICE (and as
much as I despise ICE) I have a problem with a company making the details of a
customer's private transaction public. It's the government, and the government
_should_ be open and transparent, so that makes it a little easier to swallow
but I still don't feel it's appropriate for GitHub to comment on a specific
customer's services/total contract value.

~~~
TrickyRick
Privacy policies generally applies to individuals, not corporations. Unless
there's an NDA in place that Github can't speak about a particular customer,
nothing apart from good will is preventing them.

~~~
elliekelly
This is a common misconception but is absolutely not true. If the scope of
privacy policies were limited to natural persons then any website collecting
data from a corporation would have no legal basis for doing so.

But regardless, ICE was looking to renew a contract so there was an agreement
already in place and I can virtually guarantee the terms include some flavor
of mutual non-disclosure.

------
sarcasmatwork
>Like many Hubbers, I strongly disagree with many of the current
administration’s immigration policies, including the practice of separating
families at the border, the Muslim travel ban, and the efforts to dismantle
the DACA program that protects people brought to the U.S. as children without
documentation.

Obama did the same crap, and here a CEO is blaming the current admin.

If this CEO had a clue about what is going on, he would realize that the
PARENTS are in the wrong by bringing their kids. Thus, because of child
predators they have to be separated. Obama even said so.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4QniWO4_Yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4QniWO4_Yw)

~~~
letmeinhere
The sentence that you quoted cites three specific policies that this specific
administration enacted ([1], [2], [3]). Trump _campaigned_ on making two of
these changes, explicitly juxtaposing them to what he considered to be the
unacceptable Obama-led status quo. It is entirely rational for someone to
"blame" an administration for the policy changes that they unilaterally enact.
It's weird for you to be so defensive about this attribution, since you seem
to agree with the changes.

It is not "the same crap" because you have decided that it is all on a
spectrum of "bad things that happen to people I don't care about." That's not
how reality works.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_se...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_travel_ban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_travel_ban)

3\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals#Rescission)

------
tyri_kai_psomi
Kudos to Github, it is so refreshing to hear a reasoned, nuanced response for
once.

~~~
zzzcpan
I guess you don't read much PR. PR is never sincere, it exists to manipulate
public opinion.

------
SLIB53
How is donating $500k in response to making $200k from their sale a relevant
response? Is this their way of bribing people to quiet down? Seems twisted.

~~~
sremani
One thing Businesses like consistency - if GitHub goes after ICE, then why not
IRS or FBI or any other private organization - every Org is one controversy
away from to be deemed persona non grata.

Its not about ICE with GitHub, what they are doing is worth mulitple millions
in future earnings. So good move CEO - the question is how much the WOKE
nation is going to eat this PR CAKE.

~~~
sascha_sl
Thanks for explaining why corporate responsibility and the notion of voting
with your wallet in capitalism are bullshit.

Corporations care about being consistent with the status quo. Nothing more,
nothing less. Now get these PR clowns out of my pride marches.

------
parasanti
Why is this just now being called out? The current administration is doing the
same as the Obama administration.

~~~
olliej
Um, because under Obama ICE wasn’t putting kids in cages? Because it wasn’t
withholding bedding? It wasn’t separating families and then “accidentally”
losing track of the children? Children weren’t dying while in jail away from
their parents? They weren’t denied food and clean water?

Should I go on?

~~~
jki275
The Obama admin did exactly what this administration has done. You just didn't
care because of identity politics.

~~~
DarmokJalad1701
Did the Obama admin imprison legal asylum seekers and separate them from their
kids, and then lose track of said kids?

~~~
jki275
People who illegally cross the border are not legal asylum seekers. Those who
do so with children they are trafficking are even more of an issue, and you
know this is happening.

~~~
letmeinhere
It sounds like your answer is "no, but I actually approve of the new cruelty"

~~~
jki275
No, the answer is I don’t approve of silly hyperbole that only exists because
you don’t like the current head of state. Where were you when the last
administration was doing the exact same thing? You didn’t care then, because
you liked that administration. If you were intellectually honest you’d have
protested then rather than waiting for your handlers to tell you it was time
to make noise.

~~~
letmeinhere
DarmokJalad1701 pointed out specific new behavior that this administration
enacted as official policy, and you then justified it.

We agree that you don't approve of ~silly hyperbole~ other people having
convictions, but you made it very clear that you _do_ approve of family
separations, but don't think that anybody should be criticized for it if other
bad things ever happened before.

As for "[my] handlers telling [me] it was time to make noise," who is really
bringing the silly hyperbole? What is even the conspiracy here? Are we all in
the back pocket of big-Gitlab or something?

~~~
jki275
I didn't "justify" anything. I said that your hyperbole is hyperbole, and you
didn't care when the politicians you liked were in charge, which suggests you
really don't care at all and are simply part of the outrage machine that spins
up when someone tells them to.

If you had convictions, you'd have had them when the last administration was
doing this. You didn't then, you don't now.

BTW, the "specific examples" you talk about are not accurate. You're quoting
talking points. People who cross the border illegally and then pretend to be
"asylum seekers" when they get caught are not "legal asylum seekers", they
have committed a crime. Nobody is arresting people who legally present to a
border crossing and request asylum, because they haven't committed a crime to
be arrested for.

~~~
letmeinhere
Shorter you

a. I don't justify this

b. I know you didn't care about government-sponsored child abuse before Trump,
because your protest (to the thing that had yet to happen) wasn't in my news
feed

c. btw, here are my justifications for why they had to do the child abuse

~~~
jki275
Still didn't get it right.

The Trump administration didn't change anything. News agencies have used
footage showing the Obama administration doing what you call "child abuse" and
pretending it was the Trump administration.

No one has justified child abuse. When someone commits a crime and has a child
with them, the two are necessarily not going to be hanging out in a cell
together -- especially when it's possible the crime is trafficking that child.
That's just not how it works.

~~~
letmeinhere
OK, so when

\- a DHS official in March 2017 floated a policy of family separation and said
that "we are trying to find ways to deter the use of children in illegal
immigration." [1] \- Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors "to adopt
immediately a zero-tolerance policy for all offenses" related to the
misdemeanor of improper entry into the United States [2] \- John Kelly
justified the new policy by saying "The children will be taken care of—put
into foster care or whatever." [3]

and subsequently more than 2000 children, some as young as 12 months old, were
separated from their parents,

That was all a liberal smokescreen. They weren't changing anything! Actually,
this was always Obama's policy, DHS and DOJ just waited to enact it until
after he left office and the guy who campaigned against his record just
happened to be around when those separations actually occurred. And all of
those political appointees saying that they were changing things were just
deep state plants.

> The Trump administration didn't change anything

They told us they would do new things, many times, and then they did the
things. It is really bizarre that fervent Trump supporters like yourself are
so shy about taking credit for MAGA. He's delivering on his core promises! Why
are you so insistent on giving credit to the usurper that came before?

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/dhs-children-
adults-...](https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/dhs-children-adults-
border/) [2] [https://www.voanews.com/usa/sessions-announces-zero-
toleranc...](https://www.voanews.com/usa/sessions-announces-zero-tolerance-
policy-illegal-border-crossings) [3]
[https://www.npr.org/2018/05/11/610116389/transcript-white-
ho...](https://www.npr.org/2018/05/11/610116389/transcript-white-house-chief-
of-staff-john-kellys-interview-with-npr)

------
itronitron
poorly titled Press Release, GitHub isn't making any friends by lumping all US
Gov developers into the ICE bucket

~~~
vesche
I agree. Why is the title targeted at all US Government developers?

I feel like this press release is also trying to create political drama where
none is needed. GitHub is used by good people and bad people, just like
anything is. I'm a long time GitHub user, but this press release is
disappointing.

~~~
forgottenpass
>Why is the title targeted at all US Government developers?

As dumb as you might think people in government are, they're not so dumb as to
believe a decision could be made in a way that only applies to ICE.

They can see the abstract case at hand is a disagreement with federal policy.
ICE was created by the federal government and tasked with (among other things)
carrying out a controversial policy.

Even if GitHub didn't vocalize it explicitly -- or went further and stated
that the decision applied only to ICE -- every federal agency is still
listening to see if their business relationship with github will be shaped by
public opinion towards the job the legislature tells them to do.

------
atian
Well done. This is the best response.

------
psychometry
They say that $200k doesn't make a difference to their bottom line, then come
up with this convoluted argument for taking it anyway. Disappointed.

~~~
camel_Snake
But they are donating more than twice that. This seems like a pretty empty
criticism.

~~~
anarchodev
It's not. Donating to help lawyers and humanitarian orgs clean up the mess
your company is enabling this agency to create isn't the same as refusing to
cooperate with them in the first place.

------
mikece
A very reasoned and balanced response by Nat. And interesting that they are
making a larger-than-revenue-received donation to causes that offset the evils
of ICE.

------
sam0x17
My response would have been: immediately push a ToS change + update to
enterprise server so that it leaks all of ICE's code under MIT license (this
would be mandated in the ToS change). Time it so the code is already public
before they have time to react. Fuck ICE. I'd honestly throw away my career
and all of GitHub's enterprise revenue to screw these guys over.

------
andonisus
Get virtue signaling out of software communities.

~~~
danharaj
What is virtue signaling?

~~~
mcbits
Originally, disingenuous words and actions intended to build rapport with
people of a particular ideological persuasion. Nowadays, nothing, in the same
sense that quantum foam is nothing.

------
_-david-_
If Github really cared about this then they should have forbidden the selling
of the contract in the first place. The Trump admin's policy has been the US's
policy for the last 20+ years.

~~~
tehjoker
Anything less than total non-cooperation is finding a way to facilitate ICE,
the USG, and their massive criminal acts against humanity.

~~~
_-david-_
I don't remember people outraged when companies worked with ICE when Obama was
president. Obama did the same thing as Trump is doing. It feels so fake to me.

~~~
tehjoker
I wasn't as aware of what was going on then. It has gotten worse under Trump,
but Obama deserves searing criticism. Also, my views have become less partisan
over time (in that I think both parties are bad to the bone).

~~~
_-david-_
Has the percentage of people sent to facilities increased under Trump? As far
as I can tell it hasn't. There are more people trying to cross the border
under Trump than Obama so there is probably a larger number of people in ICE
facilities, but that wouldn't really be a fair criticism of Trump.

------
xibalba
Tldr: we're not going to sever ties with ICE.

~~~
derision
Tldr: we're not going to sever ties with ICE, because we recognize it could be
used in projects that support policies we both agree and disagree with, such
as human trafficking, child exploitation, terrorism and transnational crime,
gang violence, money laundering, intellectual property theft, and cybercrime.

~~~
xibalba
Mine is shorter.

~~~
compuguy
And your statement misses a ton of context as well...

~~~
ben0x539
That's the point of a tl;dr!

------
Miner49er
Seems like the attempt to fix this (donating $500k) isn't going to work. So
they've lost that money from the donation, I wonder how more they'll lose from
people dropping them over this and from employees quitting. Seems like that
$200k isn't worth it, I wonder why they don't just drop ICE or say they won't
allow them to renew in the future.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The chances that actions by those who would boycott Microsoft or Github over
ICE would inflict financial pain or negative PR worthy of changing business
practices is so close to zero, we can round down for the sake of argument to
zero. They are a trillion dollar company.

~~~
Miner49er
Then why donate $500k? Why'd Chef choose to drop ICE? Why all this damage
control if they aren't scared of losing money?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Path of least resistance. The Outrage Machine has already moved on from Chef.
This will blow over in a week or two as well.

Anyone stop using or working at Uber, Slack, or WeWork [1] because of Saudi
(and the human rights atrocities that go along with it [2]) money flowing into
it via Softbank Vision? Not enough to matter if so. Everyone works at a
company where one of their customers or investors is an evil monster, and if
that customer is worth enough revenue or that investor worth enough
investment, they're going to get a pass. No amount of Twitter, Facebook, or
Reddit shaming is going to change that.

If you don't want kids locked up in cages in ICE facilities (and I think it's
pretty clear none of us want people of any sort treated inhumanely), show up
and protest at facilities. Vote for decent politicians. Run for office. Donate
to candidates who align with your beliefs. But don't pat yourself on the back
with the assumption virtue theater like preventing a few hundred thousand in
government spend matters. It's a whole lot of effort on everyone's part for
not a lot of progress. In the same time everyone has been discussing this in
thread, that's a lot of calls to congresspeople that could've been made.

TLDR I _strongly_ encourage citizens to get involved in _actions that matter_.
These actions do nothing.

[1] [https://visionfund.com/portfolio](https://visionfund.com/portfolio)

[2] [https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-
chapters/saudi...](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-
chapters/saudi-arabia)

~~~
gbear605
I personally don't use either Uber or Lyft because of the Saudi money going
into them. Same with:

Tesla, ARM, NVIDIA, WeWork, Mapbox, General Motors, Fanatics, DoorDash, and
others

I'd drop Slack too if I could, but tech companies tend to mandate it.

I also stay away from companies with Chinese Beijing ownership, since Chinese
Beijing isn't really any better on human rights than Saudi Arabia is. Just a
few of them include:

Tencent (Riot Games, Epic Games), Blizzard, Reddit, JaGeX (Runescape), AMC, GE
Appliances, Lenovo, Hoover, TikTok, and many many others

I still use my Apple devices, but I'm not buying any new ones (or any other
devices manufactured in Chinese Beijing) until their production is out of
Chinese Beijing and into more responsible countries like the Republic of
China, India, EU nations, or America.

I have nothing against the Chinese people or the Saudi people, but their
fascist governments need to be overthrown.

~~~
moocowtruck
so whats your next move? cups and string? paper and pencil?

~~~
gbear605
That's an obviously false equivalence. There are plenty of ways to work
effectively without relying on fascism.

------
NTDF9
This is really unfortunate. The problem isn't law enforcement per se. The
problem is selective disregard for humans under pressure.

Many government organizations under current administration are deliberately
hemorrhaging law enforcement or bringing in policies through internal memos
(without congressional approval) to prey on the vulnerable.

I would've hoped companies like Github would take a stand and call out these
unfair enforcements. Once they do that, they can then continue on to serve the
contract. However, keep highlighting how your customers are using perverted
interpretations of law to treat humans badly.

------
rubyn00bie
Bye, Github!

I'm quite sure concentration camps were originally more "wholesome" than
murdering endless legions of innocent people... How on earth can you in one
sentence talk about child trafficking being bad and then know that children
are being abused by the same fucking institution that's supposed to protect
them?

I shouldn't be shocked, but I'm kind of hurt probably from my own naivete,
Github ain't any different than anywhere else-- all hail, profits before
people.

Canceling my private repos later today.

~~~
theli0nheart
> _all hail, profits before people._

GitHub is net negative $300,000 after their $500k donation, so how does this
have anything to do with making more money?

~~~
tehjoker
They are showing solidarity with the state by continuing to do business with
them in the hope that there will be more business down the line or to head off
the threat of intrusion into their business. The amount of money is trivial
compared to the relationships they are cultivating.

