
GitHub renews $200k contract with ICE - timkpaine
https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1181745056698572802
======
sandstrom
It would be interesting to know whether people living in a country with a
broken political system, for example one characterized by oligarchy[1] and two
eternal parties[2], are more likely to feel that it's the duty of employer to
carry their political placard.

I definitely think companies have a moral duty to spend their efforts on good
things, and there are many examples of deeply immoral companies.

But any society will also have political questions where people disagree,
without there being a strong good/evil aspect to it. For example 'should the
tax rate be 25%' or 'how should we organize our healthy system for the lowest
cost / GDP'?

Forcing every company to debate these questions internally, and kicking
customers off their product for violations, seems like an inefficient system.

But I think employee demand for such things will be higher in countries where
they don't feel represented via the political system.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-
echochambers-27074746](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-
post_voting#Cri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-
post_voting#Criticisms)

~~~
etiene
Sure, 'should the tax rate be 25%' seems like an unimportant discussion for
companies to debate internally. Do you think all political questions carry
similar weights of debate importance or that some questions might be
different?

~~~
sandstrom
Yeah, surely there is some continuum, from some boring federal museum to tax
rates to Guantanamo.

My main point wasn't to argue which weight this particular topic should be
given.

Rather, I'm curious whether employees in countries with non-functioning
governments are more likely to try to influence policy through their job?

From a European perspective it seems like this may be the case.

~~~
etiene
Oh, I understand your question now. From an European perspective, there is
hardly any reason to hold our governments standards as having the moral
grounds to establish what's the most efficient way to act in ethical issues
like this. Perhaps relative to the USA, yes, so you could be correct that
certain government's ineptitudes have a correlation with how creative people
get to get heard.

Either way, the whole question of dealing with ethics from the efficiency
perspectice is one that bothers me and a whole discussion in itself.

------
craz8
This is disappointing.

Since the $200,000 is immaterial to you, just cancel that deal entirely.
You’re certainly going to lose more than that now this this letter is public.

This shouldn’t be this hard to figure out.

~~~
true_religion
Why would you assume they are against ICE? Even on hackernews, ICE has its
supporters.

~~~
mwarkentin
[https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-
deve...](https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-developers/)

> 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. The leadership team shares these views. These
> policies run counter to our values as a company, and to our ethics as
> people. We have spoken out as a company against these practices, and joined
> with other companies in protesting them. You can read our public statements
> in the Keep the Families Together Act letter, the Muslim travel ban amicus
> briefs, and the DACA business leaders letter of support. We also joined an
> amicus brief last year to protect Sanctuary Cities.

> Our parent company, Microsoft, has also publicly opposed these same
> policies. Microsoft is the sole business that is a direct plaintiff in the
> litigation that will be heard by the United States Supreme Court next month
> challenging the rescission of the DACA program. Microsoft has a long history
> of advocating for migrants and immigration law reform. Microsoft CEO Satya
> Nadella has spoken passionately about his own experience as an immigrant to
> the United States, and how Microsoft has consistently stood up for
> immigration policies that preserve every person’s dignity and human rights,
> and advocated for change.

------
igetspam
My general position these days is against the current administration. I don't
say that as a way to start another argument but to frame what I'm about to
say.

I admit that I skimmed but I does say that they're not providing professional
service aandthat this is an on premise install. So... self managed, contract
renewal, no assistance... This one hardly bothers me. Can't any one do the
same with the (not literal) swipe of a credit card? It doesn't seem that
they're doing custom work for ICE. But it's hard to decide where to draw the
line here. Should we also get mad at anyone who sells them pizzas?

~~~
etiene
There is also another side to that question. If you were a pizza maker and you
loved what you did, would you sell your pizza to someone who wishes you and
your loved ones die? Maybe that would make you uncomfortable.

These situations are usually framed on how it bothers us, as outsiders to
these companies. We tend to put outselves only in the shoes of the pizza
consumers, neither the evil entity, nor the pizza maker. But these companies
have workers, who put their labor into some product, only then to see that
product in the hands of entities that go directly against their core values
and existence. I find very understandable that they are mad. Shouldn't we also
question these problems from this perspective?

When there are many employees uncomfortable with things like this, maybe it's
not a necessity, but I still think it's very nice for outsiders to support
them.

However that was in the case where the product is something innocuous, like
pizza. Because you know, it might also be case that the product is actually
enabling or helping evil to be evil. Such as "being part of the critical
toolkit to conduct invasive surveillance". So getting mad could be even more
substantiated in those cases.

------
GhostVII
What is the problem people have with the ICE? I think most people would agree
that it is important to have a department to handle immigration, and they are
deporting significantly fewer people now that during the Obama administration.

~~~
RickJWagner
It's become a political talking point. Your idea is valid: ICE was in place
during the Obama years, too. But people allow themselves to be used as pawns,
so they allow themselves to be deluded into a rage about it.

------
Gys
ICE = Immigration & Customs Enforcement

(not Internal Combustion Engine, which was the only thing that came to my
mind...)

~~~
growtofill
Neither the Institution of Civil Engineers :)

------
bureaucrat
Nothing wrong.

------
pojntfx
This is blood money.

------
trhway
many wonder/discuss what would they do say in 1936 in Germany when the
illegals there were come for and taken away. I'm pretty sure that the people
in that article would do [https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/us/nashville-
neighbors-help-p...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/us/nashville-neighbors-
help-prevent-ice-arrest/index.html) . Unfortunately as history shows so far
the people like this are minority. The rest of us - meh ... at best.

~~~
dang
" _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless you have
something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
tangents._"

Let alone the mother of all unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
trhway
i think it is directly related - some people stand up to (including with a
risk to themselves as one can only wonder what painful consequences may come
from obstructing a federal officer), some take money from.

For some reason mentioning obvious and strong historic parallels to the Nazi
Germany is considered controversial here in the US - well, i come from USSR, a
country which lost close to 30M of people due to the Nazi Germany, among them
millions of Slavic (my ethnicity) and Jews (both are "subhuman races" with
Slavic slated for 90% extermination with the rest to be enslaved, Jews - for
100%), my grandmother was a highly decorated veteran of that war, and a number
of the members of extended family fought in the war too with some getting
killed, and i see no reason to forget the history. If anything, i think we
have to be vigilant in discovering, highlighting and fighting today anything
and everything (like the complacence and cooperation with sub-humanization of
a whole class of people) that back then resulted in such a catastrophe.
Identifying the historic parallels is among the main tools here.

~~~
dang
It isn't about forgetting the history. I honor your family history that you've
just described.

It's about the cheap and trivial dynamics of internet flamewar, which will
flood everything if you let it and which has nothing at all to do with the
noble things you're describing. Your comment upthread was guaranteed to
provoke that, no matter how sincere your intention and how significant your
reason for holding it.

If ever there was a case of "the medium is the message" this is it. No matter
how elevated the material you put into that machine, you're going to get
garbage out. We have many years of experience with this medium and others had
decades of experience before us, and this experience teaches that if you throw
Nazis into an arbitrary internet topic—especially one with any emotional
charge, and especially if you do it quickly and glibly, as in your comment
upthread—the forum will react like a chicken with its head cut off. What good
or what honor does that do anyone? We need to be wiser about how we approach
these things.

~~~
trhway
>quickly and glibly

and here i hoped it was short and to the point - contrasted the 2 behaviors
and pointed to the context which historically shown the critical importance of
that difference and its consequences. Seems to be another case when we'd
perceive ourselves in one way, and the world would do it in a completely
different way. Among many things on HN i find extremely valuable is that
exposure to completely different, including critical, opinions/views/etc. I
see your point and appreciate your detailed explanations in this case and the
effort you put into your role here on HN in general.

~~~
dang
I believe you. Short and to the point is usually a good quality for a comment
to have. But in flamebait territory, the opposite is unfortunately the
case—one needs to pack one's comment with enough flame retardant to
disambiguate it from the cheaper sort of comment which is so much more common.
It's extra work, but the burden is on the commenter to do that.

Thanks for the kind response. I appreciate it.

