Google employees signed an open letter Wednesday asking the company not to cooperate with ICE and CBP. (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Aug 15, 2019
Employees of Google announced Wednesday they are protesting the tech giant's expected proposal to work with President Donald Trump's war on immigrants through cloud computing contracts.
In a detailed Medium post announcing concerns over the contract, the group "No GCP for CPB" laid out its complaints and demands (emphasis in original):
It has recently come to light that CBP is gearing up to request bids on a massive cloud computing contract. The winning cloud provider will be streamlining CBP's infrastructure and facilitating its human rights abuses. It's time to stand together again and state clearly that we will not work on any such contract. We demand that Google publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE, or ORR with any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.
"We refuse to be complicit," the group said.
\u201cWe won\u2019t be complicit: #NoGCPforCBP \nWith this petition, we call on Google to publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE or ORR w/ any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.\nhttps://t.co/8RITUXKJBq\u201d— Googlers for Human Rights (@Googlers for Human Rights) 1565791353
The letter was signed, at press time, by "676 Googlers and 48 other supporters."
As Voxreported Wednesday, employees have been at the forefront of movements against the country's large tech sector cooperating with CBP and ICE:
In many cases, employees who consider themselves part of the "Tech Won't Build It" and "No Tech for ICE" movement have been some of the first to raise concerns about their companies' practices.
The movement to stop tech companies from supplying technology to ICE and other immigration agencies has also been led in part by immigrant and minority advocacy groups like Mijente and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the latter of which last week helped shut down an Amazon Books store in Manhattan over the company's ties with ICE.
Other rights groups, including the Texas-based RAICES, applauded the stand taken by the tech giant employees.
"We appreciate the Google workers standing with us," tweeted RAICES.
Mijente said it hoped that the Google group wouldn't be the last.
"We encourage tech workers across all of these companies to keep organizing and escalate until their employers stop engaging in human rights abusers," said Mijente.
Join Us: News for people demanding a better world
Common Dreams is powered by optimists who believe in the power of informed and engaged citizens to ignite and enact change to make the world a better place. We're hundreds of thousands strong, but every single supporter makes the difference. Your contribution supports this bold media model—free, independent, and dedicated to reporting the facts every day. Stand with us in the fight for economic equality, social justice, human rights, and a more sustainable future. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover the issues the corporate media never will. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Employees of Google announced Wednesday they are protesting the tech giant's expected proposal to work with President Donald Trump's war on immigrants through cloud computing contracts.
In a detailed Medium post announcing concerns over the contract, the group "No GCP for CPB" laid out its complaints and demands (emphasis in original):
It has recently come to light that CBP is gearing up to request bids on a massive cloud computing contract. The winning cloud provider will be streamlining CBP's infrastructure and facilitating its human rights abuses. It's time to stand together again and state clearly that we will not work on any such contract. We demand that Google publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE, or ORR with any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.
"We refuse to be complicit," the group said.
\u201cWe won\u2019t be complicit: #NoGCPforCBP \nWith this petition, we call on Google to publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE or ORR w/ any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.\nhttps://t.co/8RITUXKJBq\u201d— Googlers for Human Rights (@Googlers for Human Rights) 1565791353
The letter was signed, at press time, by "676 Googlers and 48 other supporters."
As Voxreported Wednesday, employees have been at the forefront of movements against the country's large tech sector cooperating with CBP and ICE:
In many cases, employees who consider themselves part of the "Tech Won't Build It" and "No Tech for ICE" movement have been some of the first to raise concerns about their companies' practices.
The movement to stop tech companies from supplying technology to ICE and other immigration agencies has also been led in part by immigrant and minority advocacy groups like Mijente and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the latter of which last week helped shut down an Amazon Books store in Manhattan over the company's ties with ICE.
Other rights groups, including the Texas-based RAICES, applauded the stand taken by the tech giant employees.
"We appreciate the Google workers standing with us," tweeted RAICES.
Mijente said it hoped that the Google group wouldn't be the last.
"We encourage tech workers across all of these companies to keep organizing and escalate until their employers stop engaging in human rights abusers," said Mijente.
Employees of Google announced Wednesday they are protesting the tech giant's expected proposal to work with President Donald Trump's war on immigrants through cloud computing contracts.
In a detailed Medium post announcing concerns over the contract, the group "No GCP for CPB" laid out its complaints and demands (emphasis in original):
It has recently come to light that CBP is gearing up to request bids on a massive cloud computing contract. The winning cloud provider will be streamlining CBP's infrastructure and facilitating its human rights abuses. It's time to stand together again and state clearly that we will not work on any such contract. We demand that Google publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE, or ORR with any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.
"We refuse to be complicit," the group said.
\u201cWe won\u2019t be complicit: #NoGCPforCBP \nWith this petition, we call on Google to publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE or ORR w/ any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses.\nhttps://t.co/8RITUXKJBq\u201d— Googlers for Human Rights (@Googlers for Human Rights) 1565791353
The letter was signed, at press time, by "676 Googlers and 48 other supporters."
As Voxreported Wednesday, employees have been at the forefront of movements against the country's large tech sector cooperating with CBP and ICE:
In many cases, employees who consider themselves part of the "Tech Won't Build It" and "No Tech for ICE" movement have been some of the first to raise concerns about their companies' practices.
The movement to stop tech companies from supplying technology to ICE and other immigration agencies has also been led in part by immigrant and minority advocacy groups like Mijente and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the latter of which last week helped shut down an Amazon Books store in Manhattan over the company's ties with ICE.
Other rights groups, including the Texas-based RAICES, applauded the stand taken by the tech giant employees.
"We appreciate the Google workers standing with us," tweeted RAICES.
Mijente said it hoped that the Google group wouldn't be the last.
"We encourage tech workers across all of these companies to keep organizing and escalate until their employers stop engaging in human rights abusers," said Mijente.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.