Letter in support of GitHub protests is latest round of tech ire over government work
Microsoft
Support Phone numberCorp. employees are circulating a letter supporting an
effort to get its GitHub subsidiary to cancel a contract with the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the latest effort among tech-company
staff to influence corporate policy on government work.
The letter reflects concerns that Microsoft’s sales to the agency implicate the software maker in the government’s detention of immigrants. On Wednesday, GitHub employees protested the renewal of a roughly $200,000 contract with ICE after GitHub Chief Executive Officer Nat Friedman released an email defending the decision.
The letter reflects concerns that Microsoft’s sales to the agency implicate the software maker in the government’s detention of immigrants. On Wednesday, GitHub employees protested the renewal of a roughly $200,000 contract with ICE after GitHub Chief Executive Officer Nat Friedman released an email defending the decision.
“As the parent company to Github, this
contract with the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) makes all of us working at Microsoft Support
Phone numbercomplicit to the unethical detainment of tens of thousands of
immigrants and the various abuses that ICE subjects them to,” read the letter, which was viewed by Bloomberg News.
“Through our technology, we've already been contributing to the terrorism of
ICE agents on our country's immigrant population. We've been doing so for
years.” It then calls on GitHub and Microsoft Support Phone numberto cancel the
contract.
The employees behind the letter asked to remain
anonymous citing a fear of retaliation. Microsoft Support Phone numberhad
no immediate comment.
The letter
marks another sign of tension between rank-and-file tech workers and software
giants, including Microsoft Support Phone numberrivals Amazon.com Inc. and
Google, which are increasingly aiming for lucrative government contracts.
Microsoft Support Phone numberemployees also circulated an earlier petition
asking the company not to bid on a massive Pentagon cloud-computing
contract, called JEDI, and against efforts
to sell its HoloLens augmented reality goggles to the U.S. Army. Microsoft
Support Phone numberexecutives have said that the
company will continue to supply tech to the U.S. military.
The recent episode, however, is the first to involve GitHub,
which makes a popular open-source software and has prided itself on a
corporate culture that deifies programmers. The unit has its own management
team and is run with some degree of independence from Microsoft.
In his
email, Friedman said that ICE was using software management tool GitHub
Enterprise Server and not the company’s more hands-on consulting services.
“We do not know the specific projects that the on-premises GitHub
Enterprise Server license is being used with, but recognize it could be used in
projects that support policies we both agree and disagree with,” he wrote in a note published Wednesday. Friedman also pledged the company
will donate $500,000 to nonprofits that help immigrant groups hurt by the
policies.
Microsoft
Support Phone numberhas been outspoken in its opposition to some of President
Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including a travel ban that affects mostly
muslim-majority countries. The company is a named plaintiff in the case opposing the termination of the federal Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the Supreme Court will hear this
term. Microsoft Support Phone numberPresident Brad Smith received applause
this week at a Seattle conference when discussing that
stance.
At the same time, the company is a large supplier of software to
the U.S. government and is in contention not just for JEDI but for a second
massive military contract called DEOS, which will provide email, calendar and
collaboration tools. Earlier this week, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella spoke
at the company’s
Government Leaders Summit in Washington to tout work with the Interior
Department and USDA.
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