Amazon employee objected to the Trump administration ’s “ zero - tolerance ” insurance policy at the U.S. border , which has result in thousand of children being separated from their parents .
“ Along with much of the universe we watched in horror recently as U.S. authorities tore tiddler away from their parent , ” the missive , distribute on a posting lean called ‘ we - won’t - habitus - it , ’ states . “ In the face of this immoral U.S. policy , and the U.S. ’s increasingly inhumane intervention of refugees and immigrants beyond this specific insurance policy , we are deep concerned that Amazon is implicate , providing substructure and services that enable internal-combustion engine and DHS . ”
In May , aninvestigation by the American Civil Liberties Unionrevealed that Amazon had hard marketed its Rekognition software package to police departments and government agencies . The engineering science can spot and track nerve in literal time , and the ACLU note that such a knock-down surveillance tool could easily be misuse by practice of law enforcement .
“ While Mr. Bezos stay on silent , Amazon employee are standing up and joining shareowner , civil rightfield mathematical group , and interested consumers to call out Amazon ’s face surveillance engineering science for what it is : a unparalleled threat to civil rights and especially to the immigrant and people of color under attack by this judicature , ” said Nicole Ozer , applied science and civic liberty director at the ACLU of California . “ We stand in reinforcement of these employee ’ call on Mr. Bezos to do the right-hand thing . Amazon must stop providing dangerous brass surveillance to the government . ”
before this hebdomad , several Amazon shareholderscalled on the companyto plosive selling Rekognition to the police . That backlash has now fan out among employee as well .
“ Our company should not be in the surveillance business ; we should not be in the policing business concern ; we should not be in the business of suffer those who supervise and oppress marginalized universe , ” the employee letter states .
The Amazon worker ’ letter of the alphabet follows employee activism at other major tech firm like Microsoft and Google . Earlier this workweek , Microsoft employees cry on the company tocancel its cloud computing contractwith Immigration and Customs Enforcement . CEO Satya Nadelladefended Microsoft ’s work with ICE , say that his troupe but ply the agency with quotidian tech services like electronic mail , calendar , and messaging .
And originally this month , Google employees see the success of inner activism against their party ’s unreal intelligence service contract with the Pentagon — at a staff encounter in June , Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced that the caller wouldnot regenerate its declaration for Project Maven , a Defense Department pilot program that uses stilted word to analyze drone footage . Google alsoannounced new moral principle principlesto govern its artificial intelligence workplace .
It ’s not clear yet whether the employee campaigns at Amazon and Microsoft will have the same impact as the employee activism at Google — but the pushback at Amazon and Microsoft this week shows that tech employees are more and more uncoerced to speak up against body of work that they think to be unethical .
In plus to its demands about Rekognition , the Amazon employee letter also calls on the troupe to boot Palantir , the Peter Thiel - establish firm that offers prognostic policing tools to law enforcement and savor a hefty contract with ICE , from Amazon Web Services . ( Thiel in secret funded a causa that led to the bankruptcy of Gawker Media , Gizmodo ’s former parent caller . )
The Amazon letter appear to be the first time an employee demand alphabetic character has moved beyond call to invalidate a specific contract bridge to demands to remove a customer from a swarm platform . Although it may seem like a modest distinction , it ’s an important one for technical school company . leaders at Microsoft and Google have drawn a eminence between provide benignant cloud table service to ethically questionable customers and aiding these firms with specific tech that could be used to induce injury . Google , for instance , say that its AI should be used for “ socially beneficial ” purposes but that it would keep on to work with the regime for projection like hunting and rescue or cybersecurity .
“ We refuse to work up the platform that powers shabu , ” the Amazon letter states , “ and we refuse to bring to putz that violate human rights . ”
Read the full letter below :
Dear Jeff ,
We are trouble bythe late reportfrom the ACLU expose our party ’s praxis of selling AWS Rekognition , a powerful facial identification technology , to police department and governance agencies . We do n’t have to look to discover out how these engineering will be used . We already know that in the midst ofhistoric mobilisation of police , renewedtargetingof Black activists , and the growth of a federal deportation forcecurrently lock in human rights abuses — this will be another potent tool for the surveillance state , and at long last serve to harm the most marginalized . We are not alone in this view : over 40 polite rights organizations sign anopen letterin foeman to the governmental employment of facial recognition , while over 150,000 someone signedanother petitiondelivered by the ACLU .
We also know that Palantirruns on AWS . And we jazz that ICE relies on Palantir to power its detentionand transportation computer program . Along with much of the world we watched in revulsion recently as U.S. authorities shoot children away from their parents . Since April 19 , 2018 the Department of Homeland Security has sentnearly 2,000 childrento mass detention centers . This treatment goesagainst U.N. Refugee Agency guidelinesthat say children have the right to stay joined with their parents , and that asylum - seekers have a legal right to take asylum . In the boldness of this immoral U.S. insurance policy , and the U.S. ’s increasingly inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrant beyond this specific policy , we are deeply concerned that Amazon is implicated , furnish base and service that enable ICE and DHS .
engineering like ours is wreak an increasingly vital role across many sector of society . What is cleared to us is that our maturation and sales exercise have yet to acknowledge the certificate of indebtedness that comes with this . focus solely on shareholder value is a subspecies to the bottom , and one that we will not take part in .
We refuse to ramp up the platform that powers ICE , and we resist to contribute to instrument that go against human right .
As ethically concerned Amazonians , we need a choice in what we ramp up , and a say in how it is used . We learn from chronicle , and we understand howIBM ’s organisation were employ in the forties to help Hitler . IBM did not take responsibility then , and by the time their role was realise , it was too later . We will not let that happen again . The sentence to play is now .
We call on you to :
Stop selling facial recognition services to police force enforcement
Stop allow for infrastructure to Palantir and any other Amazon partners who enable ICE .
Implement solid transparency and answerableness measures , that admit enumerating which police force enforcement agencies and companies sustain law enforcement agencies are using Amazon services , and how .
Our company should not be in the surveillance business ; we should not be in the policing business ; we should not be in the business of supporting those who monitor and oppress marginalise population .
Sincerely ,
Amazonians
We have reach out out to Amazon and Palantir , and will update when we welcome a answer .
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