zlacker

"By accepting the ICE contract previously it was political."

Just a reminder that government entities like ICE are executing the current laws of the land.

>>ancore+(OP)
That's a stretch. Many think what they are doing is not legal. And I doubt that everything they do is spelled out in law. There is a lot of policy to what happens in ICE.

>>ancore+(OP)
I think that a large part of the issue is that ICE is violating human rights on a massive scale. Where they might be executing some laws, they're violating others.

And just a reminder, "just following orders" brings up some scary historical context that a lot of people don't want to help recreate.

>>ancore+(OP)
Demonstrably and rather obviously untrue. They're violating the law in many instances, including but not limited to the cases of asylum seekers and current green card holders; it's just they're following the evil, xenophobic whims of the current political leadership, who are failing to hold themselves or ICE accountable to the rule of law, so they are, for the moment, getting away with their lawlessness. I hope we can change this with voting in new leadership, but I fear it may be too late.

Aside and personal observation: it's interesting how the same people so vigorously crying for "law and order" are rather particular about which laws they care about enforcing, and which they're willing to overlook. Of course I'm not the first to make this observation.

>>drunkp+02
ICE arrests are significantly down under the current administration compared to the previous administration.

>>drunkp+02
Given that the pictures of kids in cages came from before our current president was in office, this is the first time I've heard anyone call president Obama both evil and xenophobic.

>>ancore+(OP)
And who writes the laws of the land? Slavery and Jim Crow were also laws at certain periods of American history. I'd hope it's pretty uncontroversial to say that those laws were also very divisive political issues at the time.

>>zdragn+L5
I disliked the Obama administration’s stance on several policy issues, including immigration and his fondness for using drones, executive orders, and the secret powers of the state.

All of which and much more are significantly worse under the vile, toxic, xenophobic current administration.

But nice try at attempting to derail the conversation with some good old-fashioned whataboutism! Better luck next time!

>>ancore+S4
This omits the important fact that ICE arrests steeply decreased year–over–year for seven out of Obama’s eight years in office, while arrests have increased year–over–year for two of Trump’s three years [0]. That doesn’t exonerate Obama, but it does say something about the administration that a new president inherits.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/02/how-border-...

>>ancore+S4
And why is that relevant? Age you assuming that most people in this thread liked Obama's immigration policies?

>>ancore+(OP)
Just a reminder that choosing to obey and assist in the execution of unjust laws is a political act.

>>zdragn+L5
Every leader the country has had is trash. That doesn't detract from the fact that the current leadership has managed to lower and re-lower the bar. Consistently widening the window of what outrageous behavior is acceptable. At this point the office of the president is a no holds barred free-for-all and whoever occupies it next will be doing so with a precedent no near zero actionable oversight.

>>cyphar+V6
Correct. Not all laws are good or morally acceptable, and they need to be changed.

If Github was to pull out, ICE could simply find someone else willing to sign a contract with them, except it will make things worse, as that other provider will not be as diligent or reliable (if it was just as good, it would have been picked in the first place instead of Github).

When you see an unjust law, it should be pushed to get changed. Back when gay marriage was illegal, it made more sense to push for its legislation, instead of providers refusing service to state governments where it was illegal. People need to protest, call their elected officials, sign petitions, etc. Most importantly, people need to regularly vote, not just during general presidential elections.

That has nothing to do with Github. As a customer, I want to be confident that my service won't get terminated for some arbitrary reason, as long as I obey terms of service and don't break any laws. Giving providers the ability to cancel my service due to random whims in their workforce isn't something that I want to see in tech.

>>filole+1Z
Would you have held the same opinion if you were around in the US in the 1930s and discovered that IBM was developing a new-fangled census system for the newly-elected German government[1]? Or after the news of the death camps was made public, you discovered that IBM had continued to maintain the system they'd created to help track people for the Nazis? Would you have worked for IBM at the time, knowing this was going on?

If you would've spoken out, then you agree with the principle but don't agree that ICE is "bad enough" to warrant this treatment. If you wouldn't have spoken out but wouldn't have worked for them, then you agree that working on these systems is clearly unethical (and thus IBM was acting unethically) but feel that ethics are less important than not disrupting the freedom of a company to sell their services to whoever they like. If you would've worked for them and wouldn't have spoken out, then we have very different views on ethics and I'm not sure we're going to agree on anything.

Yes, laws should be changed but businesses should be held accountable for who they do business with. You'd better believe that the US government wouldn't have the same rosy outlook you do if they discovered that GitHub was selling software to known terrorist groups.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust