Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire | feeds from sacw.net | @sacw
Home > Special Dossiers / Compilations > Screening South Asia: Public Sphere, Citizenship and Technologies of (...) > US software designers and tech workers take a pledge to refuse creation of (...)

US software designers and tech workers take a pledge to refuse creation of databases for government to target individuals based on race, religion, or national origin

15 December 2016

print version of this article print version

[A shinning example of socially concerned new working class. Hundreds of Tech workers in the US pledge not to help create databases for retention of data based on race, religion, nationality etc to target them for possible deportations. Hoping tech workers from South Asia with join them ... read the pledge below]

neveragain.tech

Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them. —Sarah Kendzior [1]

We, the undersigned, are employees of tech organizations and companies based in the United States. We are engineers, designers, business executives, and others whose jobs include managing or processing data about people. We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration’s proposed data collection policies. We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable.

We have educated ourselves on the history of threats like these, and on the roles that technology and technologists played in carrying them out. We see how IBM collaborated to digitize and streamline the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of six million Jews and millions of others. We recall the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. We recognize that mass deportations precipitated the very atrocity the word genocide was created to describe: the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey. We acknowledge that genocides are not merely a relic of the distant past—among others, Tutsi Rwandans and Bosnian Muslims have been victims in our lifetimes.

Today we stand together to say: not on our watch, and never again.

We commit to the following actions:

  • We refuse to participate in the creation of databases of identifying information for the United States government to target individuals based on race, religion, or national origin.
  • We will advocate within our organizations:
  • to minimize the collection and retention of data that would facilitate ethnic or religious targeting.
  • to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.
  • to responsibly destroy high-risk datasets and backups.
  • to implement security and privacy best practices, in particular, for end-to-end encryption to be the default wherever possible.
  • to demand appropriate legal process should the government request that we turn over user data collected by our organization, even in small amounts.
  • If we discover misuse of data that we consider illegal or unethical in our organizations:
  • We will work with our colleagues and leaders to correct it.
  • If we cannot stop these practices, we will exercise our rights and responsibilities to speak out publicly and engage in responsible whistleblowing without endangering users.
  • If we have the authority to do so, we will use all available legal defenses to stop these practices.
  • If we do not have such authority, and our organizations force us to engage in such misuse, we will resign from our positions rather than comply.
  • We will raise awareness and ask critical questions about the responsible and fair use of data and algorithms beyond our organization and our industry.

Note: Signatories’ references to affiliated organizations below are for identification purposes and are not intended to imply an endorsement by the organization.

Signed,

Aaron Becker, Google
Aaron Brethorst
Aaron Couch, DKAN
Aaron Cowdin, DevOps, PrensenceLearning, Inc.
Aaron Crespo, Engineer, third generation holocaust survivor
Aaron Gee-Clough
Aaron Kraus, Reciprocity, Inc.
Aaron L. Sullivan, Software Developer
Aaron Petcoff, The New Yorker
Aaron Ringgenberg, DevOps Engineer, Patreon
Aaron Smith, DevOps Engineer, Civis Analytics
Abbas Manjee, Chief Academic Officer, Kiddom
Adam Alpern
Adam Bender, Senior Software Engineer, Google
Adam C. Foltzer, Galois
Adam Glasgall, Akamai
Adam Harvey, New Relic
Adam Herzog, Trifork
Adam Jones, Director of Technology Nerdery Chicago
Adam Thomason, Fastly
Adam Wright, Branch Metrics
Adarsh Jupudi, Cloud Architect, Datacom
Aditya Naik, Android Developer
Adnan Alam, IT @ GitHub
Ahmed Sharaf
Aidan Fitzgerald, Cornell University
Aki Rose Braun, Programmer, PayPal/Venmo
Akil Harris, First Look Media
Akiva Leffert
Alaina Hardie, Singularity University, Precision Nutrition
Alan McConchie, Stamen Design
Alana Hanson, Leapfrog Online
Albert Bodenhamer, Engineering Manager for Chrome OS UI, Google
Alberto Burlacu
Alec Perkins
Alek Dembowski, Software Engineer, Google
Alesandro Ortiz, Software Engineer
Alex Baldwin, Poncho
Alex Broque, Sr. Network Engineer, Hurricane Electric
Alex Cook, Software Engineer (Part-time Thought Leader)
Alex Jarvis, Developer
Alex Rudnick, software engineer, Google
Alexandra Hrefna Hilmisdóttir
Alexandra Savas, Product Marketing Manager
Alexis Christoforides, Microsoft
Alfred Ababio, Software Engineer
Ali Afshar
Alice Boxhall, Software Engineer, Google
Alice Rhomieux, Software Engineer, Google
Alison Buki, Developer/Designer
Alison Hodges, Founder, Erlea Documentation Professionals
Allele Dev, Simple
Allen Lai, Plaid
Allison Clift-Jennings, CEO, Filament
Alyssa Kwan, Analytics Engineering Lead, Clara Lending
Alyssa Wright, President of OpenStreetMap US and Vice President of Partnerships at Mapzen
Amanda Robinson
Amber Yust, Google
Ambrose Bonnaire-Sergeant
Amelia Abreu, UX Night School
Amy Farrell
Andreas Fuchs, Stripe
Andreia Gaita, GitHub
Andrew Aldridge, Software Engineer, MongoDB, Inc.
Andrew Aude, Software Engineer
Andrew Bennett, VHL
Andrew Bloomgarden, Lead Software Engineer, New Relic
Andrew Bogott, Wikimedia Foundation
Andrew Bonventre, Google
Andrew Cassidy
Andrew Cheung, Signal Sciences
Andrew Dunham, Stripe
Andrew Green, Creator of NetPhone
Andrew Huang, Xero
Andrew Losowsky, The Coral Project
Andrew Love
Andrew Michaud, Quantcast
Andrew Staples, SugarCRM
Andrey Petrov
Andy Bartholomew, Software Engineer
Andy Bursavich, Software Engineer, Google
Andy Carra
Andy Gocke, Microsoft
Andy Sternberg, Rotary International
Andy Tinkham
Andy Westmoreland, Developer at Elevator Up
Aneel Nazareth, Software Engineer
Angela Gunn, incident response, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence
Anil Dash, Fog Creek Software
Anna Brozek
Annie McCance
Annie Tuan, Mobile Software Engineer
Anthony Butler
Anthony Martinez, Twitter
Antoine Leblanc, SRE, Google
Anton Johansson
Anu Rao
Aram Zucker-Scharff, Full Stack Engineer, Salon Media Group
Aria Stewart, npm Inc
Aristotle Manolakos
Aron Adler
Arthur Richards
Arun Ganesh, Map Analyst, Mapbox
Asher Cohen
Asher Langton
Asumu Takikawa, Igalia
Audrey Eschright, Recompiler Media
Avi Zajac
Ayelet Bitton, SWE, Lyft
Barbara Shaurette, Software Developer
Bard Luippold, Sr. Product Manager, Amazon
Bart Teeuwisse, Google
Beatrice Huang, Software Engineer
Ben Alkov, Technologist
Ben Coburn, Software Engineer
Ben Cohen
Ben Ford, Principal Training Solutions Engineer
Ben Jones, Engineering Lead/Manager, Tapjoy
Ben Kraft, Khan Academy
Ben Lambert, IBM Watson
Ben Marx, thedatabank, gbc
Ben Matasar, Civil Comments
Ben Mendis, Software Engineer, Novetta Solutions
Ben Paul, Product Analyst, Edmodo
Ben Steinberg, DevOps Engineer, Harvard University
Ben Tarnoff
Ben Wiedermann, Harvey Mudd College
Ben Williamson
Ben Wood, Autodesk
Benjamin Esham, Ellucian
Benjamin Melançon, Agaric
Benjamin Rahn, Stripe
Benjamin Schwartz
Benjamin Sternthal, Web Development Manager, Mozilla
Benjamin Stockwell
Bertrand Fan, Staff Engineer, Slack
Bill Fitzgerald, Privacy and open content advocate
Bill Nottingham, Red Hat
Bion Johnson
Bion Johnson, Software Engineer, Citizen Code
Blain Smith
Blake Barrett, CTO Pitchly
Bob Powell, Software Engineer, Digital Anarchy
Bob Schaefer
Bojan Rajković, Microsoft
Brad Buchanan, Code.org
Brad Fair
Brad Greenlee
Bradley Snider, Esri
Brady O’Connell
Brandon Faloona
Brandon Istenes
Brendan Weibrecht, Ruby Developer, Swinburne Cyber Security Club
Brennen Bearnes
Bret Lowery
Brett Houtz
Brian Ganninger, Atlassian
Brian Geppert, metacode
Brian Jenkins, CTO, FoodCare
Brian Keefer, Security Engineer, Proofpoint, Inc.
Brian Kung
Brian Mastenbrook, AirStash
Brian Schrader
Brian T. Rice, Awake Networks
Brian Tarricone, Software Developer
Brian Truebe, Trust & Safety
Briar Rose Schreiber, Software Engineer, Board Member of Stumptown Syndicate
Bridget Kromhout
Britton Watkins
Brook Shelley, Senior Developer Relations Engineer, Turbine Labs
Bruce Bennett, Senior Technical Writer, Avid
Bryan Deloeste, Software Engineer, Intelex Technologies
Bryan Naegele, Integrity
Bryce Alexander Lynch
Buster ’Silver Eagle’ Neece
Buzz Andersen, Brooklyn Computer Club
CJ Coffey, Software Engineer, TVA
Caitlin Cooke, Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Caleb Thompson
Calvin Ashmore, Google
Cam Hunt, CTO, Listen
Carl Johnson, Senior Software Engineer, Ad Hoc LLC
Carl Manaster
Carmen Andoh, Travis CI
Carol Hansen, Mapbox
Carolyn Anhalt
Casey Dentinger, Wikimedia Foundation
Casey Dunham
Casey Monroe, Toyota Motor Sales
Cassandra Cruz, Software Engineer, Mavenlink
Celia La, Khan Academy
Cem Unsal, Ph.D., EE
Cesar Tardaguila
Charles Lanahan
Charlie Park, Slack
Chase Tingley, Spartan Software, Inc.
Chip Locke, Software Engineer, Microsoft
Chris Braiotta
Chris Corcoran, Technical Lead, Twilio
Chris Palmer, Security Engineer
Chris Pickard
Chris Radcliff, Return Path
Chris Ruppel
Chris Short
Chris Wetherell
Christian Heilmann
Christian Monaghan, Cofounder, Nava PBC
Christian R. Vozar, XumaK, Rogue Ethic
Christine Dodrill
Christine Sublett
Christine Sun, Software Engineer
Christopher Allan Webber
Christopher Buecheler, Founder, CloseBrace
Christopher De Vries, Hindsait
Christopher Vermilion
Christopher Whitaker, Chi Hack Night
Chuck McCorvey
Chuck Wolber, Software Engineer
Cindy Jeffers
Clinton Cecil, Software Engineer, Primex
Clinton Dreisbach
Clinton Mielke, Founder, Infino.Me
Cody Brocious, Optiv Security
Cody Russell, Microsoft
Colby Aley, Software Engineer, Reflect
Colby Walburn, Sr. Software Engineer
Colin Dabritz
Colin Kelley, CTO, Invoca
Collin Sparks
Conrad Meyer
Conrad Rushing, VP Engineering, Splash
Coraline Ada Ehmke
Corey Csuhta, Some Assembly
Corey Farwell, Software Engineer
Craig Chasseur, Google
Cristos Lianides-Chin, Anchor-Buoy Software
D. Knudsen, Technical Program Manager, Audible
D. Scott McDaniel, Technical Lead, Southern Poverty Law Center
Dale Sheldon-Hess
Damien Neil, Google
Damien Sorresso, Senior Software Engineer, Apple Inc.
Dan Andreescu, Sr. Analytics Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation
Dan Auerbach, Application Developer, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Dan Boger, Google
Dan Bornstein, Computer Programmer
Dan Collis-Puro, Lead Engineer, Heroku
Dan Copeland
Dan Fujita
Dan Kaminsky, Chief Scientist, White Ops
Dan Kurtz, Software Developer
Dan Lew, Trello
Dan Phiffer, Mapzen
Dan Wood
Dana Davidsen
Dana Sniezko
Daniel Berrangé, Software Engineer, Red Hat
Daniel Doman, IBM
Daniel Duan, Software Engineer, Squarespace
Daniel Espeset
Daniel Gamble McAdam, Software Engineer, Bazaarvoice
Daniel Miles
Daniel Rosensweig
Daniel Sandoval, Human Experience Designer
Daniel Tunkelang
Danielle Dunne
Danielle Jackson
Danielle Leong, Software Engineer, GitHub
Danne Stayskal, Artificial Intelligence, Lifeboat Foundation; Cryptographer, March Hare
Dannel Jurado
Danny Glover, Plastiq
Darci Wood, Salesforce
Darren Vengroff, Chief Scientist, Hestan
Dash Brittain, Software Engineer, Apple
Dave Mayo, Software Developer, Harvard University
Dave Reid, Lullabot
David Adrian
David Allen Fisher, Software Engineer

[. . .]

SEE FULL LIST AND HOW TO SIGN UP AT: http://neveragain.tech/

P.S.

The above pledge is reproduced here in solidarity with socially concerned American Tech workers hoping their colleagues in South Asia would join them.