Hacker News Reader

Comment by hnuser54 | Hacker News Reader

This is a measured and well-thought out response. I'm not really sure where the detractors of Github here think the "cancelling" should stop. Should everybody start building additional backdoors in their software that shuts it down if it detects some sort of "bad" thing is being created, or possibly hook it up to a Twitter feed and shut down if people are saying bad things about the software operator?

Github emphasized that they don't know what is being done with the on-premises, firewalled software they sold to ICE. What about the guy delivering pizza to ICE headquarters -- is he cancelled too? He doesn't know if the "must separate the children at the border" team or the "let's arrest the leaders of this slave trafficking ring" is eating the pizza.

At least to me, some of the other protests in regards to ICE have been even more obviously incoherent, like the demand for Wayfair to stop selling clean beds for detained people to sleep in.

View on HN

There is a very good argument that any software ICE could potentially be using should be open source and subejct to public scrutiny. I wonder how far a FOIA request would go here, now that this headline has highlighted the existence of said hush hush source code.

This recently introduced legislation proposes to ensure some level of transparency in the specific context of algorithms used to process evidence used in criminal proceedings:

H.R.4368 - Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act of 2019

To prohibit the use of trade secrets privileges to prevent defense access to evidence in criminal proceedings, provide for the establishment of Computational Forensic Algorithm Standards, and for other purposes.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/4368...

>Should everybody start building additional backdoors in their software that shuts it down if it detects some sort of "bad" thing is being created, or possibly hook it up to a Twitter feed and shut down if people are saying bad things about the software operator?

Why does there have to be a hard-and-fast trigger? Take it on a case by case basis, motivated by the values of the people who care.

This technocratic reflex where everything in society must be dehumanized and automated (how come CFOs haven't been yet?) or otherwise algorithmatized is very "what a lazy person thinks a smart person is like."

The pizza guy is not going to get...cancelled (are you trying to make the term meaningless?), but any pizza place that advertises that they don't serve racist jackboots will get my phone call and dollars.

Do you think the government shouldn't have to think about and account for the optics and politics of their needs? Declining to supply concentration camps is an honorable reduction in one's own financial situation as a private citizen, which may not be an intelligible ethic for you and thus appear "incoherent," but at the end of the day it's perfectly reasonable to tell ICE to suck it and deal with the problems they themselves created for themselves. It's not the nation's job nor responsibility to help them steal and kill children, among other things.

And they can write their own software, too. That's what taxes are for, when they are allowed to exist.

This is do nothing social signaling from a neutered Github. Enjoy the money, hubbers.

> This is a measured and well-thought out response.

No, it's a repulsive hypocritical corporate PR that tries to justify putting profits over people suffering.

We need total non-cooperation with ICE. No one should even deliver a pizza for them. They are the American gestapo. They put people in concentration camps (there have been deaths!) and tear families apart. They use sneaky tactics to kidnap people, even people who have been here most of their lives and then deport them to places they have never known.

This one story alone is chilling:

"Diabetic Man Dies After Being Deported To Iraq: ACLU Jimmy Aldaoud reportedly came to the U.S. as a baby and didn’t speak Arabic. He died after he was unable to get insulin, his family says."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jimmy-aldaoud-iraq-deported_n...

> They are the American gestapo.

They're really not. It is possible to not like (some of) what ICE does and also recognize that they are not rounding up a lawless autocrat's political enemies for torture, indefinite imprisonment and execution.

Is the nebulous idea of "illegal aliens" (often the people in ICE facilities are legally applying for asylum) not political enemies here? And is the separation of families, including death of people in ICE custody and the "losing" of children, with no information on how long any individual will be kept under ICE custody, not altogether even remotely matching this idea you depict?

If ICE were rounding up Democrats now (or Republicans under Obama) that would be "political enemies". ICE is doing no such thing. Part of its mission is enforcing US immigration laws, and it's doing that in a manner that's largely consistent with what our democratically enacted laws say it can and should do. You don't have to like it (I certainly don't) but it's not in any way analogous to the Gestapo.

Whether or not their actions are consistent with our laws, and whether or not they are similar to the gestapo is orthogonal to the morality of their actions, and the morality of knowingly dealing with them. That's the real question to be asked.

I think there is a distinction between illegal immigrants (people who are not in the country legally as citizens or on a visa, regardless of country of origin) and asylum seekers. One has support of legislation (asylum seekers), the other does not (without disregarding the idea of national sovereignty; this thread should not be where the merits of borders and sovereignty is debated though). Regardless, everyone in ICE custody should be treated humanely and with dignity.

That's why I'm making the quote "illegal aliens". The majority of people who are in ICE custody are, as far as I understand, legal asylum seekers. However, they're depicted as illegal.

https://www.ice.gov/detention-management#tab2 appears to be a canonical statistics data source, although I admit it will take me more than a cursory glance to have an understanding of the data, and I don't want to make a statement that isn't accurate due to not having a full understanding of said data.

Indefinite imprisonment is ICEs mainstay.

I do not see how one could not characterize undocumented immigrants as being the scapegoat of the woes of the currently empowered right-wing political movement. The conditions have been bad and are ratcheting up. Don't be blind to the atrocities that are already happening just because they aren't performing mass executions yet.

The immigration police are filled with racists, killers, and white nationalists. This CBP agent was literally a serial killer:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/15/us/us-border-patrol-agent-arr...

CBP != ICE. I'm very wary of this recent push to vilify anyone who enforces immigration laws or the integrity of our borders. It seems to be a very emotional, knee-jerk reaction that completely ignores the inevitably serious consequences that would result from lack of border and immigration enforcement.

CBP != ICE, but CBP and ICE are components of a single system. An engineer should appreciate that.

Our democracy has enacted laws that ICE is tasked with enforcing. ICE agents are not really the bad guys here for following those laws -- the American voting public is the problem. Your (and my) representatives made this possible, and continue to allow it, because you (and I) have not made it a priority when we vote.

No one in Nazi Germany could vote to rein in the Gestapo, and the Gestapo did not follow anything resembling fairly applied laws. ICE targets a well-defined legal category of people and follows well-defined legal processes. The Gestapo could arrest almost anyone for any reason and mistreat them however it pleased with impunity. That is obviously untrue of ICE, which cannot tomorrow kidnap Joe Biden.

"Just following orders (to "kidnap" and indefinitely contain people in prison camps)" is not a valid defense

With separation of power between law enforcement and legislative branches of government, it is indeed the job of the law enforcement officers to enforce laws even they do not agree with. Of course, there is a threshold beyond which anyone in deep moral disagreement with a policy can and should protest in a variety of civil ways (including quitting such law enforcement jobs), and this is a normal part of how the checks-and-balances of power works.

But you must acknowledge that there are many who do not fundamentally disagree with the underlying laws, at least not to a magnitude such that they believe it is worth protesting. And as such, we have officers who enforce those laws, who have not (at this time) quit their roles.

Therefore, to the extent that one believes this form of government with checks and balances yields more humane results (on average, over time) than one which merges legislative/judiciary/executive power, and to the extent that you acknowledge legitimate moral opinions exist that are different from your own, it definitely can be argued that it's moral to continue enforcing laws you do not personally agree with -- up to a point.

The question is, what is the breaking point where a law enforcement officer protests against a horrible law by refusing to enforce it, quits, or otherwise?

Take almost any politically divisive issue, and you will find there's not a very easy answer here -- especially because each person will have a slightly different moral opinion on the matter.

> Should everybody start building additional backdoors in their software that shuts it down if it detects some sort of "bad" software is being created, or possibly hook it up to a Twitter feed and shut down if people are saying bad things about the software operator?

No, I think changing license terms to "won't be used by a company which separates families or violates international human rights laws," and not renewing the contract is fine enough.

> Github emphasized that they don't know what is being done with the on-premises, firewalled software they sold to ICE.

You don't have to know what ICE is doing with your software to know what they're doing more generally.

> What about the guy delivering pizza to ICE headquarters -- is he cancelled too? He doesn't know if the "must separate the children at the border" team or the "let's arrest the leaders of this slave trafficking ring" is eating the pizza.

"Cancelling" isn't a real thing, not distinct from "public opinion," anyway. If people want to direct ire to pizza delivery employees they can, but they're not, so I don't know why you're making this comparison.

> At least to me, some of the other protests in regards to ICE have been even more obviously incoherent, like the demand for Wayfair to stop selling clean beds for detained people to sleep in.

Any endeavor with lots of actors won't be entirely coherent, unified, or consistent. Some people think that Wayfair making profits on selling beds for prisons isn't some great altruism on Wayfair's part, and ICE would have a harder time building prisons if there weren't so many people eager to supply them; I don't know how much I'm on board with that as an effective protest, but I can at least understand it.

> No, I think changing license terms to "won't be used by a company which separates families or violates international human rights laws," and not renewing the contract is fine enough.

Good thing for ICE they can still use all FOSS.

> You don't have to know what ICE is doing with your software to know what they're doing more generally.

Yes, they're enforcing the laws currently on the books.

Those laws were created by our elected officials. The elected officials were selected by us, the people. In fact, if we want those laws changed we can elect new officials or compel our existing ones to make the changes we'd like to see.

There's plenty of people that disagree with our current immigration laws, our drug laws, our tax laws, our gun laws, our marriage laws, our healthcare laws, and just about any other part of our system. But if we as a society do not have a unified acceptance for the rule of law then things get ugly. Fast.

I'm convinced this whole "shaming" and "canceling" thing has become the public action method of choice not because the ideas being proposed are popular (they're not), but because they see bullying corporations and their potential customers as easier than trying to convince the public on the inherent value of their ideas. They're just loud voices in for another rude awakening after the public makes their picks next year behind the ballot curtain.

>No, I think changing license terms to "won't be used by a company which separates families

So, Child Protective Services shouldn't be allowed to license GitHub either?

Edit: I know this isn't what you meant. But such obvious clarity issues are a sign that there are many more subtle issues that limit articulation of your position and prevent engaging in a productive conversation over the internet.

You're making an excellent point that I think people are misunderstanding, unfortunately:

Let's say github's goal was to define license terms such that ICE is banned, but not other legitimate companies that do a lot of good for the world.

It would be great if solving this was as easy as saying "you can only use this if you never aim to separate children from their families", but it's not, because such a term would also require you to boycott Child Protective Services -- which can and does save children victims from horribly abusive parents and other terrible circumstances.

I've personally known people who were repeatedly raped by a family member throughout their early childhood. This is incredibly, devastatingly evil. It DOES happen, and if after acknowledging this, you seriously think there is still NO circumstance in which a child should be separated from their family -- then you are a horrible human being. But I don't think any of the downvoters think this, so I am genuinely curious: Why do you really think such a simple, un-nuanced license term would work without harmful side-effects?

Note: You can't just say "we'll enforce the license terms subjectively". Selective enforcement defeats the whole point of adding it into your terms of service or licensing terms -- because then, you might as well just go back to ad-hoc boycotting as per the personal ethics of your corporation's senior leadership. Aside from that, you do have to precisely define what you mean -- precisely which scenarios are or are not tolerable to you, etc.

> NO circumstance in which a child should be separated from their family

In fact, the reason ICE separates adults from children in the first place is to fight human trafficking and child abuse: they used to keep the children with their accompanying adults (who aren’t guaranteed to be their parents, which seems to be overlooked in these arguments), but they found that the children were being assaulted by the primary adult population, so they started creating child-only facilities to combat this.

Asserting that ICE made that finding and stopped detaining children with parents together based on it is false. ICE didn't even make the decision to stop family detention, the US District Court for the Central District of California in 2015 (in a decision appealed to and upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2016), applying rules from the 1997 Flores settlement, prohibited extended detention of children with adults (and ICE continues to operate family detention facilities within the limits of that court order.) This did force separation in detention when extended, but this was actively mitigated for the remaining part of Obama’s term, IIRC, by ICE not detaining adults or their children for illegal entry alone when that would result in separation of parents from their children (they didn't stop immigration proceedings against them, just didn't detain them during the process, unless there were additional reasons.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com