Loading ...Tech workers vow not to build Trump Muslim registry
Jessica Guynn
USA Today
More than 1,200 employees of tech companies including Google and Twitter have signed a pledge saying they will not help Donald Trump’s administration build a Muslim registry.
The open letter from tech employees vows to minimize the collection or retention of data that could be used in targeting people based on their religious beliefs and to oppose any misuse of data by their companies.
“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,” reads an open letter posted at neveragain.tech. “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.”
The letter draws comparison to the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The employees say they are a mix of engineers, designers and business executives hailing from a smattering of tech companies, even Palantir Technologies, the data-mining start-up and government contractor co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor who is advising the Trump transition team.
During the presidential campaign, the tech world denounced xenophobic rhetoric and Trump’s anti-immigration stance but that opposition has largely fallen silent, with U.S. tech leaders including Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Alphabet’s Larry Page meeting with Trump on Wednesday in an apparent sign of conciliation.
The president-elect voiced support on the campaign trail for creating a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. His transition team has suggested the reinstatement of a program put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which required heightened scrutiny of people from “higher risk” countries. The program was halted in 2011 after criticism it targeted Muslims.
Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer at Wave, and Leigh Honeywell, a security engineering manager at Slack, helped organize the pledge.
“What’s important to me is that individuals who care about the ethical use of technology can step forward, show how many of us there are, and say that there are lines we will not cross,” Yee toldBuzzFeed News.
Dilawar Syed, president at Freshdesk, had to register as a Muslim after 9/11 and the experience inspired him to start another pledge to protect civil liberties during the new administration. That pledge has been signed by more than 100 entrepreneurs and investors including Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Mightybell, and Dave McClure, founding partner of 500 Startups.
“The ingenuity that makes American business great depends on the freedoms that make America great,” Syed, a U.S. citizen, said in an email.
Silicon Valley tech companies have remained silent on the issue, with only Twitter saying prior to the publication of the open letters that it would not aid the administration in building a registry. Out of nine U.S. tech companies contacted by The Intercept earlier this month, Twitter was the only one to rule out participating in the creation of a national Muslim registry. On Monday, 22 advocacy groups urged the other eight companies to take a stand.
On Wednesday Facebook issued a statement: “No one has asked us to build a Muslim registry, and of course we would not do so.”