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MIT profs publish letter in support of ICE-protesting Microsoft employees

A group of professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has published a letter expressing support for Microsoft employees who criticized the company’s contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) due to the Trump administration’s policy of separating illegal immigrant children and parents.

Civic Media professor Sasha Costanza-Chock led the MIT effort, which currently has over 550 signatures from academics ranging from MIT to Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell.

Last month, some 100 Microsoft employees published an open letter in the New York Times blasting the company’s $19.4 million contract with ICE. According to The Tech, Microsoft provides ICE with cloud-based services which “enable the agency to ‘process data on edge devices or utilize deep learning capabilities to accelerate facial recognition and identification.'”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella contested the employees’ claims, saying the company “is not working with the U.S. government on any projects related to separating children from their families at the border.”

MIT’s Costanza-Chock, a “a scholar, activist, and media-maker” who uses the pronoun “they,” is a member of an “informal group” of MIT professors who meet to discuss “societal issues.” The letter supporting the Microsoft employees was her brainchild.

“I’m hopeful that the younger generation is going to take much more seriously this issue of ethics and technology,” Costanza-Chock said. “I hope this provides support, inspiration, and validation for students who want to use their skills to do good things in the world rather than perpetuate oppressive systems.”

The letter states in part:

As concerned scientists, scholars, and researchers, we condemn the use of technology for inhumane surveillance, detention, deportation, and border militarization.

We are appalled at the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy and the dramatic increase in family separation and child detention.  High-profile political leaders from across the aisle have condemned this policy; Pope Francis denounced it as “immoral;” and the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics has characterized the policy as “child abuse.” Nor do we support the administration’s recent proposal to ‘solve’ the problem by placing entire families in detention together for extended periods of time.

Yet despite ICE’s abhorrent practices, in January 2018, Microsoft announced a contract with ICE to use the Azure Government platform, boasting that it would help to “accelerate facial recognition and identification,” and stating that “[ICE] is currently implementing transformative technologies for homeland security and public safety, and we’re proud to support this work with our mission-critical cloud.”

In response, more than 300 Microsoft workers have signed a letter to Satya Nadella requesting that Microsoft cancel all its contracts with ICE.

We stand in support of these workers and their demands.

The petition concludes by noting the signatories “pledge to never work on technologies that are used for the detention and deportation system,” and urges “other researchers and scientists to publicly state” they will do the same.

Read the full letter.

MORE: Univ. protesters: Contracts with ICE ‘immoral, irresponsible’

MORE: Faculty ask campus cops to ‘confront’ immigration officers

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