Amicus brief on behalf of 97 tech companies | Hacker News Reader

Amicus brief on behalf of 97 tech companies

cloud.app.box.com

246 pointsgwintrob210 comments

> If this approach were upheld, future orders might apply to any nation, and suddenly and unexpectedly bar its nationals from entering or returning to the United States.

Aye, this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? I have a plane ticket from Canada to Europe in August, transiting in the USA and I have already contemplated changing my routing because who knows whether I will be admitted? Yes, the chances are heavily slanted towards yes in my specific case but... What I am trying to say: it makes absolutely impossible to plan travel, business into the USA if this order stands for everyone because who knows whether you will be targeted next.

I am slightly surprised to not see Boeing here, they are set to lose an enormous amount of money in Iran.

The entire "unreasonableness" is based on the idea that this was Trump randomly banning countries.

Obama's administration (not Trump's) compiled the list of countries. It wasn't racial or "because they're Muslim" (most Muslims aren't banned).

What was the common thread between the countries? 6 out of the 7 countries have been on and off the US "State Sponsors of Terror" list for the past 40 years. Somalia (the one that hasn't been on the list) has spent most of the last 25 years in anarchy.

The law also explicitly gives the president the right to make the decision (see section f https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182).

In 1993, SCOTUS ruled that a much longer ban against the poor, non-terrorist, mostly black Haitian immigrants by Bush Sr. and Clinton was legal in an 8-1 ruling (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/22/us/the-supreme-court-high-...).

The constitutional claim doesn't hold water (foreign nationals have no right to travel in the US and the countries were selected for terrorist connections). That leaves only interpretation of the law, but the law clearly states POTUS has the authority. A 3 month break to find out what policies to put in place against 7 problematic and terrorist sponsoring countries is hardly something SCOTUS will find unreasonable.

EDIT: for the record, I think the bans are ineffective at stopping terrorists and are just Trump following through on his populist promises. That's different from the legality of the decision. This isn't the only thing Trump is doing While everyone has eyeballs here, they miss everything else that's happening in DC, and he still gets to look good when SCOTUS agrees with him.

> The constitutional claim doesn't hold water (foreign nationals have no right to travel in the US and the countries were selected for terrorist connections).

The Constitutional claims are very strong, at least as applied to certain groups of people affected by the EO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13531117.

You are conflating the right to enter the U.S. with due process rights relating to denial of U.S. entry. Only citizens have a right to enter the U.S. (i.e. they cannot be denied entry, period). But the Supreme Court has squarely held that permanent residents, at least, have a right to due process before being denied re-entry. That doesn't mean the government can't deny them re-entry, but it does mean that the government cannot do what it did here: deny them re-entry without individualized process (usually, a hearing).

The EO is going down. The only question is what parts of it will survive.

There's a big difference between denied re-entry and delayed re-entry.

Delaying a re-entry application 3 months is hardly what passes for "unreasonable" in government circles. The fact that cases can still be reviewed and approved faster if necessary makes this even more reasonable legally.

> (e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest -- including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution, when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a preexisting international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship -- and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.

Permanent residents do not "apply" for reentry. They just need to show their green card and ID upon arriving in the U.S. Likewise, the EO did not merely delay visa applications. It denied entry, without any process, to people whose applications had already been approved and who had already received visas.

If the EO had merely delayed applications for three months pending additional procedures, courts across the country wouldn't be granting TROs to stop enforcement of it.

These are all common arguments brought up to argue against those who oppose the EO, but not a single point made seems to be related to the comment you have replied to. Could you clarify what you are trying to say?

Possibly since the OP expressed concern that their travel plans could be interrupted without notice, but that doesn't appear to be a warranted concern since the exact same temporary bans were put in place by previous presidents including President Obama and are therefore nothing new.

> the exact same temporary bans were put in place by previous presidents including President Obama

Except, and here's the key thing, that never happened.

In response to a specific, concrete threat Obama instituted a much more limited delay on certain applications from Iraq in 2011 which had no effect on most visa categories or any already issued visas or LPRs.

And in 2015, the 7 countries subject or the 90 day ban in the Trump order were removed (4 by legislation, 3 by executive action) from the Visa Waiver Program, but no ban or delay of new visas, and no ban of entry by LPRs or persons with valid existing visa, was instituted.

People defending the Trump policy as nothing new continue to try to blend the 2011 action, the 2015 action, and a healthy dose of pure fantasy to argue that Obama did exactly what Trump did in this EO, but that is completely false and utterly dishonest.

When did Obama institute travel bans on already-issued valid visas?

>the exact same temporary bans No. The Obama era bans were not at all the same. Citation please. I would counter-cite, but that's hard to do when you don't mention which Obama action you are claiming as exactly the same.

My understanding is that it is different in at least these ways: 1. Was focused on a specific threat 2. Didn't apply retroactively, to all green card holders 3. Didn't fully stop the programs, just slowed them down as processes changed

I'm not super familiar with Obama's original order but any one of these three differences I think is enough to say that his order was substantially different.

I hear this often, but I have not been able to find anything recent which would cause the same level of problems and uncertainty as this EO did.

This doesn't appear to be at all responsive to the concern expressed in the comment you're responding to.

> > If this approach were upheld, future orders might apply to any nation, and suddenly and unexpectedly bar its nationals from entering or returning to the United States.

> Aye, this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? I have a plane ticket from Canada to Europe in August, transiting in the USA and I have already contemplated changing my routing because who knows whether I will be admitted?

It is a direct response to "the crux of the matter". Trump isn't going to be banning countries on a whim.

I read in the news that the police detained up a murder suspect. Now I'm afraid that the police are coming for me even though I haven't hurt anyone. Logical?

Country A is temporarily banned for sponsoring or harboring terrorists. Person in Country B is afraid of being banned too even though their country doesn't support terrorism. Logical?

People are wrongly arrested every day. Few if any countries have been banned unjustly. If we cry out against a temporary ban, why not cry out even more about the wrongful arrests that take place much more frequently?

The wrongful arrest argument seems to be a straw man argument against the original concern (though I'll add that wrongful police shootings in particular are a subject of much concern, and have sparked major protest movements in America, actually.)

From my perspective, I am guessing that a lot of the original poster's issue comes from the more or less the haphazard, shoot from the hip way this executive order was implemented (temporarily blocking even green card holders for instance)... combined with Trump's past primary campaign rhetoric, which did call for a complete ban of all Muslims from the US at one point. It's less about what was in the order and more about how it was executed, in other words.

I am curious what makes you feel confident in your statement "Trump isn't going to be banning countries on a whim". That sounds a little too strongly certainty to me given the above.

If this law was really about fighting state-sponsored terrorism why aren't saudi arabia, uae, and egypt, all countries who have carried out terrorist attacks on the united states, on the travel ban list?

This argument is FUD.

Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc weren't "banned" because they share a great deal of information with us about people seeking entry into our country. The 7 "banned" countries do not. It's that simple.

It's about information exchange. We can't get enough info from the 7 "banned" countries to make informed pass/fail decisions about their travelers.

Iraq, where US contributed to the establishment of the present regime and where some remaining American soldiers are still there, does not share information with you? Seriously.

If sharing information with you as you said here is the most important yardstick,rather than subtle religion test,why is North Korea is not on the list?

Are you suggesting when Obama added Iraq to the list he was lying about what information they share?

North Korea is not on the list because literally nobody is travelling from North Korea to the United States.

No, GP is suggesting that "sharing information about people seeking to enter our country" is not the reason any of these countries were in- or excluded from this list.

Saudi Arabia and UAE exert a lot of economic power with their oil reserves and control OPEC (together they make about half of Opec's oil and Opec controls about 40% of the world's oil supply). Stop their terrorists by banning everyone or risk an even bigger economic attack. Not a great choice.

As to Egypt, from what I've read, the current Egyptian government is trying to play ball with the US. No need to upend things.

Obama's people knew what they were doing (and probably knew a lot more than you or I). I'd love to know why Lebanon isn't on the list though.

> I think the bans are ineffective at stopping terrorists and are just Trump following through on his populist promises.

I think you are totally missing the main opposition to the ban: not only is it ineffective, it also harms innocent people. So saying "he's following through on promises" should not be nearly enough to justify it. After all, one is entitled to expect the president to do a good job, not merely a legal job.

Trump explicitly called for a Muslim ban during the campaign. Rudy Guiliani is on camera saying that this EO was drafted as a legal way to implement a Muslim ban.

I am not a lawyer, but is seems like it should be illegal to deny refugees or immigrants based on religion.

I really really wish the U.S. would implement some sort of transit facilities and regulations for airports. Needing a visa just to pass through without ever needing to leave a secure section of an airport is ridiculous and anachronistic.

- At many smaller US airports, this is more convenient overall. There is no overhead from running a special "international" section, detached from the rest of the terminal facilities like restaurants and lounges and toilets, and US-border-style security for people going back and forth between the two: you just have everyone go through immigration straight after getting off the plane and you're done with it. Unlike Europe, there are relatively few surrounding nations, so more international travellers end up arriving in the US instead of connecting. Canada-to-Mexico and Europe-to-South-America traffic is small in comparison to non-Schengen-zone traffic heading through, say, CDG.

- This would still make sense to have at many hub airports (NYC and Atlanta come to mind) - but as the Wall Street Journal points out in this lovely article, "American airports are typically run by politicians in conjunction with the dominant airlines, which help finance the terminals in return for long-term leases on gates and facilities. The airlines use their control to keep out competitors; the politicians use their share of the revenue to reward unionized airport workers. No one puts the passenger first." -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/third-world-u-s-airports-that-i...

- In the case of New York especially, you'll note that the Port Authority runs ALL the airports: JFK, LGA, Newark. Yep, these are the same people who run the world's most favorite bus terminal ever. And (as the same article above notes), "Federal law generally requires that airport revenues be spent on aviation, but that statute, passed in 1982, contains a grandfather provision excluding the Port Authority." So your landing fees are subsidizing the fancy over-budget new World Trade Center PATH terminal, among other nonsense, instead of keeping your airports from falling apart, let alone making improvements for international passengers.

The WTC PATH Terminal is brilliant infact unlike the boring Penn Station/ Port Authority Bus Terminal, its a piece of architecture fitting to the reputation of the city for next century. You can't complain about Port Authority and then deride the new PATH station in same argument.

The terminal is pretty. But it was 10 years behind schedule. It costs $3.75 BILLION dollars to build, making it the world's most expensive transportation hub. And it runs about 46,000 passengers a day. (Compare and note that Grand Central does five and a half times that many).

It was not worth it.

Even the director of the Port Authority (the one in 2015, not the one when it was approved) declined to hold an opening ceremony because he was troubled at the cost overruns, decrying the station as a "symbol of excess".

Not that I disagree with you at all about cost overruns and schedule delays being an issue, or poor incentive structures all around being an even bigger issue, but going by your numbers:

>The terminal is pretty. But it was 10 years behind schedule. It costs $3.75 BILLION dollars to build, making it the world's most expensive transportation hub. And it runs about 46,000 passengers a day. (Compare and note that Grand Central does five and a half times that many). It was not worth it.

That... doesn't actually sound bad? According to what you wrote there it's serving around 16-17 million passengers a year, which would mean the entire $3.75 billion only works out to ~$220 a passenger for a single year, so it could be entirely recovered by a surcharge or temporary rate bump or whatever of around 50-60 cents a day in just a single year. If built properly so the capex can be amortized across five years or a decade or more, all that drops proportionally. That doesn't seem like a huge ask in NYC.

I mean yeah, it certainly apparently is far from the most efficient design. But even so it's worth considering that even a public infrastructure project here with huge scheduling delays and cost overruns that produces a big upfront bill isn't necessarily that inefficient compared to other forms of competing transport (like cars). It's easy to get too silo'd and forget the fundamental efficiencies and reliability vs the wider world, and in many cases it might be worth "reinvesting" some of those gains in the form of making something more aesthetically pleasing (and thus attractive to the public users) or politically greased, because even if it's worse relative to an internal ideal it might still be better for society. And humans are humans, sometimes some "inefficiency" is necessary from a practical standpoint.

The real question I'd have isn't the one time capex, it's ongoing maintenance. If all that money went into building something that'll be extremely reliable and have either equal or lower maintenance structures vs the rest of the stations, amortization can take care of the rest all right. If however delays and other issues result in higher running costs, that's a much much bigger deal and would be more interesting to know about then the $3.75 billion upfront.

Many passengers are the same from one day to the next. (They might even be counted twice a day, coming and going.) So it's more like $220 every time a traveler goes through the terminal, which could be tens of thousands per year for some people.

> the entire $3.75 billion only works out to ~$220 a passenger for a single year.

It works out so that $220 extra per commuter per day would pay off the station in a year. If you wanted to pay it off like a mortgage at 2.5% interest over 30 years, that'd be a a rate of about $322/mo.

For comparison, a 30-day unlimited pass for the entire PATH system currently runs $89.

I agree, the transit visa situation is really odd. I wonder how much money the U.S. loses by requiring visa from those travelling from Central+South America to Europe and the rest of the world. I know people personally that can't pick the quickest/cheapest route because it transits through the U.S.

Also ridiculous in many countries is the requirement that your passport is valid for X months in the future, where X is usually at least 6.

That does strike me as odd too, so do they at least let you renew them 6 months prior to the passport's expiration?

> I am slightly surprised to not see Boeing here, they are set to lose an enormous amount of money in Iran

I suspect that a likely reason is that Boeing is headquartered in Chicago, which doesn't fall under the purview of the Ninth Circuit. They may or may not be party to a similar filing for the Seventh Circuit.

The Boeing Iran deal is exempted under the Iran nuclear deal (the JCPA). I expect Boeing also doesn't want to raise the administrations hackles regarding various defence contracts.

Hrm, I am apparently wrong, http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/02/02/508809/Iran-says-Trump-... it seems by now they don't want to cancel.

Bombardier, Embraer, and Airbus must be salivating

Is there any precedent for overturning a legal order based on what "future orders" might be?

Might be because Boeing only is seen as a tech company in the DC area, if at all. ;)

I did a run at the (amateur) math off Google Finance and Crunchbase. With some companies I couldn't find's numbers outright omitted, and using old valuations, I totaled those corps filing as valued at $2.58 trillion in market cap., at least $131 billion of valuation and another $8 billion in investments in un-valuated companies. Assuming those investments hold value at least equal to the total worth of those companies in sum, we can reasonably assume the companies party to this brief represent value of at least 16% of US GDP.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y0VtAf9OpjwU7Haf4dHY...

in case anyone else was wondering

EDIT: indeed it is > 15% even including only the publicly traded companies, for which the numbers of can be considered less speculative

It's hard to compare market caps to GDP because GDP is kind of like "aggregate value of everything produced this year" while a market cap is "estimated total profits for a company from now until the end of time." So you might have a company like Walmart with $200b in market cap but ~$500b in annual revenue (3% of GDP by itself!) and $15b in net income. On the other hand there are companies like Adobe with $60b market caps and $6b in annual revenue and $1b in net income. So the GDP vs market cap comparison is somewhat apples to oranges, although there's no disputing the companies in the brief have a large impact on the US economy.

To be clear: it's not just hard, it is explicitly wrong.

A more correct measure is a much simpler one: the aggregate product of all these companies over the GDP. Note that this aggregate product is of course a component of the GDP, so you can express this neatly as a percentage. I see only one major accounting complication in constructing this metric, and that's the inclusion/exclusion of foreign products and subsidiaries. (See e.g. offshore revenues that are not repatriated, and therefore not part of the domestic product calculations -- I think?)

Another way is to estimate the net present value of America's GDP by multiplying it by 20 or so, which implies that it's roughly 1% of American wealth.

Alternatively, percentage of rents at office and industrial zoned land would be a good measure. That'd separate out national vs international activity, at the cost of being significantly more difficult to estimate and calculate. I actually don't know how well rents and imputed rents are tracked at aggregate levels and broken down by company, so this may very well be data that we simply don't have access to.

Out of curiosity, why ~20?

P/E ratios are around 20 on average I suppose. Meaning earnings are 5% of the market cap of a stock.

GDP doesn't directly correlate to earnings though.

Historically, $20 is the price of something that gives you $1/year. This, like, goes back to the medieval era.

It's just a rule of thumb as to what long run P/E ratios look like in the equity markets.

Are product numbers (domestic or multimarket) accessible somewhere to construct this? (Would revenue numbers suffice or is there more that should be factored in?)

Or is there an accepted measure of national economy that might play a sensible denominator for the sum I put together?

As I said, I don't know enough about economics to pretend to be making a reasonable comparison, I just went for the numbers I could find on a whim at 2am :-)

Thanks for actually knowing things

Could look at the GNI, gross national income. It's gdp plus net foreign income

Fair points, both you and akiselev; thanks for the clarification

I am not an especially economically-(or even really quantitatively) inclined person; I just see GDP bandied about as a metric of "size of economy" and market cap as "value of company". Revenue is probably locatable if someone wants to dig into quarterlies... I probably spent too much time on this exercise already

Here's a very, very rough ballpark estimate based on your data:

- $2.7T in market cap

- let's say average P/E ratio is 25 (P/E is approximately the ratio of company valuation to annual profits)

- let's say the profit margin of a typical tech company is 20%

- let's say 40% of a typical tech company's revenue is in the US

Estimated US revenue of the companies in your spreadsheet: $2.7T / 25 / 0.20 * 0.40 = $216b (about 1.5% of GDP, which is still huge)

By the way, I think your initial estimate of the total market cap of companies signing the brief is quite useful and informative, it just shouldn't be compared to GDP :)

It's actually pretty easy but for a first order estimate: http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+2015+revenue+of+Googl...

I'm on mobile so I can't get the interface to work properly but it's much easier on desktop Mathematica or WolframAlpha. In the above figure, I only included names from the OP that I was certain were public after a quick glance and I didn't even get to Microsoft. The number is something like $500 billion a year but as a sibling comment to yours mentions, this includes international revenue that may never make it to the US.

Accurate data on this scale is hard to come by without a working Bloomberg terminal.

GDP is the total value of goods flowing through the economy (more or less), not the total value of all property so it's not a very meaningful comparison. By this measure, Vanguard's $1.7 trillion assets under management account for over 10% of US GDP but obviously that's incorrect, that money is just parked across a bunch of assets.

The US manufacturing industry is about $3 trillion a year in actual industrial production and the tech industry has way less leverage, let alone political clout.

Edit: the total market cap of the S&P 500 broke $15 trillion in 2013 and as of 2015, all of the companies in that index didn't even employ a fifth of US workers. Add in all the spending and investment property that doesn't make it into S&P figures (govt taxes + bonds, real estate, etc) and I bet the total number is probably >$100 trillion.

But that argument won't fly well: "Bunch of rich guys want to go against the will of the people"

Didn't Trump actually lose the popular vote? The USA isn't a democracy, it's a republic.

The "popular vote" is not the will of the people:

a) the rules of voting are clear, this is both the will of the people, and is also what the people are expected to accept as citizens. The time to denounce or change those rules is before your guy loses.

b) the popular vote is not the entire country, because not everyone voted. Not only do campaign strategies and other factors affect those numbers (to a degree that might make up the difference), but if you argue that people who didn't vote simply lost out, or don't count in deriving "the will of the people", then you could just as well argue that so did those who lost to the electoral college system.

When the union formed concessions were made... An Ohian's vote weighs, say 1.4, a californian 0.6. So depending on where you vote, your vote weighs more or less. I read Trump lost the popular vote by 3M. But then so did Bush.

I'm not American, my opinion is about as much worth as my passport.

When the union was formed, the big concession was the "three-fifths compromise": slaves counted for the purposes of vote apportioning, but weren't actually allowed to vote. Preservation of the racist institution of slavery was a driving force behind the unequal apportionment.

And California wasn't a state but a largely empty colony of Spain.

But didn't Hillary know it isn't the popular vote that gets her to presidency. The is no trophy for winning the popular vote! Why didn't she campaign in the Rust Belt states but went to California instead. It is really baffling...

> Why didn't she campaign in the Rust Belt states but went to California instead. It is really baffling...

Because, ironically, her campaign was convinced she had the election in the bag, and they didn't want to risk her losing the popular vote while winning the electoral college, because that could undermine her perceived "mandate".

She made a strategic mistake. But the "popular vote" keeps getting mentioned in the context which is validating her somehow. I see it more as another reminder of a big blunder she made not something positive to promote about her campaign.

still, those 97 companies do not represent a majority

While I disagree with the travel ban, let's remember that the primary objection that the tech industry has to it is that it will disrupt the flow of cheap talent that it uses to boost its multi-billion dollar profits at the expense of US-educated engineers that would demand higher salaries and benefits. This group of companies may not garner much sympathy.

I don't know where you get your information, but at the kind of top-tier tech companies that are being discussed here, H1B employees are not getting inferior benefits.

And as someone that does a lot of hiring I can guarantee you that the interviewing costs, relocation costs, and language barrier trade-offs do not make up for any salary differences that may or may not occur.

We're not talking about some low-tech banks and telcos trying to save a few bux by outsourcing work to india.

These are companies that have a high enough bar for entry that they truly cannot hire by looking only locally and must consider the entire world.

Furthermore, your whole implication that the companies care about this from primarily a financial point of view is deeply cynical. Immigrants are heavily represented amongst the tech sector, and we have a deep faith in the success of western nations being directly tied to absorbing people hungry for a new life in a new world. It's not about screwing over people who are already here, it's about making the whole country better as a result.

CAVEAT: Am Canadian citizen, am first-generation immigrant. As mentioned, work for a multi-national tech company that is on this list, and hire from around the world. But I work with counterparts on the US side dealing with H1B and know they agree with me.

>Furthermore, your whole implication that the companies care about this from primarily a financial point of view is deeply cynical.

Having dealt with senior executives at more than one of the companies on the list, I can tell you that my cynicism is justified. With regard to the rest of your comment, many of these companies do an end run by hiring consulting firms that abuse the H-1B system as a business model, some abuse it directly, and some actually use the system as intended. But to imply that virtually no abuse is occurring is absurd.

> Furthermore, your whole implication that the companies care about this from primarily a financial point of view is deeply cynical

How can you be so naïve. You just have to look at the charges against tech companies regarding displacement, or in terms of wage collusion. Or look at the mass layoffs that occur regularly.

This is entirely related to saving "a few bux".

> H1B employees are not getting inferior benefit

Techtopus involved well payed engineers (google, Apple etc), yet it still kept wages down unfairly; Even if the H1B workers are paid the same, that might be enough to prevent natural wage rises.

Furthermore, I'm not sure they are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13552944

> These are companies that have a high enough bar for entry that they truly cannot hire by looking only locally and must consider the entire world.

> Furthermore, your whole implication that the companies care about this from primarily a financial point of view is deeply cynical

How much would it cost to either train local talent, or compete with other wealthy companies for limited talent? I find "we hire only the best, we need to scour the world" to be at odds with there being no financial benefit in skimming the cream off large foreign populations.

> H1B employees are not getting inferior benefits

Yes they are. Even the relatively anti-Trump Huffington Post thinks so - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13579226

At these corporations. What H1Bs are getting abused at Google or Microsoft?

I have a (related) counterpoint. The real problem is that there just aren't that many good US-educated engineers. This boils down to the US's weird college system, where either parents have to save up for their children's tuitions, or the people have to be lucky to get a scholarship.

The US is not a land of equal opportunity when it comes to education, which is costing a lot of potential talent to be lost. There's some improvement in 'free' online courses, but that's still only a patch next to a formal education.

If the US would invest more in its people and their educations, they wouldn't need as much foreign talent.

(spreading work out over the country instead of focusing it in SF would also help)

> or the people have to be lucky to get a scholarship

Scholarships (and financial aid) aren't based on luck. They are based on two things: merit and demonstrated need. (The relative weighting of the two varies by school).

It's hard to argue that financial assistance should ignore individual merit or actual financial need, especially since admissions already have a natural cap (not everyone can go to the top school) and that sorting function is largely based on merit.

This is something that a lot of Americans don't understand. I've met a lot of graduates from Berkeley and Stanford, and they're smart guys certainly, but I can't really say that their coding skills are absolutely outstanding; there's certainly dozens of universities around the world that have similar or superior levels of talent for the kind of skills these companies are looking for.

One of these is me: http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Twitter+Inc&job=Senior+Soft...

I am closer to the higher of the salaries listed. This does not include other kinds of compensation I'll be getting.

Let me know if you think I am being underpaid.

> A: Some people get underpaid.

> B: I'm not being underpaid, therefore you are wrong.

Thats not refuting his claim.

He did not say some. So I assumed he was talking about everyone.

What's the average or expected salary for a senior software engineer working for twitter in SF?

From what I can tell from glassdoor, I am making a little bit more than average for my level of experience.

I don't have any other sources unfortunately.

I think there is a bias towards lower salaries on GD though. I suspect lower-paid workers are more likely to share (or risk sharing) their compensation?

I am not sure about that. Other sources I have seen put the median numbers substantially lower than what I make. But they are for all jobs with the same title, so it is a lot harder to compare.

H1B salaries are public information, if you work at any of these companies it's trivial to check if your company is underpaying H1B holders and report them if that's the case.

Quite a few of the companies on the list are among the highest payers in the USA.

If this is the case, the answer is to revise the H1B Visa program, not ban everyone with a current visa including a baby travelling to the US for urgent heart surgery. These are people with current approved visas that already are doing a job for these companies that the companies are relying on them doing.

This isn't about whether people should or should not have H1B visas. Even if you're completely against the H1B visa program, I don't expect you'd advocate frog-marching every current holder of such a visa out of their offices and shoving them on planes.

US educated international students get lumped into the H1B lottery as well.

From the brief :

>>> The Order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employee

"More expensive" makes laugh... What were the profits of these companies last year ? Do they really need to shave a few thousands dollar here and there ?

> The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years

Can I derive from this that the 97 tech companies accepts the classified Terrorist Watch List (2mil people), Selectee list, and no fly list? The statement would hold more credibility if the companies acknowledged and denounced the previous system and held a bit more consistent view on how travel between nations should work. A good example of this would be ACLU, who in contrast to the 97 companies has shown a consistent view on this kind of government behavior by bringing lawsuits in the past and the present.

Those lists were implemented with a bit more runway than 5 minutes. The outrage is not just at what the ban does, but how it's been introduced: suddenly, capriciously, with no preparation or discussion with involved parties, and resulting in all sorts of collateral damage that could have been easily avoided.

The outrage expressed by the public is the large driving factor here - the tech companies are saying 'our potential workforce is outraged so we need to oppose this / be seen opposing this'

I'm not sure it's only the outrage, also that this impacts their business more than past decisions. Rather than "fairness" (which I agree they don't really credibly care about) I think the key for the companies is the "predictability" part, in that imposing a travel ban for people who already had valid visas and work permits is unwelcome from a corporate-planning perspective. Especially because the initial version applied to even green-card holders, which includes large numbers of people in the tech industry, such as Iranian-Americans. Though the administration seems to have backed down from enforcing the no-entry order in the case of green-card holders.

If green-card holders had been exempted from the start, it's possible opposition wouldn't have been galvanized in the same way, because including them brought in opposition from all kinds of people who don't usually see themselves as being impacted by the immigration debate (essentially: affluent, well-integrated immigrant communities with legal residency). The cynical take on it is that Trump screwed up by not confining his hawkish immigration enforcement to the powerless & poor types of immigrants that immigration hawks usually stick to harassing.

"potential workforce", or "public"?

Because polls suggest many Americans support the ban.

The arguments presented in the brief suggest they care more about the impact on their ability to recruit than negative general PR for not supporting the ban.

Some notable American tech companies that didn't sign:

- Tesla - SpaceX - Amazon - HP - IBM - Dell - Oracle - VMware - Palantir - Priceline - Expedia - Yahoo - Groupon - TripAdvisor - Symantec - Fiserv - Intuit

There could be many reasons. Maybe they weren't invited to participate, maybe they choose to stay out of a political discussion, maybe they thought it could hurt their business interests, and maybe they didn't fully or partially agree with the amicus brief.

As noted elsewhere, Expedia and Amazon have joined in on the suit against Donald Trump, and so likely can not file an amicus brief.

Looks like Cisco did not sign either. 9 of the largest 15 IT companies in the world are US owned[1]

Looks like 5 of them did not sign up (HP, Amazon, IBM, Dell and Cisco) and 4 did (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Intel)

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

Amazon, as one of the plaintiffs in the case (the State of Washington is the first named plaintiff; the "et al." on the case title means there are others, which include Amazon and Expedia), can't file (alone or with others) an amicus brief, which is a brief by interested non-parties.

But it's misleading to count them as a company that choose not to sign on to the amicus brief.

You are right that they have made separate declarations of support, but are they plaintiffs? I think 'et al' refers to the sole other plaintiff, the state of Minnesota: http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/1lori020217.pdf

You may be correct; I've seen a number of articles specifically claiming Amazon and Expedia joined the lawsuit (which has a clear and well accepted meaning), but on review there are also a lot claiming that the relation and there involvement is somewhat different, and I can't immediately find any definitive documentation of their joining as plaintiffs (they clearly weren't initial plaintiffs). Their involvement by any of the reports may still be of a kind to make it inappropriate for them to be amici, and they clearly support Washington (and Minnesota) substantively in the case, at any rate.

Yes, they do.

I suspect that Telsa, SpaceX and Palantir didn’t sign because Musk and Thiel wanted to talk to Trump in person, and possibly act as (informal) intermediaries.

Both have clearly stated they didn’t agree with most of Trump’s comments on the topic (without being crass or litigious) and can reasonably point at comments similar to yours to say that they are willing and encouraged to file a similar brief or join this one.

The first two are Elon Musk's companies and he's stated he wants to continue to try to influence Trump directly on this issue in particular: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/827924171661377536

Is Oracle really a surprise? Safra Catz is an immigrant herself, but she's also on the Trump advisory team and, in the end, it's still Larry's company anyway.

IBM has been sucking up to the Trump administration, presumably eyeing govt contracts. http://fortune.com/2016/12/20/trump-ibm-ginni-rometty/

Contrary to my jubilation at this progress, a cynical friend of mine does not take any reassurance from the power checks the judicial branch has brought against the administration. He believes the administration will just find subtler and less obviously illegal ways to slowly move things in the direction they want. I hope this is not so. It is true that you only seem to see this kind of massive reaction to huge, broad-stroke actions like the travel ban. The quieter legislation passes by unnoticed and (by comparison) unprotested.

The last president asked us if it would be okay to bomb Syria. We said no. Then he did it anyways. He bombed them so much that we literally ran out of bombs. This guy screws up some travel plans and suddenly it's a problem. Bombing these people for 8 years, totes cool. Temporarily not letting them come here!?!?! Monster!!!!

I mean, I don't support Trump, nor do I agree with this dumb temporary travel ban, but all this noise about it is clearly disingenuous.

> We said no. Then he did it anyways. ... Bombing these people for 8 years, totes cool.

That's some quite revisionist history there... The Syrian conflict isnt even that old.

It started in 2011.

In 2013, US starting supplying arms to syrian rebels. This was our first intervention in the conflict.

In Sept 2014, Obama gave his syria speech and Congress authorized action in Syria. Bombing started shortly after w/ other countries participation.

How does 2 years suddenly turn into 8? And doesn't Congressional approval for the action, conflict with this idea that Obama was acting in Syria alone?

No, what you believe is the revisionist history. We learned from the wikileaks cables that the US (CIA) has been in Syria funding and training the opposition since as early as 2006.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2011/0418/...

That means that the civil war and the refugee crisis are at least in part the direct results of actions of the United States.

here's the document from wikileaks: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/wikileaks...

Your link, nor the actual wikileaks document supports the claim that US sent the CIA into Syria in 2006.

It talks about funding to Freedom House, American University and others for information, conferences, etc.

I think you would have a good point if it were true about CIA involvement.. but I believe people have a right to speech. And that's all that this appears to be.

I'm not ready to agree that the US is the source of the Syrian civil war just because we encouraged speech without the approval of a dictator.

>but all this noise about it is clearly disingenuous.

He's destroying the lives of my friends. There are 100,000 such people affected according to the DOJ in court, and they all have friends as well.

Geopolitics is complicated, and the right action isn't so obvious that I'm going to be in the streets whenever someone drops a bomb. I don't and can't understand things with enough certainty to be outraged. This situation is obvious. He's destroying lives for useless political pandering.

The difference is not the degree of immorality, but my certainty of it.

Moreover, a president who bombs other countries is not going to suddenly bomb me. This president already tried to deport my friends, and almost all of my friends are immigrants. Can any of us feel safe now?

>He's destroying the lives of my friends.

You know that Syrian refugee crisis that's going on where nearly 500,000 have already died and countless more are permanently injured? How many lives do you think that has ruined? Did you also know that the wikileaks cables revealed that the Obama's CIA was in Syria and stoked the fires to start that civil war?

>Moreover, a president who bombs other countries is not going to suddenly bomb me. This president already tried to deport my friends, and almost all of my friends are immigrants.

You know what? That's really shitty. I didn't vote for Trump, don't support this retarded EO, and will be glad when he's gone. But it's absolutely disgusting that you can consider this shit incident to be anything close to the magnitude of the lives the government has destroyed over the last 16 years. This is trivial by comparison.

Unsurprisingly, I care more about my own friends and family than a situation I understand little about. On a global scale, everything is trivial. I'm not going to stop trying to improve the circumstances immediately around me because things are worse somewhere else.

I mean, bombing Syria does seem farther away, in the geographical (and therefore emotional) sense.

Plus, the United States is sickeningly nationalistic, and still carries a hint of pride about its immigrant origins. "This child wanted to come into the U.S., but the cruel President Trump won't let him!" packs more punch than "President Obama issued a drone strike against one side of a multifaceted conflict in a small country you know nothing about."

There's also the fact that Obama was on the team that typically opposes military intervention and racism (at least ideologically...), and it's harder to get people outraged at their own side. The Republicans might have had trouble riling up their base with drone strikes on muslims, so they went for other hot buttons. The Democrats, on the other hand, are perfectly happy to sink their teeth into the travel ban.

At least you recognize that this is political posturing and virtue signaling and not an actual principled stand in favor of people from other countries.

I'm one step more cynical than that. I think this is the butt-hurt media riling people up because their darling lost the election. Oh, and of course ratings. When the news broke via wikileaks that the CIA, under Obama, started the Syrian civil war which as led to half a million deaths it was barely a blip on the radar because the media liked the guy who did it.

The syrian civil war started 2.5 years before US involvement.

And just so I understand you correctly.. you're saying the green card holders and other visa holders who had their lives disrupted by this order, the judges who ruled that the order is likely illegal, the 97 tech companies in this article whos lawyers think this is illegal, Sally Yates, ACLU, Cato institute, state AGs in CA, WA, CT, HI, IL, IA, ME, MD, NM, NY, OR, PA, VT, VA, and DC...

are all acting entirely politically.

You're even accusing the judicial branch, including judge(s?) appointed by republicans, of ruling against this order because the dems lost an election?

The US sent the CIA into Syria in 2006 (Bush then continued by Obama) to train and fund opposition forces which resulted in the Arab Spring breaking out in 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2011/0418/...

The Syrian civil war is at least in part THE RESULT of US involvement.

I'm not saying the green card holders are acting politically. I'm saying the thousands of people protesting are expressing partisan bullshit selective outrage.

Obama bombed Syria so much we literally ran out of bombs. I'm going to repeat that again for effect. The United States of Bomb-merica bombed Syria so much we ran out of bombs. We're making cluster bombs and selling them to be dropped on these places, weapons which the use of is a war crime in most of the world. For years there's not been an peep out of these people. Now suddenly some people can't travel where they wanted to and it's like the next rise of Hitler. Gimme a break, there's half a million dead on Obama's hands and nobody gave a shit.

The EO was a pretty shit idea. I don't support it and I don't support Trump. If the Judicial is able to clear it up, then that's great. The group(s) I was referring to with the political posturing are the media with frankly disgusting coverage intended to inflame an already delicate situation, and the protesters who are largely their pawns.

I was ready to give you an upvote for the link, but your link doesnt support the claim ("US sent the CIA into Syria in 2006") you're making.

In fact, if you read the actual document from Wikileaks, the funding seems to consist of funds for informational campaigns, conferences, etc -- all talk. A lot of it entirely outside of Syria. And the amount is fairly small as well - $6m over 4 years. No military/cia operations, nothing about rebels, etc are found in the document.

To get back to the topic though.. I would suggest that if the issue is legitimate, then the protest is also legitimate.

I'm not a US citizen so I'm just commenting as an observer. I'm a lot less worried about legislation overall because it does get scrutinized by the wider elected legislature. At the end of the day if the US as a nation decides to restrict immigration more then that's your prerogative as a nation. The American people voted in Trump and the current largely Republican legislature fair and square and they do have a right to exercise their legal authority.

My concern about the presidential order is that it bypasses due process and in this case may even be illegal. It appears it may not even have been shown to the administration's attorneys before implementation betrays a cavalier neglect for legality or the enormous harm this order has done to the reputation of the US as a fair country under the rule of law.

US immigration law gives the president explicit right to do exactly what he did (and that has been upheld by the supreme court in the past). See section f

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

> US immigration law gives the president explicit right to do exactly what he did

Clearly the federal courts (six different district courts, if I've counted correctly) don't believe that the case is as open and shut as you do, or they wouldn't have aisued restraining orders against the EO, one of the explicit considerationa for which is likelihood of prevailing on the merits.

That one section of law appears to be a broad grant of power does not mean that that grant is not constrained by other provisions of law.

US law prohibits discriminating based on national origin except under specific circumstances. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1152

(A) Except as specifically provided in paragraph (2) and in sections 1101(a)(27), 1151(b)(2)(A)(i), and 1153 of this title, no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.

If you read the many arguments made in the amicus curiae brief[1] that was at the top of HN here 12 hours ago, you would learn quite clearly that there is substantial precedent for requiring the executive branch to use its powers on a rational and discreet basis.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/06/17-...

Was the election fair? I would say so. That being said, Donald Trump received almost three million fewer votes than his main competitor, Hillary Clinton. To say we "voted him in" is only strictly technically correct.

> the administration will just find subtler and less obviously illegal ways

Having seen some documentaries about Trumps past behavior my cynical expectation would be that he is now plotting to retaliate personally against the judge who "did this", and have him/her fired or otherwise removed.

I don't want to dismiss the other, much larger, concerns people have with this executive order, but I want to highlight another aspect.

It further reduces the possibility of tourism to these 7 countries, due to the knowledge that if I want to go to the US, I face a much more invasive immigration check (see Norway PM), and the possibility of denied entry, which carries a lasting stigma.

Clearly tourism in Syria is not an option at the moment, but the more adventurous European could certainly want to visit Iran. And of course it was true that immigration officers could have asked about those trips before this order. Nevertheless, I feel that my choices of holiday have been affected by this order.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33648096

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norwa...

As a Canadian, i've actually never thought of Iran as any more 'adventurous' of a place to visit than somewhere like Peru or India or Cambodia. Lots of mainstream adventure tourism companies have tours there (e.g.: G adventures, exodus, etc) It has a reputation of being a very friendly place full of hospitable people. It's always been on my 'bucket list' of places to visit one day.

However, if a visit means i'll get grilled more than usual every time I visit the US, then I'll likely refrain from visiting. So, yes, the order will reduce tourism.

The US explicitly allows people to get a second passport to allow them to visit countries without facing this issue. For example, if you want to visit Lebabon, you can get a second passport if you later want to visit Israel.

I don't know if Canada or other countries do the same thing.

It's quite well possible to visit Iran from Europe. My father, who's only moderately adventurous, went last year with a guided bus tour all the way through Turkey (before the latest coup). He absolutely recommended the trip.

If nothing more, this brief is very informative for those wanting to understand the issues at play here - a good jumping off point to case law, historical context, and current news.

Interestingly missing: Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX

Makes sense as Elon is a Trump advisor. Also interestingly missing: Amazon.

They already filed a declaration in the original motion for a TRO. http://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/uploadedfiles/Anot...

i believe amazon and expedia were part of the suit https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/yet-another-judg...

I believe Elon Musk is playing (once again) the ultra-long game.

He is betting that the court system as well as Congress will limit Donald Trump and his cronies from doing something that is grounds for impeachment - and so Donald Trump will be in office for the entire term. Given this, it makes sense to be in a position that has at least a tiny bit of influence on Trump.

Amazon has a similar position: they need large amounts of (immigrant) labor for their warehouses, but also are extremely dependent on free trade, especially import tariffs. So, they're likely afraid of openly defying Donald Trump, because they fear that Trump could retaliate against them.

The other companies which are on the list (except Apple!) are a hard target for Trump as they do not depend on overseas goods import and thus cannot be hit by import tariffs - the only way to hit them is by deporting the foreign workers they already have, and the courts have shown they won't let pass deportations of legal immigrants. So, for these companies it's relatively easy to sign.

Musk might outsmart us all, but by going down to that crossroads in Clarksdale, he does not, and will not, outmoral a slug.

Morality is like an ass - everybody has their own.

Musk wants to see a self sustaining, fossil fuel free civilisation, and a backup off site. I'm not saying it's morally right, in fact it might be straight out of Machiavelli ideas, but you are right in that it's a long position.

Morality, stripped of religious connotations, is just about what is good and bad. If you think fossil fuel independence and Mars colonization are good things, those are moral statements.

I agree completely. I'm just saying that everyone has his own ideas of what is good or bad (or evil for that matter). One person's good may be the other's bad.

>He is betting that the court system as well as Congress will limit Donald Trump and his cronies from doing something that is grounds for impeachment - and so Donald Trump will be in office for the entire term.

If somebody doesn't believe Trump will be in office for the entire term, they are deluded.

I certainly hope that Trump won't serve his full term, but I believe he will.

The problem is that it would take a really epic scandal to get Trump formally impeached - you need a 2/3 majority, and even the stuff Trump has done already was not enough to organize an impeachment.

The other obvious solution might be that someone kills or maims Trump, but no one wants that. No matter how evil Trump is, murder is NOT a solution. Actually, it might even cause civil war if Trump or one of his cronies is assassinated, and the consequences are unimaginable.

I have a suspicion that what's eventually going to happen is what I call the "Harry S Truman Show": the President becomes gradually surrounded by yes-men and chooses to watch "fake news", while his fingers are gently prised off the levers of power by aides. He's given legally meaningless orders to sign which are ignored, then insulated from the negative press coverage.

Eventually someone might stop him from using the insecure phone to tweet with, too. Right on cue he points out how much he already lives in a self-selected news "bubble": https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/82857443080053964... "Any negative polls are fake news"

(not a comment on President Truman so much as an opportunity to make a joke about the Truman Show)

>No matter how evil Trump is

Evil is a theological assessment.

Do people really believe Trump (or other politicians) are some kind of evil incarnate, constantly thinking about how to do harm?

It's just people with different values and different approaches on the world. Of course not all approaches are equally valid, and some can be said to be evil or harmful etc, but nothing Trump ever did can warrant the person is particularly bad -- or that different from most politicians and businessmen for that matter.

Trump is not evil. But he is morally bankrupt.

When you brag about sexually assaulting women whilst your wife is pregnant or the callous, baseless attacks on minorities and the weak you really are the lowest of the low.

>When you brag about sexually assaulting women whilst your wife is pregnant

He didn't say about "sexually assaulting" women as if he's some rapist. Just that if some are rich/famous they'll be open to them, and let them "grab them by the, etc". Which, in many cases, it's true (and it's their choice if they prefer the rich guy with the yaughts, not an assault).

In any case, nothing more or less, than half of the US talks about between male friends (female friends can say even worse stuff).

Is that a big deal? Or just puritanism? Millions of Americans have for example cheated on their wives, when they were pregnant. And likewise for women in relationships.

It's nice to pretend it's all some happy-go-lucky PC world, where there's nothing but respect in families etc, but it's nothing like that.

That doesn't mean all those people are "morally bankrupt", just that they are human.

No large company is particularly keen to vocally oppose an administration, especially not one led by a person so demonstrably thin-skinned and vindictive as Trump. The complicated 'ultra long game' theory is just an attempt to think away the awful moral choice Musk has made - to collaborate with and enable an administration that deliberately stokes xenophobic and religious fears for political gain, at the cost of real and immediate harm to innocent people. It's just bad and not any kind of game at all.

Amazon was one of the first to file their brief - in the original lawsuit. Bezos has no problem rocking the boat & actually wrote one of the stronger worded condemnations in the industry.

Bezos has been trolling trump using what used to be a respectable publication called Washington Post for about 14 months now ?

Trolling?

> Elon Musk is playing (once again) the ultra-long game

He's also playing the short game. Sucking up to Trump is a smart business move when you're in industries that could be adversely affected by a relaxing of energy regulations or a reduction in funding for space programs.

Just a shame Musk doesn't own up to it.

Isn't Jeff Bezos involved in a spat with trump already, over the Washington Post reporting?

when was last time an EO was ground for impeachment?

No Yahoo either.

Someone care to (briefly) elaborate what this is about for us not up to speed?

Trump issued an executive order (EO) temporarily suspending entry to the US for nationals of 7 countries listed by the DHS as "Countries of Concern", and temporarily suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

The State of Washington sued to block the EO.

The lower court judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the EO and Trump appealed.

Now these 97 tech companies are sharing their opinion with the appellate court:

> The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years—and the Order inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result. The Order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employees. It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies’ ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States.

Immigration? What about those with valid visas? It was a travel ban also. It was a very simple order to don't let anyone in from those countries, wasn't it?

Yes, corrected.

The specific phrasing in the order was "suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons".

7* countries

Corrected, thank you.

Thank you!

>Now these 97 tech companies are sharing their opinion

To clarify, this is the leadership of those 97 companies. There is no indication whether or not that this is how the majority of their employees feel.

This is the same virtue signaling that resulted in Trump being elected in the first place. An employee of one of these companies wouldn't dare now to express their agreement with Trump's policy because it's against the company's official stance.

Isn't that always the case? I've rarely been in particularly strong agreement with the politics of upper management almost anywhere I've worked, but upper management doesn't care. That's capitalism: we don't work in worker-run organizations (most of us, anyway), and company political stands aren't submitted to an internal vote.

Trump supporters disagreeing with their management from the right are hardly a unique case; many of us also disagree with our management from the left (e.g. being union supporters in a company whose management is anti-union, or being in favor of a carbon tax in a company whose management lobbies against one).

> virtue signaling

It's a funny phrase this. Is any public statement about morality "virtue signalling"? What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_... - is the condemnation of same-sex marriage by a restaurant chain "virtue signalling", or something else? "Bigotry signalling"?

> The phrase “virtue signalling” came up a lot, which is the sequel insult to “champagne socialist”; again, it doesn’t have very much meaning, beyond “person X holds views less compromised and more ambitious than mine, ergo, person X is a narcissist who uses other people’s misery as grist to their own self-fashioning.” It was invented by the mild-mannered rightwing polemicist James Bartholomew.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/10/labour...

That's an obviously nonsense idea. Must every public stance taken by a company be unanimously agreed by every employee? Clearly that's not feasible. Is your opinion then that no company should take public policy stances?

>Is your opinion then that no company should take public policy stances?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Otherwise, by giving these companies a voice, you're giving more weight to the statements by company executives than to anyone else. The employees are all assumed to be in agreement, which is a false assumption. Corporate CEOs shouldn't have any more voice in any political discussion than anyone else, including a janitor.

At Google at least nearly the entire company held a protest against it. I assume at other companies people feel similarly about their co-workers, and want to protect them.

If you were a pro-travel ban tech employee, in this climate, would you even want that to be known? That would likely be a career limiting move.

Does anybody know the process for these companies being involved? Did somebody ring around and organise this, or does word just get around and companies request involvement, or something else?

Last week Github hosted a meeting of tech industry heads to explore such an action, so this may have fallen out of that. News coverage seems to imply that Github invited chosen companies to participate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-tech...

I don't know what Americans are protesting about. I don't agree with the bans at all but at least you have a president who is true to his words for once - For me that is a higher moral value. You have to take the good with the bad.

I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things but I can respect a politician who does what he says he'll do.

It's a refreshing break from the typical Washington charlatans who don't do anything of their own accord and instead just do what their crooked lobbyist friends tell them.

All that said, I've had a few Iranian friends/colleagues (fellow engineers) and it's really strange to think that they're not allowed to go to the US now because they're such decent, balanced people - Also, I can't help but think about those people who left Iran 40 years ago before it was under Islamic rule but still have Citizenship.

He says a lot of words. Many are false, some are true.

I don't understand how everybody (well, many people at least) ignore the obvious pathological lying and conclude he's doing what he said he would.

Because this is what is called to be a master at pitching snake's oil.

What "pathological lying"? He is no more lying than the average politician, and maybe less.

What about his statements on the crowd sizes? He also said Mexico was going to pay for the wall and that doesn't look like it will happen at all.

"alternative facts" ;). At least those err, factual inaccuracies didn't have anything to do with formal government policy.

As for the wall, he's making steps to that at least; whether they'll work on a practical matter is of course something else. Can't accuse him from not following up on his promises, anyway.

He said he will impose a tax on Mexican imports and use the proceeds to pay for the wall - That sounds on track.

A 20% import tariff was floated, but was fairly quickly walked back after a cold reception from the Texas GOP delegation and strong opposition from the Texas Association of Business (Texas does a lot of import/export business with Mexico). Now they're looking into unspecified other mechanisms.

You understand that the tax will be passed on to US consumers via higher prices right?

You understand that this is no rule of nature, right?

It's not like Mexico is the only source of some goods. Or that they can't make concessions (and assume the extra hit on their own margins) if their sales drop. Or tens of other factors and outcomes.

I do understand that, however it seems unlikely at the moment that they will choose that option.

Well, it's not making Mexicans pay for it, but Americans.

As for his other promises, I'm also not sure how he's going to manage to massively increase the defense forces while basically halving taxes.

Being true to your word doesn't mean you have to immediately send out an order with no planning, preparation, or consultation.

It does if you want to give a loud example of a new policy, to be able to scale it down afterwards, and thus has both your extremist supporters happy (because at least you did what you could) and the activists against you happy (because you "caved in" and took somethings back).

> I can respect someone who does what he says he'll do

The point of a leader is to do what's right, not what's popular. Short-circuiting our republic into a direct democracy defeats its purpose.

Then the US should overhaul its voting system completely; when you have just two parties, and when the head-of-state is a person (instead of a commission or a government without a clear leader), you will inevitably end up in a popularity contest, a contest of personalities. "What's right" is much harder to get people to vote for.

Trump lost the popular vote. The Republic is the only reason he can do this at all.

I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things but I can respect a politician who does what he says he'll do

Like release his taxes? Your memory seems selective.

> I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things but I can respect someone who does what he says he'll do.

Adolf Hitler was also keeping his promise of eliminating the Jewish "problem" or the lack of the living space for the Germans. Does this increase your respect to him?

Of course this is overblown, and Trump is not Hitler. But we should learn our lessons rather than repeat the errors of the past.

Good ol' Godwin's law, I've missed you

So should we forget the Holocaust and WWII because of Godwin?

Please note I've been very careful to put things into perspective here...

>If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician

-Mike Godwin

The only time I've seen this is in well thought out articles demonstrating that Trump is absolutely nothing like Hitler. Here is a good example: https://regiehammblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/this-hitler-n...

Anyone reading this who feels a powerful urge to jump in and demonstrate their confirmation bias in a reply is invited to stop, take a deep breath, and think about it first.

Most politicians do in fact do what they say they will. It's not actually rare.

Thats really not very true

I am not sure why you are downvoted, regardless of whether you agree with the travel ban or not, his supporters, the people who voted for him wanted this.

The more they keep protecting, the more we're trapped within.

Says it all that you make a good point and are still getting down voted. This industry is very nervous about something and it's my belief it has more to do with what's coming next.

What would that be (that is coming next)?

This is just virtue signaling against Trump by those that don't know they are being played.

None of these people and companies (and media outlets) said anything when Obama was doing much worse, such as blowing up entire countries.

Yet Trump puts into effect a temporary travel correction from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, half of which are an open death sentence destination for Americans right now, and here we see the establishment latching on to a story, removing the facts, playing with the numbers, etc, all to accomplish its anti-Trump goals.

This is dirty politics being dressed up as morals and values.

>Temporary travel correction

That's some talented doublespeak.

It's interesting that while we all accept it's ok for businesses, corporates and others to form groups to protect their interests any attempts by individuals to group together is instantly labeled as 'un-american' and socialism.

It's odd anytime individuals try to organize hysterical scares about communism are raised in the media and by businesses and it's dismissed as 'anti-american' socialism with ultra aggressive reactions even in places like HN.

Individuals are effectively disempowered in society, without groups there is no way to articulate or protect your interests especially when others are organizing and lobbying aggresively to protect their interests.

Contrary to what many people think, I will predict that the original Trump order will be upheld.

It is absolutely an Executive branch function to handle visas and immigration, and the actual law appears to be very clear.

I am not making a statement about Trump or his opponents, otherwise.

Which "actual law appears to be very clear"?

I think Section 1182f: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate”

( Note that green card holders are still a class of aliens.)

It's not the only law and in addition, there is case law. Reading that one section is a very incomplete and likely inaccurate way to reason about the EO.

http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/trump-exceeds-his-plenary-...

It is pretty interesting to see how a couple of years ago it would be extremely bad PR for companies to get involved in politics and user their corporate power to tip the scales in their favor, but now it is completely the opposite.

The New York Times take on the ruling: "Judge Robart's brisk ruling contained almost no reasoning."

Reading this interpretation of the immigrant history of the US, and how this means corporations should be able to dictate public policy now, just shows how arrogant and entitled these companies are, and how necessary it is that this means of hiring needs to be rejuvenated.

minor edit: 96 companies. Turn Inc is listed twice

1. AdRoll, Inc.

2. Aeris Communications, Inc.

3. Airbnb, Inc.

4. AltSchool, PBC

5. Ancestry.com, LLC

6. Appboy, Inc.

7. Apple Inc.

8. AppNexus Inc.

9. Asana, Inc.

10. Atlassian Corp Plc

11. Autodesk, Inc.

12. Automattic Inc.

13. Box, Inc.

14. Brightcove Inc.

15. Brit + Co

16. CareZone Inc.

17. Castlight Health

18. Checkr, Inc.

19. Chobani, LLC

20. Citrix Systems, Inc.

21. Cloudera, Inc.

22. Cloudflare, Inc.

23. Copia Institute

24. DocuSign, Inc.

25. DoorDash, Inc.

26. Dropbox, Inc.

27. Dynatrace LLC

28. eBay Inc.

29. Engine Advocacy

30. Etsy Inc.

31. Facebook, Inc.

32. Fastly, Inc.

33. Flipboard, Inc.

34. Foursquare Labs, Inc.

35. Fuze, Inc.

36. General Assembly

37. GitHub

38. Glassdoor, Inc.

39. Google Inc.

40. GoPro, Inc.

41. Harmonic Inc.

42. Hipmunk, Inc.

43. Indiegogo, Inc.

44. Intel Corporation

45. JAND, Inc. d/b/a Warby Parker

46. Kargo Global, Inc.

47. Kickstarter, PBC

48. KIND, LLC

49. Knotel

50. Levi Strauss & Co.

51. LinkedIn Corporation

52. Lithium Technologies, Inc.

53. Lyft, Inc.

54. Mapbox, Inc.

55. Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart

56. Marin Software Incorporated

57. Medallia, Inc.

58. A Medium Corporation

59. Meetup, Inc.

60. Microsoft Corporation

61. Motivate International Inc.

62. Mozilla Corporation

63. Netflix, Inc.

64. NETGEAR, Inc.

65. NewsCred, Inc.

66. Patreon, Inc.

67. PayPal Holdings, Inc.

68. Pinterest, Inc.

69. Quora, Inc.

70. Reddit, Inc.

71. Rocket Fuel Inc.

72. SaaStr Inc.

73. Salesforce.com, Inc.

74. Scopely, Inc.

75. Shutterstock, Inc.

76. Snap Inc.

77. Spokeo, Inc.

78. Spotify USA Inc.

79. Square, Inc.

80. Squarespace, Inc.

81. Strava, Inc.

82. Stripe, Inc.

83. SurveyMonkey Inc.

84. TaskRabbit, Inc

85. Tech:NYC

86. Thumbtack, Inc.

87. Turn Inc.

88. Twilio Inc.

89. Twitter Inc.

90. Turn Inc.

91. Uber Technologies, Inc.

92. Via

93. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

94. Workday

95. Y Combinator

96. Yelp Inc.

97. Zynga Inc.

Goodguy YCombinator close to bottom of the list.

I would imagine YC is at bottom of most alphabetically sorted lists.

Last I checked Y is close to bottom of a sorted list

Reply on news.ycombinator.com