Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Employees Pressure Leadership to Cancel ICE Contract

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233 pointsrumcajz225 comments

Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil.

When I wrote the War FTP Daemon in 1996, as freeware, this became a problem to me. I did want to give away my work for free, but I did not want any government agency to abuse it. So I came up with a solution - a GPL license with an additional clause - that the government - any government - could not use it for any purpose.

Someone actually complained to the Free Software Foundation about this clause, and they concluded, at that time, that it was permissible.

In years to follow I received many emails from universities, schools, hospitals, research facilities - with requests to use the software. In most cases I granted them permission. But by doing it this way, I could sleep well at night - knowing that my software could not - legally - be used to separate children from parents, or for any other evil purpose by any governments around the globe.

----

War Software series Copyright (C) 1996 - 2018 by Jarle (jgaa) Aase (www.jgaa.com) This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation version 2 of the License - WITH THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS:

  * GOVERNMENTS, GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES OR COMMERCIAL
    COMPANIES OWNED 50% OR MORE BY THE GOVERNMENT ARE
    NOT ALLOWED TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SORCE CODE FOR
    ANY PURPOSE. THIS RESTRICTION ALSO APPLIES FOR
    PROGRAMS DERIVED FROM THE SOURCE CODE, OR PROGRAMS/
    SOURCE CODE THAT USE SPECIAL TECHNICS/ALOGRITHMS
    INVENTED IN THIS SOFTWARE.

  * THE FULL SOURCE CODE IS WITHELD FROM A PUBLIC RELEASE
    UNTIL THE LINUX VERSION IS RELEASED.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

> Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil.

If a lot of people assume this, then eventually behaviour happens according to the expectation. Within Netherlands I assume the government is usually there to make things better (though there are exceptions). What is considered better might be completely different, but still, it's assumed to be better.

I've since have a few friends who work for a municipality. It's quite refreshing to notice that they're way more open to try and do good for everyone. Unfortunately there's more populism (ignore facts, just follow assumptions).

It seems better to actively ensure that people should be improving things to ensure there's an environment where bad behaviour is frowned upon.

The whole concept of liberalism is based on the assumption that governments are extremely dangerous and potentially evil and in need of constant control by both the public and it's own institutions. Even if it appears that a specific government or institution is doing good work, it is extremely dangerous to accept that as anything other than a temporary and potentially deceiving state of affairs.

Constant distrust and suspicion of power is crucial to a free and prosperous society. Politicians, officials and even private executives should never receive praise from the public, if they are doing good work the public should just shrug and say to themselves "yeah, ok, you're not horrible right now". Governments are never good, at best they are not actively harmful.

> Governments are never good, at best they are not actively harmful.

Except of course, when they are doing good.

Government is essential and its hard - attempting to juggle the needs and rights of diverse and disparate people. I get tired of the mantra that the people involved in government are inherently evil, bad, out for themselves etc. Many people who get into politics do so out of a true desire to make the lives of their fellows better - whether you agree with their stances or not.

I'm not saying that it is inherently evil, I'm saying that you as a member of the public must assume that it at least has that potential at all times for it to function as intended.

And the grand-(N)-parent 'bkor already answered this by saying that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, the government has potential for doing enormous evils, which comes from its very nature - it's large and has monopoly on violence. But people having a cooperative, instead of antagonistic approach to government helps that potential to go unfulfilled.

That's a very cynical view of government and of society in general. You basically don't trust other people to do good just for good's sake. I'm going to assume that this view is informed by your own experiences, but your personal experience might not hold up everywhere. I'm originally from the Netherlands as well, and while the government does fuck up, life is still better with a government than without, so in the balance it would seem to me that government is a force for good.

>> Governments will always do evil. Not to everyone, all of the time - but they are by nature evil.

>If a lot of people assume this

I come from Norway - by many assumed to be among the most human and decent countries in the world.

When a refugee storm hit Norwegian borders a few years ago, the cabinet assigned Antichrist herself, Sylvi Listhaug, to deal with it. It would not surprise me if Trump's advisers had her misdeeds (and results) in mind when they designed their current policy.

That's Norway - the country who hands out the Nobel Peace Price.

Do yo know how Norway gets rid of it's aging population? They thirst them to death. No assisted death option like in the Netherlands. Just unimaginable pain and fear at the and of life.

In Norway today, a man is serving life in prison for murdering and raping a 8 year old girl. He is innocent. Everybody knows he is innocent. But the Justice system is incapable of admitting mistakes - so he remains in jail.

I don't want to make software for governments. Because, even those who hand out Peace Prices and pretend to be soo accepting and liberal - even those commit unimaginable evil every single day of the year.

It's quite a leap from: "Any government will do things that I consider evil" to "Governments [...] are by nature evil." Especially as context suggests you don't mean this to read "Governments are by nature capable of both evil and good." [1]

The former is almost trivially true, at least in the narrow reading supported by your examples, mostly a function of their size. The latter a vast sweeping philosophical generalization that is backed up by nothing.

All your examples show is that there are instances of them failing to live up to your ethical standards (which it seems I largely share). Would you rather have no laws than imperfect laws? No justice than imperfect justice?

[1] That would make it a non-sequitur that you would single out governments but are OK with individuals and corporations using your software.

I don't know anything about Sylvi Listhaug, assisted death in Norway or the man allegedly falsely accused. You might be right about all of it but it still comes across as a ridiculous combination of strawman arguments and conflating the entire public sector and all laws into suspicious "government". Basically it boils down to "because it's not perfect, it's evil".

Would you rather there was no government?

Governments are what happen when a group of people live in a community too large and complicated to be governed by an ad-hoc group of elders talking it out. Governments are what happen when humans want to trade in an organized fashion. Governments are what happen when people don't want to be in a constant state of conflict, inter and intra group. Governments are what happen if your community wants to live by the rule of principle and consensus (law), as opposed to rule of the mighty. In other words, government is inevitable.

Government is only inevitable, only if you believe in these sets of prerequisites for constructing a government. These all can be managed without government should the people want it. It's called anarchy, not the neo-modern destructive type, but the real ideology actually sets this out very well, that government is not needed. It is to everyone's own opinion whether or not you need government and what each of us want from government. But to outright state that we can't exist without it, I think is wrong.

>managed without government [...] It's called anarchy

If people agree to "manage" something, you'll end up with something that acts very much like a <scarequote>government</scarequote>.

The issue with talking about "anarchy" is that it's very easy to slip into semantic word games instead of looking at the underlying concept of how humans behave.

One reason "governments" or "managing" happens is that the real world has finite resources that's simultaneously desired by multiple people. E.g. there's a desirable piece of land. Since more than 1 person wants that land and since multiple can't live in the same spot, a conflict occurs. This eventually leads to a subset of people that make rules for others to follow. Whether you call that subset a "government" or "leaderless anarchy with unacknowledged rule-makers (wink)(wink)" is academic. (This is related to the joke, "we are all equal but some are more equal than others.")

If we depend on abolishing the idea of "property" to support the implementation of "anarchy", it still devolves to semantic word games because humans will invent equivalent euphemisms to "ownership" such as "99-year leases" or "temporary stewards of this land as communicated by a God", etc. Whatever people decide to call the control of that land, it's functionally equivalent to "property ownership".

This "resource limit" pattern repeats itself in the digital realm. Theoretically, there can be 7 billion people each with their own cryptocoin of which mad_tortoise_coin is one. However, these 7 billion individual blockchains are not useful. On the other hand, if people want to converge on a single blockchain cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin) with stable attributes, a governance model will have to emerge. There's no way around it. If we still insist that we can have "anarchy" in Bitcoin because people can fork it, you eventually get "governance_0002" emerging in bitcoin_fork0002. Nobody "owns" the entire Bitcoin blockchain but nevertheless, participants still want to own pieces of it via public/private key pairs.

The collection of behavior that trends into a <group> that's functionally equivalent to something called "government", and a <concept> that's functionally equivalent to "ownership" seems to be embedded in the human condition.

While I haven't read the actual scholarly anarchist stuff, I hung out with some bookish lefty radicals in my college years and early 20s. What I saw then was a lot of attempts at alternative and non-hierarchical forms of organization, all of which seemed to evolve into something that could fairly be called government, if these attempts got far enough before falling apart.

> These all can be managed without government should the people want it

You say this as if the predictions of a social theory are as reliable as those of Newtonian physics. I don't think they are. And because I know of no historical example of an industrialized society functioning sustainably without a government, I tend to doubt a theory that says it's possible. Because if it was, you would think somewhere, somehow, it would have been successful already.

Anarchy can only exist until someone does something bad enough that other people ban together to stop them. This tends to happen quite quickly under anarchy, thus forming governments (even if they are just local militia enforcing their will as despots).

Governments can only not exist when the population density is so low that people only interact when they want to and can cease interaction when they so desire. This is extremely low population density, and given the increased range technology gives us, there are very few places that have this low of a density, and even then it only lasts as long as the density doesn't increase due to some migration event.

Any entity with enough power, may use this power to do evil.

It can be a government or a corporation.

Al least, in our democracies, you can decide the government with your vote.

I don't think it really matters who you vote for. The people who seek power are often the people you really, really should not grant any power.

I think the problem is most western societies is really that there is no accountability for wrong doings. If a politician promotes a law that has huge, negative consequences, she will not be held responsible in any way for those consequences. As long as she succeed in deceiving the public - she will win elections and continue to abuse her power. The same goes for the "foot soldiers" in the bureaucracy, justice system, health care etc.

If a prosecutor holds back evidence and lies to the court, to get someone convicted - it has no consequences for him even if that is later proven, and even if the sentence is nullified and the person released. The victim may suffer from post traumatic stress for the rest of his life. The prosecutor goes on with his misconduct. The same goes for judges. I caught a judge in Norway deliberately breaking EU law (denying a defendant to examine witnesses) - and he even admitted that to me after the trial - it was "convenient" for him to run his court that way. It was convenient for him to just ignore one of the core principles of the justice system - the right to a fair trial. He did this regularly, and as far as I know, he's still working as a judge. (I was shocked, and contacted the agency responsible for running the courts in Norway - who confirmed to me that he was indeed breaking the law - and then did nothing).

I am an optimist. I think governments can be fixed. But I don't think the politicians will have accountability for themselves, and their servants, as a high priority any time soon. In the mean time, I don't want their bad apples to use my free work!

> Al least, in our democracies, you can decide the government with your vote.

and depending on hwere you are, you get bonus points added!

The "all government is evil" idea sounds ridiculous to me. Governments can be evil. Perhaps by their nature they will almost always do some evil. But evil in general, nah.

> Al least, in our democracies, you can decide the government with your vote.

Though that ability is diluted as we make every little thing a national issue.

> Governments will always do evil.

> they are by nature evil.

These statements are not equivalent. It does not necessarily follow that doing a non-zero amount of evil means an institution, or type of institution, is by nature evil.

You could easily say the same thing about individuals or any grouping of people; individuals "always do evil", therefore all individuals are by their nature evil? It's true only in a trivial sense, in that humans and human-created groupings are imperfect and will do a mix of good and bad.

Curious how that is enforced as a copyright clause. I grasp how GPL and other copyleft licenses work when copies are distributed but can't see how a usage restriction can be applied unless the party is distributing the software.

It is very difficult to enforce any clause in any user agreement (or even in law) - as bad people will just ignore them.

My clause was a statement: Don't use my software - I did not make it for you.

The Microsoft employees wish to put restrictions in commercial contracts is interesting - and also scary. There are so many interest groups, and so many agendas, and so many views on whats right and whats wrong - that things could get really messed up.

In an interesting twist, your whole idea of using a license and copyright hinges on a government, the rule of law and the enforcement of said rule of law by a government. Which is in your eyes inherently evil. The software that the license applies to is distributed via the internet, a technology funded in large parts by the government, something inherently evil.

I agree that governments by their very nature will do evil things, but governments are not a single entity with a single mind controlling them, but rather a sprawling ecosystem of individual parts where some parts diverge from the party line, just to be checked and put back into place by other parts. Sometimes those checks fail and the whole thing goes downhill fast. In the general case, however, governments as a concept have enabled a society that is better off and capable of building infrastructure and things that an each man for his own kind of organization would never have been capable of.

Corporations are no less evil than governments. If anything, they may be more evil, as they are motivated solely by profit and have no particular reason to care about the population at large.

Why single out governments?

> Corporations are no less evil than governments. If anything, they may be more evil, as they are motivated solely by profit and have no particular reason to care about the population at large.

Corporations are accountable. They are accountable as entities, and as individuals (owners, managers, employees). If they do fatal decisions, the corporation may go bankrupt. If people act immoral, they may get fired. If they cheat, they may be caught and go to jail.

Corporations can also choose to act ethically - and, according to a recent Freakonomics podcast, actually benefit from that by attracting better employees :)

Meanwhile in the real world, many corporations get away with doing all these things, abusing labour, regulatory capture and the people running them get rich as Croesus doing it.

Yes. And often with support from the Government.

In USA, corruption is regulated by law... Politics is all about getting financial support and basically selling laws and policies to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile in the real world, many governments get away with doing all these things, and much worse, and more frequently, and they have armies and police.

> Corporations are accountable.

To shareholders, who are motivated by profit. Accountability is worse than useless if it holds you to account for the wrong things.

Governments are accountable to their populations, at least in democracies.

Corporations absolutely rely on the public at large. More so than governments. You can choose to stop doing business with a corporation, and can stop giving them money. Can’t say the same about government. Yet you claim governments care more than corporations about “the population at large”?

Perhaps GP is an anarchist and doesn't want governments or corporations.

No, I think both governments and corporations can be a good thing - if they behave ethically and the people all the way from the top to the ones carrying out policies - are accountable for their actions.

Example: If a border-patrol officer chose to follow orders and take an infant from her mother - because it's policy, he should be liable to criminal prosecution for breaking domestic and international law. Like any soldier in the field is. If a soldier choose to follow an illegal order and commit crimes against humanity, he risk prosecution. Police officers, migration officers, judges, prosecutors - they don't. And because of that, they do a lot of harm. Again, not all of the time, and not to everyone. But too often, and too much.

> I think both governments and corporations can be a good thing

> Governments will always do evil.

> they are by nature evil.

Please either make up your mind or use less misleading language in the future. You made a strong, controversial assertion, which then turned out to be a pretty mundane belief upon challenge.

Well, I think the wrong people will search power. Always. That means that governments, by nature, will be evil. They will always to some degree do evil.

However, if the people abusing their powers (by evil intent, neglect or pure stupidity) are held accountable, and removed, may be the governments can become something I can live with, even mostly good.

Today, I think the balance is very much that the governments are on the dark side. Some more than others (yes China - I'm looking at you), but noone that I know well inspires any good feelings. I would not work for any of them. Even paying taxes feels deeply immoral.

> Well, I think the wrong people will search power. Always. That means that governments, by nature, will be evil. They will always to some degree do evil.

Sure, but this is trivially true. Individuals will always to some degree do evil. Corporations will always to some degree do evil. Religions will always to some degree do evil. There are no possible groupings of humans that will not to some degree do evil.

> Today, I think the balance is very much that the governments are on the dark side.

An interesting observation, considering the proportion of (functional) democracies is higher than it has ever been. At what point in history were governments not on the "dark side"?

Unless there is crony-capitalism going on companies have to find voluntary buyers of their goods and services to generate revenue. Governments use force to generate revenue. It's that coercive behavior that elevates governments to the potential for more evil than a corporation.

Curious, why doesn’t your license also exclude regular companies? Many of them act as if they are above the law and destroy the environment while ignoring human rights. Are you ok with them using your software?

Actually, I prefer that only red-haired grandmothers with a life-long track-record of being nice, who enjoys Star Wars and Harry Potter, and have at least two pet dogs, to use my software.

However, making such narrow closes would be impractical and stupid. When I faced this dilemma, I was suffering severely from post traumatic stress - caused by abuse from the Norwegian government. The thought of giving my work to them - to any government - was literally painful. Therefore, I put in a clause to block out the bigger evil. Not for anyone who has ever beaten a puppy or pissed on a grave, or who happens to have the Wrong Religion or sexual orientation.

When it comes to immoral corporations - I vote with my money. And of course - I don't work there.

Governments are not evil by their nature. They are amoral, meaning they lack a moral sense, not immoral, meaning they are evil.

The same is true of companies and any other large group of people.

Amoral entities do things that moral entities consider evil, but it's because they have no moral sense, not because they are actively immoral.

Then we don't punish the supposedly moral beings in charge.

It's a great way to allow the evil to rule society.

There is a typo in the license text at the first instance of "source code", it is written "sorce".

Why do you trust people in business more than people in government?

Why not?

I was hoping for more than just an arbitrary reason, but how much can one really expect from a throwaway account?

Out of curiosity, wouldn't the gov just ignore the license if they really wanted to use it? Is anyone really going to stop them or even say something?

The government isn't an indivisible entity. It's made of lots and lots of people, bundled in very many departments. There's plenty of competition at both individual and department levels. Sure, at the very top, the President himself could just says "fuck it, we're using the software anyway". But most of the time, if someone in the government decided to ignore a license, they'd be risking their job (or possibly freedom).

Awesome. I've had the same idea but worried it wasn't feasible. Thank you for showing me there's precedent.

> SOFTWARE OR SORCE CODE

you have a typo in your copyright.

Couldn't they just reweite the code after leatving your solution?

> “Our current engagement with ICE is focused on moving legacy infrastructure such as mail, calendar, messaging and document management to the cloud using Azure.”

I don’t understand why this makes it any better. I’m sure there’s a lot of “messaging and document management” needed to run those detainment centers. And besides, what’s going to happen in the future when they do ask to use Cognitive Services in their mission? “Sorry, you only get O365?”

Child concentration camps run a lot smoother on Office 365, now on Azure!

EDIT: Anyone that collaborates with ICE from this point forward is complicit. In a just world, collaborators, ICE officers, and high officials would be tried in the International Criminal Court. Following orders or making money was not an acceptable defensible at Nuremberg, nor will it be in the coming future when the US loses enough international standing.

Why on earth would you want to prosecute the supermarket where ICE buys loo roll? The builders merchant who sold them fence posts?

I mean, the hyperbole is real here - because there's zero chance the international courts prosecute any US citizen - but if they did it's not going to be the people who sold them spreadsheet software.

Perhaps for the same reason the US extended its trade embargo with Cuba to include foreign companies trading with Cuba - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act

Or for the reasons that people have divested from companies doing business with South Africa under apartheid, or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement regarding Israel, or any of a number of other examples.

> Why on earth would you want to prosecute the supermarket where ICE buys loo roll? The builders merchant who sold them fence posts?

In mafiya/organized crime, (serial) murder cases it's common to prosecute knowing supporters as "aiding in criminal activities". The supermarket cashier selling loo rolls to the ICE may not be a "knowing supporter", but the fence post seller certainly is.

As for the people involved: there won't be justice, not as long as the US has nukes and refuses any international control.

This is an utterly ridiculous statement. ICE buys their envelopes from Office Depot (example), they buy cell phones from ATT (example) - is Office Depot supposed to physically stop ICE agents from entering their stores and paying for office supplies? Is ATT supposed to refund ICE their money and immediately cancel all their phone service.

The rhetoric is really getting ahead of the reality here...

Smells like IBM supplying tabulating machines to the Nazi government...

> Child concentration camps run a lot smoother on Office 365, now on Azure!

They should add crying children as a ring-tone in Skype!

This sounds like the standard Microsoft marketoids. When asked about privacy and telemetry or anything critical the answer is always for a question that wasn’t asked followed by some template brand reinforcement followed by a metric ton of blog posts about improving insignificant things that aren’t related.

No one at MSFT will answer a question straight ever.

As I get older, it's becoming clear how intertwined our morality is with our politics. And how that bleeds into business, sports, religion, etc.

It's nice to think of aspects of life that should be free from politics, but in reality that seems hard to achieve.

The idea that one can live outside of politics comes either from naiveté or from tacit support for the existing status quo. The later option is the most common, people just figure that they don't want to put the effort needed to change the system and at the same time want to deny the morality of such decision.

HN is very guilty as of this. The insistence that HN should never discuss politics is morality reprehensible.

The people in this community creates many tools and products that could help or hurt a lot of people. As such, we should readily engage in political discussion so that we fully understand the impact we have.

People in general are far too immature to discuss politics. They are happy to spew opinions an complain about the ignorance of 'the other side' but they don't actually want to listen to other perspectives.

Look at this thread for examples. Comparing ICE agents to Nuremberg, etc.

This platform (due to the vote-based sorting) and this community are not capable of discussing politics in any meaningful sense. It's just popular opinions drowning out unpopular ones. That's why discussing politics is and should be discouraged.

> People in general are far too immature to discuss politics.

But not you, right?

Did you see hueving discussing politics?

I was just wondering if he included himself in the "people" group.

I see this somewhat differently. We discuss politics all the time. We talk about our rights to expression, we talk about the role of legislation in the tech sector (and outside), we discuss domestic and foreign policy of every sort. Five of the top ten articles at the moment are about politics:

- China-based campaign breached satellite, defense companies

- Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

- Lead: America's Real Criminal Element (2013)

- AT&T, Time Warner, and the Need for Neutrality

- GitHub and Medium take down database of ICE employee LinkedIn accounts

We've never not discussed it. But by avoiding discussing party policy directly (which is really what the rule seems to be), we remove many identity issues which keep people from seeing policies objectively.

HN is far from perfect, but that rule makes it a hell of a lot more pleasant and productive than most places for discussing politics.

The reason HN tries to avoid discussing politics is because it's not suited for productive political discussions, so everything would be drowned in noise.

I honestly don't know of any place on the Internt suited for a productive political discussion. I'd join such a space in a heartbeat. Given how politics is both complicated and universally triggers all the bugs in human minds, such a place would have to both structurally and culturally support discovery, fact-checking and moderation that ensures only good-intended, honest people participate.

(Regardless, borderline politics happens here all the time - it's because whenever tech impacts something political, people will bring that up and discuss it. So your complaint here is invalid anyway.)

Actually, what properties would such a place have? I keep thinking that a defining problem of the present day is the absence of such a platform.

I'm even willing to dig in and help put something together. I wonder if an ask HN around:

- How people would like to interact with such a system.

- What it would need to have/do to be useful.

I mean is there even a good format for such a thing? Debates for example are explicitly two sided, but exploring a problem rarely is. You need to track what's been tried, why it might have failed, see if it's worth trying again, allow people to suggest amendments which might help.

There's so much there.

A bunch of ideas:

1) It would need to have good mechanisms for structuring knowledge and discovery (and deduplication) of previous points. Instead of time-based approach, where people read and respond to streams of comments, it should be easy to review past discussions and maybe add updates based on new information or situations that develop.

Structuring and discovery is hard. I spent some time on Kialo[0], which is a "debate platform" that encourages tree-structured arguments. For any stated problem, people post arguments for and against, and each of those arguments can be recursively subdivided into for and against points, ad infinitum. It's a cute concept, but my impression was that the tree structure isn't good enough fit for the problem - frequently, you'd find the same points repeated at many different levels. A point "X" can be found simultaneously as a top-level "against" argument, and as a support argument three levels deep inside a top-level "for" argument, etc. The experience reinforced my feelings that problem spaces tend to form cyclic graphs.

2) It would need to have some mechanisms to encourage proper discourse standards. Moderation is one of them, but also some structural things more focused than just free-form comment textbox.

3) Ultimately, the goal of a platform should be to flesh out the problem space. The result should be an explorable artifact. This would help keep people on the same page, as well as get new participants up to speed (and inform non-participants who just want a honest overview of a problem they're interested in).

I have no clue how such system should be built, but I'd love to see and play with any experiments in this space.

[0] - https://www.kialo.com/tour/

Ok that's interesting, you've clearly done a lot in this space already, are you still working in this space and would you be up for a quick discussion about it?

I was actually thinking about it from a different direction.

Allow people to enter free text and then aggressively parse it out into a structure. Make the structure visible and then work with the structure. But allow the free text to stand as metadata.

Allow the person writing to highlight/markup blocks in the main text that support their argument.

The structure I was thinking of as a starting point was a list of clauses. You could then surface people stating a clause, saying that it's sometimes true or false, disagreeing with it, and detect it across the nodes in the graph making discovery a bit easier.

Or even taking a clause and using it as a starting point for a new discussion.

The other thing I think that's necessary is what kind of environment you foster. Something like changemyview[0][1] with the delta system [2] comes to mind. Simply speaking a person awards delta's when they've had their mind changed in any meaningful way by a person, and they're required to give a short explanation or statement about why they awarded it.

- [0] https://changemyview.net/

- [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/

- [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem

> Ok that's interesting, you've clearly done a lot in this space already, are you still working in this space and would you be up for a quick discussion about it?

Sure! Feel free to mail me (address in the profile).

I wouldn't say I have done a lot in this space - I am just interested in it, and try to pay attention to any new ways to structure discussions and thoughts that helps people reach agreement.

Your concept is very interesting, and indeed a completely different direction than what I was thinking. You seem to want to start from making free-text comments more machine-understandable, so that they can be further analyzed and grouped with similar points from other people? This seems it could mesh with what I wrote in the previous comment - I want to get a graph of ideas, and you just suggested an approach to generating that graph.

Definitely. I'll fire you an email =)... I basically want to get an understanding of what pitfalls and issues that you had exposure to.

Fundamentally however the reason I keep thinking about that graph is that I keep wanting it. I wander into a complex nested discussion online which seems interesting and just want to see it visualised. Select statements and see who's making them. Focus on a part of the discussion one step at a time. Find commonalities and differences marked up.

EDIT: I sent that email I mentioned, not sure if you've seen it =)...

In addition to the CMV reddit, this is also a good one: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/

Heavy moderation is the key here.

There are many forums for discussing and debating politics. HN can decide not to be one of them; nothing reprehensible about it.

I read this as "HN can decide that technology and morality don't ever come into conflict" and see it as both ridiculous and false.

What else are all the posts about Facebook/Uber/Net Neutrality/Security about? These are primarily moral issues that relate to tech, not tech itself. Most commenters here regularly engage in these conversations, as they should. But not allowing for other conversations to veer into the discussion of politics and morality isn't realistic. We need to be having those conversations more and more as tech becomes a part of the world.

The original post in this thread is 100% correct. You can't just isolate tech.

We are discussing politics, in every single post here. When people say we shouldn't, they're saying they want things to stay the same.

>we should readily engage in political discussion

You must mean political lecturing, because 'discussion' implies more than one side, which means hearing from more than one side, which means not censoring or aggressively punishing voices apart from one side, which means "giving a platform to hate". Where 'hate' is one them magical words that is taken literally and figuratively at the same time, whichever is tactically convenient.

Discussion involves multiple views not multiple sides.

Not every discussion needs to be adversarial or black and white. Discussions can be constructive with all members on the same side talking about ideas .

Most development discussions that happen daily are just that, constructive with people throwing ideas around.

For example if we are discussing the best design pattern in a c++ API , and someone comes in and says "let's rewrite in basic" , when they're shut down, that is not shutting down a discussion, because that is not a constructive view point.

Similarly in politics, not everyone's opinion or view is valid or adds to the discussion. Being dismissed with reason is not the same as being disregarded and barred from discussion. It's simply saying, come back with something that adds to it rather than subtracts.

If you constantly find yourself left out of a discussion maybe consider your approach or your view points. Not every view needs to be considered by others, and either the way it's presented or the view itself may not be worth considering.

As it stands, my opinion is that separating children from their families seeking asylum is morally reprehensible. I'm willing to discuss immigration reform, but I think anyone arguing for the detainment of children is not adding anything of value to the discussion or humanity and is worthy of being disregarded with reason. Just like I would for someone who told me to rewrite a c++ codebase in basic.

> but I think anyone arguing for the detainment of children is not adding anything of value to the discussion or humanity and is worthy of being disregarded with reason.

I think it is a sensible policy.

Can you articulate why you think it is any worse than child services putting a kid into foster care when the parents go to jail for any other crime?

Illegally immigrating to the US is a serious crime but you can't jail the kids for the crimes of the parents.

The best option is to detain the kids until a relative can get them.

We have been detaining kids trying to illegally cross the border for over a decade now - if you have a better solution then voice it.

>Illegally immigrating to the US is a serious crime

In the first instance it is a misdemeanor offence.

Well, in principle it's worse because normally child services avoid doing that if at all possible; they try and place the kid with relatives or other people who've cared for them in the past, whereas these kids are pretty much all institutionalised in big warehouses.

I don't think that's actually what people object to though. Remember the big (bogus) claim on social media that ICE had lost 1475 children who'd been seized from their parents? That was about unaccompanied kids who'd been united with family members. The entire thrust of that complaint is that it was some kind of Nazi-esque atrocity that ICE weren't totally controlling and tracking those kids.

Fundamentally, I think the objection is to two things: Trump being president, and the border being controlled. The only politically acceptable position right now is for every person to cross the Mexican border with a kid to be let through, and even that might not be enough because Trump.

> Can you articulate why you think it is any worse than child services putting a kid into foster care when the parents go to jail for any other crime?

I'd hope normal foster care in the US looks slightly better, and is better communicated (assuming the reports about ICE not telling parents what they are doing with their children are accurate). E.g. normally I'd expect incarcerated parents to still know about the whereabouts of their children, being allowed to communicate with them, ... unless there's strong reasons to forbid this.

While I think it's at least an interesting question if it is strictly necessary to separate families, I'd guess that if the process appeared less horrific there'd be a lot less of an outcry.

From what I've read, it also appears that the vast majority cases are first-time entries, which only is a misdemeanor in the US? While it makes some sense to "keep" people somewhere in this case (can't just let them go with a fine like you'd do for a traffic offense), it seems less than clear to me that this has to be to the same "standards" as people being jailed for serious crimes, and regular access to the children can't be possible. (And to be clear, I'd generally argue for such policies, not just in the case of immigrants)

> it seems less than clear to me that this has to be to the same "standards" as people being jailed for serious crimes

It seems clear to me they should be - it's a clear deterrent against a serious problem.

> I'd guess that if the process appeared less horrific

I agree - the optics don't look good. But part of me thinks they shouldn't look good and this will quickly lead to fewer people trying to illegally enter the country.

When you are against something, then obviously you hate it, therefore any argument you present is a hate speech, thus should not be allowed /s

There's been a sea change in America the past 25 years or so that made politics more important: the importance of nonwhite and nonchristian opinions and the political power to give them teeth.

America is now a majority-minority country in many cities. If this had happened 25 years ago, it wouldn't have made the news, and nobody would really care about who Microsoft worked with unless it affected white christians, who were viewed as the stand-in for a typical "American."

Today, black and hispanic and queer opinions do matter. When their concerns are taken seriously for the first time, those unaffected by it like to mope about how "everything is now political". Everything is now political because you're not allowed to sweep shit under the rug anymore and pretend it doesn't impact "real" Americans.

Most people do not want to see atrocities, and when they are brought to their attention they provoke a visceral reaction that demands justice. This is partly why white populism is now a bigger thing; we've crossed a sort of rubicon where you can't ignore issues anymore: they're real, and you either come out against them or you double-down on being evil. There's no more indifference in a world where everyone now counts and has the political power to make it so.

turns out diversity isn't really a strength

This situation in particular is more complicated than the media portrays. Separating children from parents is obviously bad, and needs to stop. Zero tolerance for illegal crossings, on the other hand, is probably actually good. The prior policy of letting anyone with children go & handing them a court date heavily incentivized human trafficking of children, because a child was a golden ticket into the USA (and indeed, many children were trafficked as a result). To eliminate that incentive, deportation after an illegal crossing needs to be enforced, even when a child is in tow. I think that the best answer is detention as a family during the process of prosecution and deportation, but I understand that there are some legal hurdles to that. They need to work them out, and fast.

From my experience talking to different people in US, most of them on both sides of the immigration debate have zero clue what their immigration laws are even like. One theme that's particularly common is hearing "they should just get into the line and wait for their turn". They genuinely don't understand that there is no line for the majority of those people - they don't have any legal avenues for immigration at all, except for winning the diversity visa lottery (the chances for which for any individual person are so slim, no-one in a sane mind would plan around that as a strategy).

But that isn’t true. Asylum applications can be submitted to a US consulate. There is a process. Syrian refugees didn’t just show up in Laredo. Asylum can also be requested at a legal port of entry. These unlawful entry arrests are from aliens entering the country while avoiding ports of entry.

Quoiting from the first sentence on the main page about asylum on usembassy.gov, which is the first hit I got on Google:

"The United States does not grant asylum in its diplomatic premises abroad. Under U.S. law, the United States considers asylum only for aliens who are physically present in the United States."

So I guess it's understandable that some people might believe they have to be physically present in the United States to be apply for asylum

>Asylum applications can be submitted to a US consulate.

False.

"To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status."

"A defensive application for asylum occurs when you request asylum as a defense against removal from the U.S. For asylum processing to be defensive, you must be in removal proceedings in immigration court with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)."

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/ob...

Just to clarify, a refugee as someone who is outside of his or her homeland, and has been persecuted in his or her homeland or has a well-founded fear of persecution there on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Political asylum is for someone already in the United States, and protects an individual from removal to a country of feared persecution.

In either case the problem is people entering the country illegally versus legally and how to handle them in a way that doesn't create a queue of 600,000+ asylum seekers (which is what we have now). Think about that number given that I'm sure many of you know what limits we put on the number of legal immigrants each year.

For those who may argue for open borders I recommend studying the field of cultural pluralism. We're talking about a risk versus reward scenario where the risk is the existing culture being required to accommodate (replaced by) the incoming culture rather than the incoming culture assimilating to the existing culture and both changing at a manageable/stable rate. This is a function of two things most notably, the desire to assimilate to the culture and fit in, and the rate at which newcomers are allowed. The studies have shown it takes on average six years for a person who wants to assimilate to the culture to do so completely (this is from the field of cultural pluralism studies). From other studies about tipping points I can say that at most 25% can be allowed because that's all that's needed for a major shift and displacement of an existing culture, and that would be the number of people that are a part of a culture versus total immigrants (so unassimilated must remain below 25% at any given time).

Make of that you will, but as far as I can tell those are the major variables and numbers that need to be carefully considered and measured when it comes to the diversity, qualifications, and numbers of those we choose to allow emigrate legally and the criteria for the limitations we and other nations implement and control through the law. The reality is without significantly affecting an existing culture, meaning changing it at a rate faster than the resident population can accommodate reasonably without causing widespread problems/disruption for them or those coming here.

> Zero tolerance for illegal crossings, on the other hand, is probably actually good.

That's what I used to strongly believe then this weekend I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast (yeah, I know, I know) and he made me think about it a bit differently.

Back when the border was super porous, immigration was more circular and cyclical. People would come into the US, work for a season, then go home. When the border became difficult and expensive to cross, people would cross the border and then stay.

There's an argument that can be made that a zero tolerance policy has created the current situation.

The basic problem with that line of thinking is that most don't think immigration is such a large problem that we must have a zero-tolerance policy that does such harm. Immigration is a highly politicized issue that in reality has limited effects. Yes, it's more nuanced than "this is evil", but it's pretty inhumane and overly nationalistic / American-centered if you ask me.

> is that most don't think immigration is such a large problem that we must have a zero-tolerance policy that does such harm.

According to who?

I don't think that's true at all. I think immigration is the most important policy to get right.

What are the day to day effects you face every day due to current vs ideal immigration policy? What about most people? Do you really think that harm is more than the huge amounts of suffering this policy is causing?

Where is your judgment for importance coming from? What's your reasoning for making it such a huge priority? In a country with over 300M people, how is this relatively small amount of people having this vast of an effect? What is it affecting?

In terms of public opinion, consider this: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...

I wish there was a ranked system to see more than the single importance, but the point being that very few see it as a high priority issue.

I don't have specific data for this claim, but I think it's also safe to say the issue is a polarizing one: the group who sees it as the #1 issue thinks its a huge problem while many others see it as almost nothing. The disconnect there is exactly why I led with those questions above.

> What are the day to day effects you face every day due to current vs ideal immigration policy? What about most people? Do you really think that harm is more than the huge amounts of suffering this policy is causing?

I'd be interested in your answers to your own question. What are the day to day effects you face every day versus a much more liberal or a much more stringent immigration policy?

I don't want a much more liberal policy for the record. I'm frankly not too worried about the policy in terms of numbers/requirements so long as it's somewhere in the middle. What I have a huge problem with, as many I think do, is the method of enforcement. I'm not saying I have the solution either. I'm just saying this sure as hell isn't it.

> What are the day to day effects you face every day due to current vs ideal immigration policy?

It's the key reason one of the richest states has some of the worst public schooling in the country.

It impacts hundreds of thousands of school kids and ensures they end up with a worse education.

I wish the techies who didn't care about the negative impacts had to send their kids to these schools.

Do you have the stuff to show it's actually hundreds of thousands? How much of a difference is the education quality?

Public schools are mostly funded by local taxes, yes? How exactly does this come into play?

All of this is still to say that you think your kid going to a slightly worse school is worth messing up all these lives so horrifically?

I'm not saying let's take every single person that goes to the US or that we shouldn't enforce immigration laws. I'm just saying let's not make a Holocaust in its name, and these policies are literally starting to mirror those types of events. I don't see how any equation of such direct pain to such a large number of people can possibly be justified by small effects on masses. That's a central utilitarian flaw in thinking this was a good idea. That and not caring about the lives of those being harmed. There's a difference between allowing one to immigrate and treating them as human.

> I'm just saying let's not make a Holocaust in its name, and these policies are literally starting to mirror those types of events.

I think you have been mislead by the media - at worst it is applying the existing long standing detainment practice to another maybe 20% of cases.

> Do you have the stuff to show it's actually hundreds of thousands?

More than 20% of public school students in California are classified as English learners - aka don't speak English.

https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/cefelfacts.asp

These people are not evenly distributed among schools/classes so in some schools half your class might not speak English.

What impact do you think that has on education levels?

The idea that this is a minor issue and results in only a slightly worse education is ludicrous.

And education is not a minor issue - when my kids were younger probably 30% of my income went towards my kids education.

That's 30-40% fewer hours I could have worked if the public system was any good.

So a few notes:

1. A single state is not representative of the entire country. Let's keep in mind this is probably the state hardest impacted along with Texas.

2. Of those English learners, what percentage are illegal immigrants realistically? What about citizens who speak Spanish primarily? In California, this is not uncommon.

3. How would you spend 30% of your income on education at the K-6 level (where 3/4ths of these students are)? That seems virtually impossible no matter the income bracket and way you count taxes. If you're paying for private school, you don't have this problem.

4. If this is indeed such a large group at many schools, then those programs listed on the item you linked should be effective in serving both large populations, yes? If they aren't is that really the fault of immigration or simply a failing of public schools, which is not inherently due to immigration.

5. All of this to say that your kid getting slightly less time in K-6 education (after that, the population of English learners is about 6% of the population, which doesn't even take into account English learners who are not illegal immigrants, so likely even as low as 3% or less) is worth this hardline immigration policy? In a class of 40 students, that's two maximum from 6 grade on. I don't see how you can justify that.

6. Again, this is the state hardest impacted. Because California public schools have 3% or lower English learners that are illegal immigrants in their public high schools and other states likely have far less, we separate families?

> 1. A single state is not representative of the entire country

Yes that's why I said hundreds of thousands of kids are being negatively impacted and not millions of kids.

> All of this to say that your kid getting slightly less time in K-6 education

You mean an incredibly sub-par education for kids key formative years!

Why do you seek to downplay the issue? Why not seek to solve the issue - perhaps in other ways?

> I don't see how you can justify that.

It's an easy justification to make - you just don't care because you aren't personally impacted.

A couple of thousand kids temporarily separated from parents who are knowingly breaking the law in exchange for ensuring hundreds of thousands of kids get a proper education is an easy decision to make.

And that's only looking at a single issue!

So no comment on that 30% of income spent for public schools?

> You mean an incredibly sub-par education for kids key formative years!

This just sounds like scapegoating. I think the subpar education of public schools is not caused by immigration. Public schooling needs massive changes, immigration or not.

> It's an easy justification to make - you just don't care because you aren't personally impacted.

No, I'm caring about the kids of illegal immigrants as well as kids in the US. I don't value people differently by nationality or the status of their parents. And I value severity over quantity generally when it comes to moral issues.

> Why not seek to solve the issue - perhaps in other ways?

Again, I'm all for solving it, but I don't see how this was justified at all. Mind you, we don't even have any tangible numbers on the effects of this policy.

> I think the subpar education of public schools is not caused by immigration.

How can you confidently say that?

All the evidence points to it being a key problem.

> And I value severity over quantity generally when it comes to moral issues.

How do you judge severity?

You seem to be using your feelings as the barometer. Reality is not so simple.

We know that a poor education significantly increases the likelihood you will get involved in crime, go to prison, live in poverty, etc.

So what do you think will happen when you screw up the education of hundreds of thousands of kids?

> How can you confidently say that?

All of the studies on poor/insufficient teacher pay, the funneling of money away from public K-12 schools, the personal experiences of many around me, some from California public schools, broken incentives from pushes for standardized testing from administrations the past two decades. The list goes on. And now you're going to say that immigration is anything significant compared to all of that?

> All the evidence points to it being a key problem.

All the evidence I have been asking for and you have not given?

> You seem to be using your feelings as the barometer. Reality is not so simple.

I'm sorry but having empathy for others is not judging severity on feelings.

> We know that a poor education significantly increases the likelihood you will get involved in crime, go to prison, live in poverty, etc.

Yes, having non-native English speakers in your school will cause your life to be ruined. Of course. Again, we're going to have to disagree on the effects here. This isn't going anywhere. The retreat to "you're bringing feelings into this" says a lot.

> The list goes on

Every item you listed applies to states doing a lot better on the education front than California.

> All the evidence I have been asking for and you have not given?

What evidence will convince you that a high proportion of non-English speakers likely has a serious influence on educational outcomes for a school?

Would a strong negative correlation between number of non-English speakers at a school and school performance convince you?

And then once you have been convinced what will convince you that the most just and moral approach is strict border security?

> Would a strong negative correlation between number of non-English speakers at a school and school performance convince you?

Somewhat, once also adjusted for funding per student, pay of teachers, all those other factors.

> And then once you have been convinced what will convince you that the most just and moral approach is strict border security?

There's a difference between strict and inhumane border security. You act as if we have to pick one. I don't think you'd ever convince me on that front because I can picture so many better options to this policy. There is no obligation or moral requirement that we cause this harm due to lack of any other options.

One of the issues --which I think has been recently addressed, is that not only political prisoners and people persecuted by a bad government could seek asylum, but other things would qualify --even things which affect Americans, would be grounds for asylum. Obviously many are economic migrants (the congress need to work on seasonal work visas), but that's not grounds for asylum. You even hear of how they get coached for the interview. What keywords to blurt out which trigger a greater consideration.

People answering to you that "everything is politics" or that "separating tech and politics is naïve" are - perhaps unwittingly - doing a motte-and-bailey argument. The motte here is "whenever 3+ people meet, it's already politics" and "if it impacts people, it's politics". The bailey is political parties, ideologies, rallies, buzzwords, presidents. There are two definitions of "politics" at play that are being mixed, where they absolutely shouldn't.

“Ideology” is sufficiently broad a concept that it infects literally everything.

Ah. I see this rhetorical slight of hand all the time. Didn’t know there was a name for it!

Nothing can be free from politics, or ever is, no matter how much you wish it was or imagine it is.

The relation between politics and tech is the main reason I upvoted this post. I am now more than ever recognize both can either enable or disable each other function smoothly. That is, improving everyone lives.

Edit: down voting this message won't discourage me to say it

Is it only becoming more clear or are they actually becoming more intertwined too?

I think both as tech becomes more ubiquitous, but I think the clarity is coming from a lag in perception because of the exact sentiment of "keep politics out of tech". I think a lot of programmers, particularly ones from a generation older than the average tech worker today, got into the field for partially the reason of that separation. It's honestly a great way to live a fulfilling life without having to address the bigger problems in the world personally. That type of ignorance is no longer possible in tech for the most part, but the desire for it still is there for some, in all generations.

> It's honestly a great way to live a fulfilling life without having to address the bigger problems in the world personally.

I thought it's a great way to actually address the bigger problems in the world personally. Because most political involvement is precisely the opposite of effective helping.

Politics is arguing that climate change is a communist/leftist/whatever invention. Tech is launching a satellite letting us quantify the actual impact. Politics is talking that education is important (except it must be the right education). Tech is giving people access to it (all of it) for free. Politics is driven by conflicting ideologies, and mostly detached from reality. Tech culture used to stick to the real world. Dilution of that is what people complain when they lament tech mixing with politics.

(Yes, I'm probably older than average tech worker.)

What politics in the US government currently is or what it is in a typical discussion between two people on the street does not define politics. I'm also not talking political science. I'm also talking morality, not just politics. Your grievances seem to be about the current political climate rather than politics generally. I'm with you on the political climate currently for sure. Given HN's opinion of itself, I'd hope they'd at least strive for better in political discussions though.

The classic example is the building of the atom bomb. Sure some people may build a satellite, but far more will program things to show ads. The choice alone to work on the satellite and not the ads is both a moral and political decision. If you don't make the distinction, you're ignoring the underlying issue. And it's of course not as black and white as "make a satellite to get data for science" and "make ads".

You're right that tech can power change in a positive way, but it's much more about the choices we make in regards to what tech we work on. That's exactly my point. All tech is a tool that must be used with care.

We seem to be in agreement after all. I wish there were two simple, distinct words - one for what you meant by "politics", and one for what I meant.

My gripe isn't with US political climate though - it's the same thing everywhere, at every level. The same issues apply to New York and San Francisco, and to my hometown of Kraków. They apply to my country of birth, Poland, and they apply to every other country in Europe, and to EU. My problem is with the facet of politics that involves ingroup-outgroup mentality, appeals to emotion, following ideologies, and doing literally everything else except solving problems at hand. This is what I wanted to never see tech mixed up in.

You're very right that doing tech inherently involves a lot of moral choices about what to work on, how to work on it, and how to use the result.

Here's the thing: that "how to use the result" part means that you have to get involved in politics as known by common definition and all its mess, inefficiency, terrible campaigning, and more. It's a game of slowly moving things by inches (not to say that radical thinkers and politicians don't have their effects, but rather they help pull towards a side).

You clearly care about the morality and would want to have political action based off it (in so that it was effective, etc). So given that, why is time spent on changing political mechanisms and enacting change using new technology any less important than the tech itself? In fact, why isn't it more important than the tech? I'm not trying to make the case for one side here, but more tease out that no matter the sad state of politics everywhere right now, it's still crucial to taking the tools to have any effect.

I can't say I know the specific path to change, but I think it's important we value the problem and not dismiss politics as a whole. I personally am interested and have stuff on my reading list for the role of technocratic government setups over democratic decisions for certain fields/areas of government like infrastructure. If you work and discuss ways to fix a political system you do a lot more than trying to stay out - who are you then leaving all those decisions to?

Going back to the original thread, you said this:

> I thought it's a great way to actually address the bigger problems in the world personally

If you ignore the political side, it doesn't matter if you invent the cure for cancer if all the politicians decide to burn your paper upon reading it.

I think you can avoid involvement with the common-definition politics to a large extent, and this is in fact a part of a change being effective. I see the political world as molasses; you stick your hand too far into it, and you won't get out. You (should) want people to have a say in how the new tech impacts their lives, but you probably don't want to get sucked into partisanship and endless bickering about political ideologies. It's a waste of time that doesn't help anyone (except the print & media business).

I can't remember who said it, but I read once that developing technology is about giving politicians more options. The complicated incentive systems governing modern politics may not allow the rulers to solve some problem right now, but if you give them more options, then maybe one of them can be used. E.g. with climate change, there's no way politicians will just shut down coal plants and build nuclear ones instead. But dropping prices of renewables give them an option to achieve the same end goal more gradually.

Ultimately, my (current, always subject to change) view is that if you want to help effectively, you need to avoid touching the dysfunctional parts of modern politics as much as possible, lest they suck you in.

That makes sense, can completely see that perspective. I think at this point it's more just semantics that I'm saying the thought and choices given to what tech you work on to "give more options" is a political and moral decision, one many engineers ignore. When I hear someone in tech say "they want to stay out of politics, I think often they use it as a way to avoid those problems. Thanks for the in-depth conversation here!

Any time three or more humans interact, it's politics.

It's not though, is it?

We are conditioned in many ways to think of the myriads of unwritten rules and customs that surround our day-to-day interaction as natural and obvious. But they are a product of our society and its culture, and a very political product at that - they are what makes abstract hierarchies of power in that society concrete. It manifests even in very simple things, like how you address others (think about things like the T-V distinction, or, in some languages, how different names the person has can be used in different combinations to claim or defer to authority).

When you have more than one person, and they interact with each other, they need to deal with things like authority, rules, fairness etc - all of which are political. The reason why I wrote "three" is because it's the minimum at which you can have the majority forcing some authority or rules on the unwilling minority, which is when that politics becomes explicit.

It would be nice if the recent instances of employee pressure in Google and Microsoft are early signs of software workers organizing.

It's a sign of nascent change that springs from the grassroots. The only way we'll know for sure is if organizers appear and begin to succeed.

In the context of the child separation policy, some of my colleagues asked what can be done, just giving money didn't seem to be enough. I mentioned a general strike, and they didn't react like it was a crazy idea though unlikely to take hold since this openly fascist policy only affects non-white foreigners. Maybe things are changing though.

Spring forth cadres of the revolution! Your people need your leadership.

It's not just software industry btw: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/...

How would employees at Google or Microsoft benefit from unionizing?

The same way any other unionized employees do: higher wages, better benefits, collective bargaining, serious representation in the corporate hierarchy, better job security.

And Google employees don’t already that? What better benefits could a Google possibly want? How much higher could their salaries go?

What better benefits could a Google possibly want?

More vacation time, more reasonable working hours, a more transparent process for promotions and raises, better paternity/maternity polices, a seat on the board and more say into how the company is run.

There is a lot more to collective bargaining than salaries.

By being able to influence management decisions, like working on drone assasinations, forced child separation and imprisonment, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

Organizing for what? Google employees are well paid, have exceptional benefits — why would they want to potentially destroy all that for collective bargaining? That’s ridiculous.

Because they don't want to support the practises of their organization?

I for one am glad that at least some employees of companies like Google and Microsoft are taking ethical stances for the greater good. A job cannot be seen as just something that provides some personal satisfaction and puts food on the table. There are lines that, when crossed, have larger implications for a large population and how we as humankind want the world to be. Where there's more clarity on certain topics, taking a strong stance is the right thing to do!

Statement from Satya Nadella: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-views-us-immigration-polic...

>part of a backlash against the agency’s policy of separating children from their families at the U.S. border.

Is that a policy that ICE can simply drop?

trump/sessions specifically mandated this policy.

My post is describing the status quo as I understand it. I'm neither supporting nor condemning it.

There is an important legal distinction which determines whether or not you're arrested and separated from your family: asylum seeker vs criminal migrant.

If you walk up to the border patrol checkpoint and request asylum you will not be separated from your family. Once we make sure you're not a known criminal we basically let you go and put you in the queue for the asylum process.

Conversely, if you attempt to cross the border between checkpoints you are generally an economically motivated undocumented migrant. In this case, if we catch you the first time we'll essentially let you go home with a warning. The second time you do this it's a felony and you go down the felony/criminal process path. If you go down that path you are under arrest, and if you're under arrest in the United States we don't put your kids in jail with you. Children are remanded to the HHS who will either place the children with extended family, in foster care, or other things like that.

So what happened and what's changed? If you're an economically motivated migrant the best outcome is you scoot across the border undetected. The second best outcome is you get asylum status (has restrictions like you can't work). The worst outcome is you go to jail. People began gaming the system, attempting to cross the border illegally and when caught would claim to be asylum seekers. The policy difference between Obama and Trump is that Obama's administration was basically more likely to let you get away with going on the asylum track even if you'd tried to cross the border illegally.

So as it stands today ICE (if Trump ordered it) could go back to the Obama policy of granting people who cross illegally and then claim asylum status only after they've been caught. This would greatly increase the number of people on the asylum track (no separation) and decrease the number of people on the criminal track (separation). Or I guess technically Trump could order ICE not arrest anyone crossing the border illegally. You give them a court date, release them to the public, and hope they show up. The concern here is the incentives. However, without a change to the law, ICE has no choice but to separate the families when you get arrested.

The case law in question is the 1997 Flores settlement, a class action lawsuit which resulted in essentially saying ICE had to release the children since they are not being charged with a crime.

That's not entirely true, though. Affirmative asylum seekers have been deported aggressively as well:

https://eu.freep.com/story/news/2018/05/17/troy-cile-preceta...

Also this story linked elsewhere in a thread:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/migrant-seeking-asylum-say...

Incorrect in multiple points.

- families presenting themselves at the border are being separated

- the vast majority of families being separated under this policy are first time arrivals, because what Trump has done is order prosecution of ALL arrivals

- international law says you can claim asylum after having arrived without a visa, it does not make you a criminal to do so

- under Obama, families doing so were actually released into community detention and almost universally did show up to their immigration court dates. Trump ended this program, in favor of jailing them all separately. That, just like instructing ICE to arrest and charge first time arrivals, is a policy decision and requires no change in the law for them to go back to the previous system.

Citations for all these: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-right...

I believe it is a consequence of Trump's push to enforcing border controls with the existing legislation. It requires illegal immigrants to be sent to federal jail until their case is looked at, and kids can't legally go with you to jail (obviously).

If they want to enforce the border they will need to put in place a less inhuman/bad looking system. In the past presumably the way round this was to not enforce the legislation - let people in?

Ideally we can move to a more humane system of sending both children and parents right back across the border.

Not without the senate changing a ruling that has been in effect since before Trump or Trump choosing not to enforce a law that he is required to enforce.

I've seen a lot of people far more well-informed about US politics and law say that there is no such law - this is a pure policy decision by Trump.

Can you cite the law he's required to enforce here?

Sure: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/1...

That does seem pretty unambiguous to me: if they're holding the parents for immigration offences, by law they have to separate their kids from them because they cannot imprison the kids too. I think the US media is outright making people less accurately informed on this. The most I've seen is a brief mention that "US protocol prohibits detaining children with their parents because the children are not charged with a crime, while the parents are", without explaining what this means and the fact that this is a legal settlement that the US administration cannot modify.

To give you some idea of how badly you and everyone else has been had by the media: in the hours since you posted this comment, the New York Times found out that Trump was planning to stop separating families at the border and simultaneously decided that actually, this legal restriction - which the entire press had convinced everyone Trump just made up - exists after all and will probably stop him from doing so. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigra...

Not only is everyone going along with the new narrative, they're confident that Trump supporters are the ones who are too blind to see that today's talking point contradicts the previous talking point.

Trump is not required to enforce it. He could exercise the same discretion that Obama exercised, but he instead chose to implement a zero tolerance policy.

Yet another reason to choose Open Source.

There will be other political skirmishes. How to decide what to take a stand on? What if time reveals you made a mistake (i.e. NOW supporting Bill Clinton)? People are too easily manipulated.

> Yet another reason to choose Open Source.

I'm an open source fan but I fail to see your point.

Open source software can be used by anyone, including people you don't agree with. You can suddenly find yourself helping bad people just by maintaining or developing your open source software.

I have had it happen with one of my project, where people used it (and are probably still using it) for activities I disagree with. The only thing you can do is not interact with them, but they are still benefiting from the work.

They do know that if M$FT cancels, the contract will just go to someone with zero scruples about this, right?

It's better to keep things you dislike close so you can keep an eye on them than to pretend like they don't exist.

Haven’t seen anyone non-ironically use M$FT in like 20 years. It on the same fringe scale as wiring “First!” on a comment section.

By all means they should keep typing the "$" so I can more quickly skip over their post as someone who hasn't changed their worldview since the 90s, and someone who is susceptible to memetic bandwagonning.

Yeah after two decades and the adoption of Unicode, everyone knows the contemporary problem is Fac€book.

Have you used Azure? They're the same company, just a new product line.

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17351353

Don't panic, I'm sure Peter Theil can pick up the slack if Microsoft cancel.

I just don't think we're tracking towards a healthy world where your email vendor pulls the plug on your contract because of your activities. I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer.

Edit: Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to. Leave those policing problems to the police, don't ask everyone to become a member of the police.

This cuts both ways, and a precedent has already been set, recently, with the wedding cake debacle.

If a business can refuse service due to soneone’s gender or sexual orientation (I.e. it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality), why should a business not be able to refuse because they morally object to their client using their product or services to harm human beings?

Honestly, I don’t see the distinction. If one is legal then the other must be.

I take your point that this could end in a situation where all businesses end up being discriminatory in one way or another, but it’s then up to the market to reward or punish businesses for their stance. If you don’t like Microsoft selling Azure to human rights abusers, don’t buy their stock, don’t buy their products. If you don’t like that a bakery didn’t sell a cake to a gay couple, don’t buy their cakes.

Yes, it can be argued that we will end up back with “no blacks no dogs no Irish”, and if we do that’s a damning indictment of the times - but it can also be argued that large corporations have substantial power to influence policy, which they somewhat have a track record of using for Not Good. It would be nice to see it being used for good.

I don’t think it’s asking businesses to be police, rather to act as moral entities rather than purely economic ones. I mean - corporations are people, too (corporate personhood, emergent intelligence), and unless we want an entirely mechanistic and amoral future (think Cloud Atlas and kin), we need to allow businesses to be moral arbiters.

Is it a good idea? I don’t know, but it can it really be worse than selling zyklon b knowingly for genocide as Testa did?

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jun/04/gay-cake-ruling-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesch_%26_Stabenow

The Supreme Court case that you're speaking of set no precedent that a business can refuse service due to gender or sexual orientation.

They ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the Free Exercise clause of the first amendment by not properly respecting Jack Phillips' religious beliefs during their hearings on the matter.

That's why everyone was saying that it was a "narrow" ruling - they did not rule on the "wide" question, which was about businesses discriminating based on sexual orientation.

The ruling can be read here [1]. It's pretty short and easy to read, if you want to know more about the case.

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

> it conflicts with the business owner’s sense of morality

I just don't think this should be allowed to matter. If you want to sell widgets, sell them or don't sell them. The problem of controlling what people do with those widgets should not be allowed to rest in business owner's hands, because the largest corporations are more powerful than they ever were, and that is allowing a few CEOs, completely unaccountable to the public or in some cases even their shareholders, to control too much of society's behaviors.

But they are accountable. Money talks, bullshit walks - and as more and more businesses move towards a service rather than ownership model, this becomes more and more likely, and the power of other businesses and consumers to use a different service and hit them in the wallet grows.

I mean, as it is, I cannot use Microsoft or Apple products to design or proliferate nuclear, chemical or biological weapons (its in the EULA) - is this an infringement on my rights? Where should this line be drawn?

Federal law already prohibits you from making nuclear weapons, whether you’re using Excel on iOS or not. Why should a company draw a line anywhere?

For example, most grocery stores don’t sell eggs to youngsters near Halloween for fear they will egg people. But there are teenagers who have to run entire households and cook breakfast for several kids, and need eggs. In a locally owned corner shop this isn’t a problem because the owner knows the kids and their situations. But as Walmart’s and Safeways displace these stores, policy is set by headquarters, and local employees can’t deviate. At that point, who does the kid take the grievance to? If it’s a local ordinance the kid’s advocates can go to a town meeting. If it’s a Walmart how do the kid’s advocates petition headquarters?

When ICE violates human rights, it's no longer a free speech issue. Microsoft shouldn't work with ICE in the same way that banks shouldn't work with sanctioned oligarchs.

What about oligarchs who aren’t sanctioned? What rule of law do you apply to determine oligarchs have committed some crime? Is there a certain number of tweets where you consider an oligarch sanctioned? Do you rely on an ICC ruling? A judgement from a single nation? A UN resolution? A case being brought to the ICC?

The challenge I see here is that applying an arbitrary measurement to what constitutes “ICE violates human rights” because it is so obvious will be problematic and unpredictable.

Will we get to the point where felons can’t use MSOffice? Or only certain felons?

Where to draw the line is a matter of judgment for each business. All ethics and justice relies on judgment. No murderer knows whether they'll be sentenced to ten years or twenty, just as there is no list of exact crimes that will get you sanctioned by the UN.

So while I cannot answer your questions, I can point out that the UN human rights chief has denounced the ICE policy as "unconscionable". That seems like ample grounds to end a business relationship.

I don’t think this is a good idea as judgement requires due process. For significant decisions it’s important that rule of law is followed to reach determinations.

Since technology is becoming more and more essential for human rights (speech, assembly, etc), having providers exercise their corporate judgement (whatever that is) will lead to high variability and stands to come in conflict in areas against corporate motives. So it would require heavy regulation.

While the UN human rights chief is a reputable source it’s important to distinguish between ver official capacity and vis personal judgement.

This is why we don’t have repercussions from a judge denouncing policy as “unconscionable” personally. And in the US, governement figures are prohibited from making nonofficial statements that can be confused with official statements. [0]

Due procress applies so that rule of law can be as fair as possible.

So while this has the appearance of an injustice, I want a method for official determination so we don’t devolve into a lynch mob society making emotional decisions where systems of law are established and appropriate.

[0] http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unite...

ELI5 what human rights is ICE violating in this case? Is due process not being followed?

It is official US government policy to separate children from their parents as a deterrent: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separa...

Children have the right not to be abused. The UN human rights chief calls the practice "unconscionable": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/world/europe/trump-migran...

Separating children from parents causes permanent changes to a developing brain due to toxic amounts of stress. It’s torture.

It seems like we are treating these children well (and I'm glad): "he seemed cheerful, “He shared how he was learning English, playing games and being well treated,” Ms. Ortiz said." [1]

However, I was appalled by the horrible "children in cages" photo taken during the Obama era. How was this allowed to happen? Wish I/we all had known about this, back then.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/us/immigration-deported-p...

> Under federal law, which adopts the United Nations definition, torture is: “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person … has committed or is suspected of having committed.” And though in theory any action inflicting such suffering is banned, that is what is inflicted by separating parents and children in border detention.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/0...

If being separated from your parents is torture, then what about the prison system?

The U.S. prison system is widely condemned as inhumane, overcrowded, and violent. So yeah, I would say that's torture, too.

Am I the only one who appreciates the difficult situation that ICE is put in here? They're tasked with enforcing U.S. immigration law which, like any immigration law implies that only certain people are allowed to enter the country under certain circumstances. No matter what they do, they're going to be stuck dealing with otherwise decent people who are knowingly violating immigration law. I see a lot of people complaining, in the most hyperbolic way, but I'm not seeing anybody suggesting any solutions other than "let anybody come who wants to come" (which might actually be workable, but a lot of other things would have to change at the same time).

Here's a solution: go back to the policy under Bush or Obama. Immigration policy is rarely pleasant, and we may have different views on hard choices, but I hope we can agree when a policy is evil.

Didn't this start under Obama, though?

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/...

> I don't think any business should be allowed to deny their offering to any paying customer.

I do not understand your mindset. Why are you trying to force people to do something they do not want to do?

> Does that mean I have to sell lumber to the KKK even though they will likely burn a cross with it? Yes, unless they explicitly say they're going to.

Then you're a slave of the state. It's not a policing problem, it's a freedom problem.

The problem is that "doing evil" is in the eyes of the beholder. To some it is performing a gay wedding. Are we supporting a world where it is ok to refuse to sell a cake because it would be used in a gay wedding? Is it a good thing that the major cloud providers and OS makers enforce a democrat agenda on their clients? I think this is undesirable and dangerous. Already there are many calls for social medias to step in to police the political debate and suppress comments that are deemed to carry fake news. It is only too obvious how such a responsability can be abused (and if human nature and history teaches us anything, will be abused).

That last part is just the slippery slope fallacy though. There are many cases where you are not allowed to lie, and knowingly helping someone lie is also a criminal offence.

Was Trump's water sport in Moscow story fake news? It has been widely used by CNN. As far as I know it as never been proven. Political debates are riddled with half truth, exaggerations, and carefully selected statistics. It is a slippery slope. It's not as binary as a computer program where it is either correct or not correct.

The fallacy is about doing nothing because one action might eventually lead to a bad action being taken. The solution is to still take the action (e.g. not working together), while being careful not to immediately go on a witch hunt for any deemed wrong.

The response from Microsoft management is good I think. They mention it's just about email, calendar, etc. There's nothing special in providing that. The Google case was quite different.

The US constitution is built on the idea that if a power is given it will be abused, and it is this fundamental distrust of any power given and the builtin counterpowers that have made its success over the long run.

It is not a fallacy, it should be the first thing anyone should consider when establishing a new authority.

We have an entire huge system of justice and courts built for just that purpose. You are simply ignoring that this is not a new or unique problem but a pervasive and generally solved issue. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, but not using the tools at the disposal of our democratic society, when people abuse this freedom to lie and cheat to undermine rational discourse is just dying another death. With how entrenched outright lies are in the US right now (c.f. FOX airing people claiming that the crying children at the border are child actors) it will be a long fight back. And every step of that fight back to rationality will be accompanied by people like you standing aside going "well, their just voicing their opinion. And what's a lie anyway.". Now if this was just the US affecting the US that would be one thing, but with the US remaining the largest military superpower and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases unfortunately it's dysfunctional political discourse is being projected deep into the rest of the world...

---

Incidentally when looking up exact quotes for another reply in this thread I found this WaPo article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/10...

"Dutch journalists peppered Hoekstra with questions on unsubstantiated claims he made in 2015 about chaos that the “Islamic movement” had allegedly brought to the Netherlands.

“There are cars being burned. There are politicians that are being burned,” he said then, at a conference hosted by a conservative group. “And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

The comments have widely been described as inaccurate, [...]"

Right. 'Inaccurate', not even the WaPo is calling a lie a lie.

Not been proven vs lying is a difference. For example, Trump saying Germany has increased crime due to immigration and is fixing its crime statistics, or his ambassador to the Netherlands saying in the Netherlands politicians are being burned are lies.

Advertisement is also riddled with half truth, exaggerations, and carefully selected statistics. Yet false advertisement is still illegal. And in my opinion advertisement should be much more strongly restricted still.

As it is you've just reiterated the (IMO) fallacious slippery slope argument, and not addressed my point that it's a fallacy.

Just because there is a grey area doesn't mean we need to freeze in paralysis. I say because of the grey area we should be careful with where we draw the line, but the existence of grey does not make it impossible or prohibitively dangerous to draw one. Otherwise we would have no laws.

I don't know. "Does it violate the UN Convention on Human Rights?" is a good start. Also "Does it violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?". Or, y'know, the Kantian Imperative.

I think that’s actually a good standard. How are determinations made for what violates the UN Convention on Human Rights?

I don't think that's an accurate analogy. An accurate analogy would be forcing someone to officiate a gay wedding.

To take an extreme example, I actually don't think someone selling cake to concentration camp guards is guilty of anything - but someone selling fenceposts, guns, gas and census software(cough IBM) is complicit.

I'd argue selling a wedding cake is actually more involved than selling cloud compute time or office software if that is what is at stake in Microsoft's case, and which is really generic by nature.

I have more reserves on the concentration camp analogy. I don't think the shoah should be pulled in every debate.

Weird, employees had nothing to say in 2014 when these images were published:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/18/photos-ob...

Kids were being separated then and being housed in the exact same facilities being used now.

Interestingly, this story “breaks” the exact same week the FBI inspector general’s report was released.

I am not judging the wrongness or rightness of what is and has happened in terms of illegal immigrants, however, a thinking person ought to be very skeptical about how this story catches fire at exactly the same time a significant piece of news happens: the inspector general’s damning report of the FBI. Were Microsoft employees sleeping when reports of these sorts of situations where being reported in 2014? Or was it more acceptable then because it was a different president?

Calling the report damning is quite the exaggeration. The IG concluded that Strzok and Page created the appearance of bias with their texts, but also says that he found no evidence that they acted on the apparent bias. He does think that their bias hurts the credibility of the FBI, though.

The only other issue the IG had was with Comey's public statements about the Clinton emails investigation. Even there he concludes that Comey wasn't acting out of political bias, and instead just somewhat mishandled an extremely unusual case.

I would hardly call those conclusions damning.

>Kids were being separated then

Incorrect; the story you linked describes unaccompanied minors. Separating families is solely the doing of the Trump Administration.

"Detaining child border crossers was a policy during the Obama administration, where Breitbart Texas exclusively reported on the conditions in which unaccompanied minors were being packed into crowded cells and holding facilities."

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/politics/new-us-effort...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/us/us-sets-up-crisis-shel...

>Were Microsoft employees sleeping when reports of these sorts of situations where being reported in 2014? Or was it more acceptable then because it was a different president?

The key issue here which is different from what you suggest is the same in 2014 is that the Trump administration separates children from their parents. The Obama administration, rightly or wrongly, detained unaccompanied minors. The Trump administration is detaining children who had their parents with them, and in cases deporting parents without their children. Surely you see this as a different situation??

I think the part people like OP are missing is if it was happening as they say then, it doesn't make it right now. They're just shifting blame for something they can be a part of stopping.

Sort of. More like if you are outraged now but not then, if it is only covered now and not then, if “reasonable” people only care now that it can be attributed to BadManTheyDontLike... that’s dishonest.

> I think that what we’re seeing right now with ICE is deeply immoral. It’s a violation of human rights on all kinds of levels.

Treating criminals as criminals happens every day in every country and comes with the same consequences - children are separated from their parents.

Right now there are tens of thousands of broken black homes as one or two parents are in prison - where's the outrage for them and what about their human rights and their families?

This moral panic, fanned by the media, truly reflects an inability for critical thought. Illegal aliens ignore US law, knowing full well that their acts are illegal and have consequences. Go to a port of entry or embassy like all other immigrants. It's that simple.

Not at all. Children are not separated because you used your prescription medicine after its end date. Children are not separated because you ran a red light.

Border crossing is merely misdemeanor and most of them are just seeking asylum.

> Illegal aliens ignore US law, knowing full well that their acts are illegal and have consequences. Go to a port of entry or embassy like all other immigrants. It's that simple.

Most of them actually come to a proper border patrol station to seek asylum. Again, US laws need to change if we need to better help these people.

Running a red light usually does not result in arrest. But if someone ran a red light and then refused to show their license and got arrested. Well, if their child was with them, then the child would not be put in the same prison that the parent was put in. ie. they would be separated.

I didn't read the law so I may be mistaken, but based on my understanding is someone comes to a proper boarder control and claims asylum then they will not be arrested. The ones being arrested are the ones who are crossing illegally and then when caught, claiming asylum.

>I didn't read the law so I may be mistaken

You can read about the asylum process here:

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/ob...

I should have been more precise with what I wrote. I do not understand legalese and therefore base my understanding on a group of people who I feel are honest.

These people are asylum seekers. What they are doing is literally not illegal. According to USCIS, asylum seekers must be physically present in the US to apply: To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status.

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/ob...

These people are being punished for following the law.

Additionally, there is no need to detain parents separately from children, and prior to the Trump administration, while deportations of asylum seekers did happen, families were not split up.

> Right now there are tens of thousands of broken black homes as one or two parents are in prison - where's the outrage for them and what about their human rights and their families?

Nice of you to pretend to care. Can I refer you to your closest Black Lives Matter chapter?

The legal way to claim asylum is to do so from official points of entry.

No. The legal way to claim asylum is to do so within a year of entering the country, regardless of whether your entry was official[1].

The US is currently breaking its commitment to the 1951 UN convention on the rights of refugees by not ignoring "irregular entry."

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158

Sure, they may apply for asylum. However, if they entered illegally, then they should be detained so that if they are not accepted for asylum then they can get deported.

First: They are not entering illegally if they intend to report within a year. Entering illegally is something that non-refugees do. This is why Nielsen's claims about "criminal refugees" are misleading at best -- she's talking about the "crime" of entering the country in the way we explicitly allow.

Second: Consider what an actual refugee crisis looks like. You can't detain hundreds of thousands of people crossing over a massive border, both for logistical and humanitarian reasons. That's why we're a signatory to the 1951 agreement.

This is probably what 45 is referring to when he talks about a "loophole" in immigration law, and why he feels politically safe asking for a legislative rather than executive solution. But to be absolutely clear: nothing about our current laws requires that we separate children from their parents, or detain refugee applicants indefinitely. Those are both cruel options, chosen to terrorize an already vulnerable population.

>First: They are not entering illegally if they intend to report within a year.

Illegal entry is illegal entry. I don't know what you're talking about. There is no exemption for asylum seekers.

>This is probably what 45 is referring to when he talks about a "loophole" in immigration law

The loophole is that the Trump administration is enforcing an existing law that was not enforced by previous administrations. You're advocating for following the precedent set by previous administrations and simply ignore the law again.

>and why he feels politically safe asking for a legislative rather than executive solution.

But it should be a legislative solution. It is a bad law that was made worse by the ninth circuit interpretation. If 1/10th of the pressure that is levied on Trump was put on Congress, this law would be changed already.

The fact that Democrats in Congress are now using this for political gains is incredibly distasteful. [1]

[1]http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/393069-schumer-rejects-go...

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/563084/us-border-asy...

U.S. agents have started to turn back asylum seekers at [official] ports of entry in recent weeks, leaving throngs of hopefuls at bridges all along the border.

So if you are out of resources, cross the border at another point and then seek asylum the proper response it to lock up your kids.

>the proper response it to lock up your kids.

The irony is that the ninth circuit ruling mandating separation was done to prevent locking up children.

And no, it's not the proper response but it is the legal one as it stands today. GoP is working on a clean bill to do away with seperation. Democrats are expected to vote against it. So there's that.

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