Thousands of Contracts Highlight Quiet Ties Between Big Tech and US Military (nbcnews.com) 42
Over the past two years, thousands of tech company employees have taken a stand: they do not want their labor and technical expertise to be used for projects with the military or law enforcement agencies. Knowledge of such contracts, however, hasn't been easy for tech workers to come by. From a report: On Wednesday, newly published research from the technology accountability nonprofit Tech Inquiry revealed that the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have secured thousands of deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Hewlett Packard and even Facebook that have not been previously reported. The report offers a new window into the relationship between tech companies and the U.S. government, as well as an important detail about why such contracts are often difficult to find.
Tech Inquiry's research was led by Jack Poulson, a former Google research scientist who quit the company in 2018 after months of internal campaigning to get clarity about plans to deploy a censored version of its search engine in China called Project Dragonfly. Poulson has publicly opposed collaborations between American technology companies and the U.S. and foreign governments that aid in efforts to track immigrants, dissenters, and bolster military activity. Poulson analyzed more than 30 million government contracts signed or modified in the past five years. The Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies accounted for the largest share of those contracts, with tech companies accounting for a fraction of the total number of contracts.
Tech Inquiry's research was led by Jack Poulson, a former Google research scientist who quit the company in 2018 after months of internal campaigning to get clarity about plans to deploy a censored version of its search engine in China called Project Dragonfly. Poulson has publicly opposed collaborations between American technology companies and the U.S. and foreign governments that aid in efforts to track immigrants, dissenters, and bolster military activity. Poulson analyzed more than 30 million government contracts signed or modified in the past five years. The Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies accounted for the largest share of those contracts, with tech companies accounting for a fraction of the total number of contracts.
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My personal experience, particularly with companies like Level(3) and Iridium, is that the core of the technical teams all came from the military, Air Force in particular.
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thousands of tech company employees have taken a stand: they do not want their labor and technical expertise to be used for projects with the military or law enforcement agencies.
Where do these people get the idea that they get to choose how their labor, which they are paid for, can be used?
If they don't like it, fucking quit.
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if you live in a place not called usa or china mayb its different although they have another problem : BOTH FB(I)messenger and tiktok bad
Umm, isn't that obvious? (Score:2)
Re:Umm, isn't that obvious? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I think all the bids and awards are probably on the government website for contract opportunities. It used to be FedBizOps but is now SAM: https://beta.sam.gov/ [sam.gov]
Many DOD contracts are announced on their newsroom: https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/ [defense.gov]
But not all, according to the Executive Services Directorate: https://www.esd.whs.mil/FOID/DoD-Contracts/ [whs.mil]
Did someone just do a big analysis of awards and go "oh my gosh! The military spends a lot of tech money! SOMEONE must be told!"
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Ya.
No contract is secret unless it is regarding secret technology.
But even then, there has to be a competition for it with only very few exceptions.
And like you said, the fact that they, "researched" it means that it wasn't secret in the first place.
(insert as many ad hominem statements here as you like with respect to these drama queens)
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The cooperation and integration goes in two directions. The military has been outsourcing so fast they have no idea anymore to what extent and they think a lot like a business now. This article [theamerica...vative.com] tracks the evolution from when Eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex' to now.
Quote:
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Siding with the enemy and the criminals. Can you guess, who they are?
No who are they? Also why don't you throw in pedophiles, terrorists while you're at it?
Now personally, I have no problem working with the military (I've not only enjoyed it, but feel I am in some sense doing my duty), so I suspect we may be in agreement over something, but you're as nonsensical as usual so I can't actually tell.
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Can you guess, who they are?
Who do you guess they are?
I don't have to guess, myself. As an employee of one of the said big tech companies, I know very well. Who they are: earnest young-ish people who've never had significant interactions with either military or law enforcement and whose perception of those organizations is driven mostly by what they see on the news which, inevitably given the nature of "news", tends to be focused on the bad stuff.
As an old-ish person with a different life experience (I was a member of the US milit
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Perhaps, your own perceptions are twisted by that same "news" you were referring to?
They are "totally wrong" — fools, ignorant of history, always ready to err on the side of an enemy, always prepared to argue for the bad guys, and eager to lap up — and then rebroadcast — enemy propaganda. Taught in schools to hate their country by the earlier generation of like fools and traitors, ready to give up essential freedoms [campusreform.org] — and take them away from
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If they feel that strongly about police being a bad thing I invite them to move to a lawless country to live out their dream.
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I accept your surrender.
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Comment removed (Score:3)
Stupidity (Score:1)
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That IS what they want, for these companies like Facebook to go out of business unless they bend to their will. Be happy you're employed you brat, Universities are soon going to find out they can't keep diversity officers and student affairs administrators employed when their students won't be on campus to assault each other with words and looks.
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It's OK for you to support them with your taxes, just not your labor for which they paid your company to pay you? Yes, that's as dumb as it sounds.
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...that sounds very, very much like what Hitler said about public servants and how to keep them in line.
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...that sounds very, very much like what Hitler said about public servants and how to keep them in line.
Take the man's silver. Do the Man's job.
If they don't like it - they can leave and work elsewhere. If the company can't find help then maybe they'll re-evaluate. More likely they'll just import labor.
In any event - comparing the US government to hitler isn't part of the solution, it's part of the problem,
Re:Typical Socialist Thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure how the egregious and rampant regime change operations and general shitfuckery that's going on is 'maintaining' a free society.... unless by free you mean 'free to do whatever the fuck the elite wants'.
I'd like to find it hard to believe that some people have such a disconnect to the idealistic version of freedom we're told we have, and the actual society we live in.
Sounds just like how great socialism, communism and capitalism sounded.
"Freedom isn't Free" has a different meaning than when our grandparents were alive.
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Not sure how the egregious and rampant regime change operations and general shitfuckery that's going on
I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.
"thousands of tech company employees" (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't that hundreds and not "thousands" of tech company employees? It has always been a very vocal and *very* small minority of employees that make a fuss about who the company does business with. Sorry kids, but your company isn't a democracy and it's not your place to dictate how the sales department operates. If you don't like it, then you know where the door is. Also, did you ever notice how these activist employees get their undies in a twist about contracts with the US military or police, but they make nary a peep about their company's deals with Chinese businesses that have strong ties to the CCP and/or PLA? Gotta love hypocrisy!
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If you don't like it, then you know where the door is
Are you one of those "'murka, love it leave it types" too? You don't seem to get the idea that it's possible to change something that you are a part of instead of putting everything and everyone into an us/them or black/white bucket.
but they make nary a peep about their company's deals with Chinese businesses that have strong ties to the CCP and/or PLA?
Did you bother reading the summary? The part where the guy "quit the company in 2018 after months of internal campaigning to get clarity about plans to deploy a censored version of its search engine in China called Project Dragonfly." That sounds like more than a peep.
I was just robbed, please do NOT send police (Score:1)
$ Billions of Dollars (Score:2)
Billions of dollars are poured into the Economy through these contracts, some in plain research and some in applied research and some in building stuff. Not including NIH and NSF to fund other programs and biological research.
And alot of it is put into Universities to support professors, grad students and all the support staff.
Seems to me this is someone who didn't know about all of this and how the Industrial Military Economy works and just found out.
This has all been going on since WW2 and just so you kno
Ugh (Score:2)
Another reason to avoid prison, you might end up working for Facebook. :-)
Ouroboros (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit yet again (Score:3)
What a load of bullshit.
"hard to come by" - no not really. The contract award is either publicly available or it's not. If it's not there are probably security reasons why it's not - various foreign state actors would find that information very useful.
If you work for a company and don't like the idea of them working on Security or Defence projects then you are perfectly entitled to seek employment somewhere else. Don't buy shares in them.
More work for small companies. (Score:1)
So the military needs tech (Score:1)