A Collective Aghastness

In the past month, workers in Silicon Valley have demanded that the large tech companies where they work stop doing business with federal agencies associated with the ghastlier policies of the Trump administration and local governments--and in some cases it's worked. Google said it would not renew a contract with the Pentagon to build an A.I. system for military drones after thousands of employees signed a petition and dozens quit in protest. Orlando, Florida's police department dropped Amazon's facial-recognition tech after a public outcry that included criticisms from Amazon employees opposed to the activity. Microsoft is keeping a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite demands from more than 100 of its employees who believe doing so signals a complicity with the administration's hard-line immigration policy. This activity has been facilitated by the Tech Workers Coalition, a volunteer group of professionals in the tech industry that has worked on a number of labor, justice, and equality issues in recent years.