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97 Tech Companies Including Apple, Google, Microsoft Call Travel Ban Unlawful In Rare Coordinated Legal Action (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader shares a WashingtonPost report: Silicon Valley is stepping up its confrontation with the Trump administration. On Sunday night, technology giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and many others filed a legal brief opposing the administration's contentious entry ban. The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source) -- 97 companies in total -- and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban. The amicus brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Friday a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan -- as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.From a TechCrunch report: Notably absent from the list of 97 companies are several who met with Trump prior to his inauguration: Amazon, Oracle, IBM, SpaceX and Tesla. Although Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was highly critical of Trump prior to his election, he has not spoken out against the immigration policy. Oracle CEO Safra Catz is serving as an advisor to the Trump transition team, while SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has defended his decision to remain on an advisory council for Trump.
Why don't we just allow them to get exemptions for anyone they have that qualifies as a truly highly skilled employee that they can't get locally and be done with it? Personally I feel there wouldn't be that many and this is actually about cheap labor.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Companies don't do this because they have deeply held legal or ethical principles. They do it because one side of the case makes them more money than the other.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Or, and I'm just throwing this out there....
it's a terribly conceived, poorly written, and horribly implemented EO that doesn't actually make the U.S. safer, provides our enemies with the recruitment point they've been wanting for years, and conveniently leaves out countries in the Middle East where terrorists who have killed people on U.S. soil have come from. (They're also countries that Trump has business interests in, but I'm sure that's just an amazing coincidence.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
if you are legal to live in the US. stay here. if not. get a clue or get deported. this is not rocket science. there are some people that the US citizen is simply not comfortable with and this is why they voted for trump.
That's all true, but here we have an aggressive fight by 97 tech companies that don't seem to give a crap about people in their own back yard. You have to wonder what their real motivation is.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most, if not all, of those 97 companies are global. When one country does {stupid thing}, other countries tend to react to that by doing their own {differently stupid but related thing}. That makes it very hard to continue doing business effectively.
Now, are these companies uncaring about people in their own backyard? Well, technically, yes. But no more so than normal. They want to continue to make profits. If they could make lots of money by treating all employees like fluffy bunnies who just need a hug, they would. Especially if they would make less money by being uncaring.
But most companies do not shit on their employees without a reason. And most companies want employee morale to be good, as it increase productivity. If employees are worried about being stranded in another country because the country they work in is passing poorly thought out travel laws, it tends to affect employee morale negatively.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Companies spend millions on anti-Trump ads because he's threatening their H1B slave labor pool. They don't give a flying fuck about his stance on social issues.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It wasn't the Republican establishment that put Trump into power. They did everything they could to keep him from winning either the nomination or the Presidency. It was the people who voted for him, the people who are tired of getting fucked over by shitty trade and immigration policies and who no longer give a fuck who the political establishment (or CNN or Hollywood) wants them to vote for.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Companies never directly spend millions on political ads to influence policy - through PACs, yeah, but directly, pretty much never. They do, however, spend millions on ads that they think will sell their products, and it happens that "Yeah, we think Trump sucks too. Drink Budweiser" sells products. You can probably figure out why for yourself.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
My dice has a 16% chance of generating a six. It still happens from time to time. Your N=1 dataset is irrelevant.
Ezekiel 23:20
On both sides of the aisle, the social issues are for the activists and the idealogues. Politicians pay lip service to them and then take no action on them in office. (Well, until now)
What gets the politicians moving is not social issues. It's money. Money from corporate donations from these big tech companies. (What side gets most of that money?) The manpower of the ground game in election races that keep them in power.
Both parties pretend to care about social issues, but all they really care about is keeping themselves in office and their parties in power.
A really nice article in National Review pointed this out last week - http://www.nationalreview.com/...
From what I can see, the problem in the most egregious cases isn't the rules, it's that the rules haven't been enforced. With Trump's general deregulation policy, I suppose there really is no alternative than to heavily limit H1Bs, because the border is the one place he seems keen to have lots of barriers.
Of course, you already see places like Europe and China making a clear argument that maybe all the experts should go work for them. Trump's policies may have the effect of starving the US of pools of foreign talent that have made it a dominant economic power for decades.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You misunderstand the goal.
The goal is not a competent administration. The goal is to throw a Molotov cocktail at the status quo, because it has become obvious that no one in that status quo is listening.
1. Import people with a wide variety of incompatible cultures to your country.
2. Actively discourage assimilation by promoting multiculturalism and denouncing any criticism of the incompatible culture as "racism."
3. When violence inevitably occurs, demand expanded police and surveillance powers to maintain "stability."
You lose your culture, are forced to live next to people who are at best indifferent to you and at worst want to kill you, lose your civil rights and get a police state, too. What's not to love?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The goal is not a competent administration. The goal is to throw a Molotov cocktail at the status quo, because it has become obvious that no one in that status quo is listening.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you're in touch with the bulk of Trump's power base, which both objects to the status quo and thinks that Trump is "a successful businessman" which they in turn think is "what America needs right now". They are not in touch with the facts that Trump is not a successful businessman — he is outperformed by the S&P 500, which should be a compelling argument even if you don't believe that he is a con artist. Or how about this one: he's been outperformed by Paris Hilton. I like that one even better.
Trump is a con artist, but those of his supporters who are willing to believe that also believe that this is a good thing, because it makes him effective. It hasn't dawned on them that this means that they can be getting conned because they are suffering from Dunning-Krueger and operating way above their respective pay grades as a result — literally.
Voting for Trump because of dissatisfaction with the status quo is, as has been stated previously in many circles, cutting off one's face to spite one's face, never mind the nose. Trump is the prime example of a rich white fat cat who abuses everyone around him; perhaps, in fact, the best example America has ever seen. Trump is America's most successful con artist. Odds are that there has never been a president who cared less for this country than Trump. Trump owns a visa mill of his very own; anyone who imagines that he's going to fix the problem is suffering a lack of everything but imagination.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In a gentle way, Canada has done (1) and (2) pretty much since the 1950s. Certainly there has been some vigorous debate, but no widespread denunciation or violence.
Canada has not "lost" its culture, at least not due to multiculturalism. On the contrary, it has evolved into a mosaic of cultures from all over the world, but with a common theme of mutual respect and understanding.
Fearing the loss of your culture and imagining your neighbors want to kill you should be a wake-up call to reconsider what you think your culture really is.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.