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from the preventing-the-mistakes-of-the-past dept.
Two weeks ago, twitter was the only company willing to publicly commit to not aiding the government in building a database of muslims or any other religious minority. At the time, many criticized the Intercept for a click-baity, misleading headline.
But the public shaming had an effect and now more companies have come forward to vow non-cooperation in repeating one of America's biggest mistakes - when the census bureau provided the names of Japanese to be rounded up for internment camps.
One company notably missing from the list is Oracle which owns the big-data profiling company BlueKai and whose CEO recently joined the president elect's transition team. Also absent is IBM, a company with a history of aiding the German government with their execution of the Holocaust.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Tangaroa on Monday December 19 2016, @02:20PM
Trump has never called for a Muslim registry. Kris Kobach called for restoring the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) to track immigrants from countries that are unable to control their terrorist problem. That is what all of this posturing is about.
So the companies announced that they will never participate in what Trump was never going to do anyways. This serves several purposes. First, it leaves the false impression that Trump had such plans. This press release is a partisan political smear.
Second, it leaves the false impression that the tech companies would oppose such a plan if it existed. The tech companies have already built a Muslim registry (and a Jew registry, and a Buddhist registry, and etc) using their ad personalization software, snooping on people's phones and social media, and sharing data with one another. All the government has to do is call up Eric Schmidt and ask how big a bribe he wants to hand it over.
Third, it signals the tech companies' willingness to support the interests of terrorists against the American people. Anyone who follows the intersection of tech and international affairs has seen a pattern of such signals going back years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:07PM
Trump has never called for a Muslim registry.
Yet.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @05:40PM
> Trump has never called for a Muslim registry.
Bull Fucking Shit
The best you can say in his favor is that he's been happy to conflate a muslim database with a refugee database. But given many opportunities to deny a muslim database, he's steadfastly refused to rule it out.
an MSNBC reporter asked Trump, "Should there be a database or system that tracks Muslims in this country?"
"There should be a lot of systems," Trump responded. "Beyond databases. I mean, we should have a lot of systems."
...
"So the database -- I said yeah, that’s alright fine,"
....
George Stephanopoulos asked Trump, "You did stir up a controversy with those comments over the database. Let's try to clear that up. Are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?"
"No, not at all,"
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/nov/24/donald-trumps-comments-database-american-muslims/ [politifact.com]