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posted by mrpg on Friday December 30 2016, @05:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the objection-de-conscience dept.

Original URL: The Register

IBM staff have petitioned the company to – among other things – express concern that "IBM CEO Ginni Rometty's open letter to President-elect Donald Trump does not affirm IBMers' core values of diversity, inclusiveness, and ethical business conduct."

The petition's authors respect Rometty's "willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with the president-elect" but argue IBM's culture is essential "to our transformation underpinned by cloud and cognitive initiatives."

[...] There's also a call to "Respect our right to refuse participation in any U.S. contracts that violate constitutional and civil liberties" which sounds like an option to opt out of working on Trump's planned register of Muslims. Another demand wants IBM to "Prohibit perceived influence-peddling of elected officials by restricting IBM and its employees from using any Trump owned or Trump branded properties for business purposes, in accordance with the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines."

In part the petition reads:

We have a moral and business imperative to uphold the pillars of a free society by declining any projects which undermine liberty, such as surveillance tools threatening freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

[...] Taking a conservative approach has grave implications. Our own founder's experience and the rest of history teach us that accommodating those who unleash forces of aggressive nationalism, bigotry, racism, fear, and exclusion inevitably yields devastating outcomes for millions of innocents.

Full text: IBMers to CEO Ginni Rometty: Affirm IBM values!


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:12AM (#447297)

    IBM, its staff and liberty? Doubt it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:17AM (#447300)

    They had a bad experience last time they worked for Der Fuhrer!! Hail Victory!! Hail Trump!!! All I want for Christmas is White Genocide!!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2016, @12:30AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2016, @12:30AM (#447671)

      In other won't-work-for-Trump news, the transition team is trying to find A-List performers who are willing to participate in the inaugural events and are having extreme difficulty. [blogspot.com]
      Italian Reactionary Andrea Bocelli initially said Yes, but the masses convinced him that that would be a horrible idea.

      Another account differs on the details, [metro.co.uk] but the result is the same.

      Garth Brooks, who is pretty Progressive for a Country Music guy also initially said Yes, but he changed his mind.

      Reactionaries Ted Nugent and Kid Rock have been suggested as possible entertainers.
      I've seen was-a-thing-decades-ago Meatloaf also suggested.

      The list of the folks they do have lined up has me saying a big Huh?? [consequenceofsound.net]

      they've got Nashville singer-songwriter Beau Davidson, who will be performing music from his latest album, The American Gentleman; The Reagan Years, "one of the HOTTEST '80s cover bands" who only perform music released during Ronald Regan's presidency; and a wedding band called The Mixx; plus DJ sets by DJ Romin, DJ Young Rye, DJ Flow, and--my personal fav--DJ Freedom. The Star Spangled Singers will also take the stage to serenade party-goers with "uplifting, patriotic songs and instrumentals

      ...and, as a counterpoint, [doobeedoobeedoo.info]

      [There are] reports of a televised “freedom concert” to air at the same time as the inauguration are in the media. There is talk that celebrities such as Beyonce and Jay Z, Madonna, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, and others may be involved. Alec Baldwin may MC the event, playing Trump as he does on Saturday Night Live.

      The proceeds of the freedom concert would go to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Lambda Legal, NAACP, Common Cause, CAIR, IRAP, SPLC, Environmental Defense Fund, Human Rights Campaign Fund, MoveOn, Economic Policy Institute, Inequality Media, and GLAD.

      The Trump inauguration, however, will suffer. No one will watch it, it will lose all the TV ratings, and the advertisers will [lose] immense revenues (provided they even chose to advertise on the broadcast; which, considering the competition, to do so would be economic suicide). This will be a beautiful gesture of defiance against the inauguration of this most loathsome and supremely unqualified man for the presidency.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:27AM (#447304)

    I'm sure there's other telemetry companies that would have no problem taking money for data. Anyone know of a telemetry collection system that might work? One that is already distributed and easy to hack?

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @05:33AM (#447306)

      Wait, you're not thinking "Palantir" and Peter Thiel, are you? If you are, he probably already knows. Foolish son of a Took!!

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @03:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @03:19PM (#447452)

        I was actually talking about Windows 10, but nobody got the joke.