Azure Government and ICE
blogs.msdn.microsoft.comOh boy, why on earth would you boast about your collaboration with one of the most controversial US government agencies at a time when they’re on the news for operating what is essentially concentration camps.
To be fair, this article is from January. Still a controversial/dumb time to brag about working with ICE, but it wasn't published during this press cycle.
Yep just noticed. Eh, still not cool to work with ICE I reckon. They’ve been pretty nasty for a while
"Losing kids while separating families? Azure's high-uptime databases can help!"
This article is from January. Perhaps he assumed that Trump is going to, you know, keep his promise to “end Obamas eras policies”. Now hes learning hard lesson this Chief-in-Snakesoil-Pitch was actually lying (im not using this word loosely - he is on a week long tour claiming its Democrats fault and he cannot do nothing anout it [altho senators from the same party say it woudl he a matter of “one phonecall”])
Looking at you, the 53 Microsoft employees who signed https://neveragain.tech/
Dated January 24th, for what it's worth.
Oh, so they've had time to get it in place and start trying it out. Maybe they can let us know how it's working. I wonder if that facial recognition has helped them catch any dangerous toddlers who tried to escape?
It's unfortunate how quickly this got flagged.
What about Microsoft doing the right thing for once by not providing services to USA agencies performing crimes agaist humanity?
Don’t know what are the implications of canceling their contract with ICE or Homeland Security, but they should know they can not become enablers of this criminal policy.
I hate to say it, but demonizing ICE seems like the wrong thing. It's the executive administration that direct ICE and Congress that tells ICE the laws to enforce.
That's not to say they are blameless but we could point fingers at pretty much every federal agency. ICE is just in the crosshairs at the moment.
No, ICE and those who choose to work for them and carry out those orders are just as much to blame. "Following orders" is not an excuse.
This seems like the absolute worst time for anyone to be touting the amount of help they're giving to a federal agency, especially one that is ripping children away from their parents.
It's from six months ago, it is being posted now in an effort to cause people to over react. There are a lot of problems with government of all levels siloing their data so even though I don't agree with ICE I also don't see this as a problem.
Well, to be fair, the linked post was published in January, well before any of the kid-snatching articles were in the news.
I only just saw the date too, though to be fair ICE have been nasty for quite a while now
So this technology is probably currently in use to help massive human rights violations go better for the people perpetrating them.
It's not a "human right" to illegally enter a country. I happen to be pro-open borders, but understand the opposing side's view.
It is, however, a massive human rights violation to separate children and parents like that. Regardless of what the opposing side believes regarding entering the country, that action is simply barbaric.
Incorrect. If a parent commits murder, do we imprision the child with them? No.
People are breaking the law and their families are being separated because of it. This is squarely on the people breaking the law, not the people enforcing it.
"Incorrect. If a parent commits murder, do we imprision the child with them? No."
I cannot take a single thing you say seriously now that you are comparing murder to people fleeing from danger and trying to give their children a better life. You are supporting a needlessly cruel policy, and what's worse, you are hiding that, trying to justify it by saying that its the law, when there is exactly no law whatsoever that forces this action.
So you think we should lock up the children of criminals when the criminal is arrested? That's all this is about. People are breaking the law, getting caught and being detained. No amount of hyperbole is going to help your case with people that aren't already deeply immersed in your philosophy. I wish you could objectively hear what your argument sounds like to someone who's neutral on this issue.
"So you think we should lock up the children of criminals when the criminal is arrested?"
And this is why I can't take you seriously; you are very clearly not arguing in good faith.
"I wish you could objectively hear what your argument sounds like to someone who's neutral on this issue."
You are very clearly not neutral on this issue. And quite frankly, I don't want to meet someone who's "neutral" on the idea of separating children from their parents, and locking them up.
That's fair. I guess I'm used to things being posted to be fairly recent unless otherwise called out in the title.
IBM thrived during world war 2 providing Hitler with computer classification mainframes for prisoners. The book title I forgot made even asumption that classification, processing and extermination of “prisoners of war” at such huge scale as Hitler did would not be possible without IBM.
Today, some 70 years later, I doubt you find a person who is not proud of working for IBM, or a tech worker who would not take better paid job at IBM because of their past.
Bottom line: Azure will be just fine.
> The new FedRAMP High ATO validates that Azure Government meets all security and compliance standards necessary to handle ICE’s most sensitive unclassified data, including data that supports the core Agency functions and protects against loss of life.
I think most people would see this as a good thing. A far-left political outlook is over represented in tech, but Microsoft's customer base is much broader than that. It's actually kind of refreshing to see a company act in a non-overtly left-leaning manner. It makes Microsoft look more professional and politically neutral than say Google.
The was a good book the title I forgot about, how IBM almost went bankrupt before thriving because of political contracts with Nazi party to design and deliver system to clasify prisoners in concentration camps during Hitler’s era. Seriously this is not a poor-taste joke!!
That book is called IBM and The Holocaust and it is indeed very good. IBM wasn't going bankrupt before working with the Nazi's though. It talks about how IBM rolled out punch-card technology originally developed for the census to the Nazi's via its German subsidiaries.
I don't see the parallels here though. Nazi's were detaining and murdering their own citizens. ICE is enforcing existing laws against illegal immigration and it's doing so with transparency. The laws it is enforcing may be controversial to some, but it's not the executive branch's place to write new laws.
> The laws it is enforcing may be controversial to some, but it's not the executive branch's place to write new laws.
I just showed this to my grandfather (he is German) and he told me to tell you that it was exactly the same reasoning when Nazis started War War 2 in September of 1939.
Many of his friends and family members were saying back then that if you have something against executive branch murdering Polish people, then you should vote Chancellor Hitler out in the next election, because German soldiers are only executing given orders.
We're talking about enforcing an existing law against illegal immigration (which every company has a concept of) and not murdering our own citizens so the two are in no way comparable.
ICE is ripping children away from their parents, and locking them in camps. No matter your political affiliation, you should find that abhorrent.
And there is exactly no law which requires this. It is entirely a Trump administration directive.
As I mentioned to you in my other comment...
People are breaking the law and their families are suffering because of it. It has nothing to do with Trump, it's a conscious risk these people are taking as they attempt to bring their families into the country illegally.
No, this is entirely about Trump. It is Trump's administration that is enacting this. There is absolutely no reason for it to happen other than their own cruelty.