No Tech for Apartheid: Google Workers Arrested for Protesting Company’s $1.2B Contract with Israel
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Democracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company’s offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. “Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” says Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was arrested in New York. Google worker-organizer Ray Westrick, who was arrested occupying CEO Thomas Kurian’s office, says “more people are willing to organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity in genocide.” We also speak with No Tech for Apartheid organizer and former Google worker Gabriel Schubiner, who calls on the tech industry to divest from Google and Amazon services. “Technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift this paradigm and to remove technology from this deep complicity with the Israeli occupation,” Schubiner says.

Short Summary

  1. Several Google employees, at least nine, were arrested after staging sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York and California to protest Google’s work with the Israeli government.
  2. The sit-ins were organized by the activist group No Tech for Apartheid.
  3. Protesters are calling for Google to withdraw from a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli government known as Project Nimbus.
  4. Activists claim that Google is enabling and profiting from Israel’s use of artificial intelligence to target Palestinians in Gaza for assassination with little human oversight.
  5. The activists have been escalating their opposition to the contract since Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza.
  6. Some of the arrested Google workers, including Ray Westrick and Mohammad Khatami, were willing to get arrested to protest against their technology being used in what they call the “first AI-powered genocide.”
  7. Employees expressed dissatisfaction with Google’s policies and culture of fear and retaliation against workers who speak out.
  8. The speaker discusses their decision to take a risk and speak out against Project Nimbus, a project signed by Google in May 2021 targeted at the Israeli military.
  9. The movement against complicity and genocide at Google is growing, with increasing support and people willing to risk their jobs to take a stand.
  10. The Jewish-Muslim Alliance among Google workers aims to protect colleagues from harassment and retaliation for speaking out against unethical practices.