We, the undersigned,
are employees of tech organizations and companies based in the United States.
We are engineers, designers, business executives, and others
whose jobs include managing or processing data about people.
We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans,
immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods
are threatened by the incoming administration’s
proposed data collection policies.
We refuse to build a database of people
based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs.
We refuse to facilitate mass deportations
of people the government believes to be undesirable.
We have educated ourselves on the history of threats like these,
and on the roles that technology and technologists played
in carrying them out.
We see how IBM collaborated to digitize and streamline the Holocaust,
contributing to the deaths of six million Jews and millions of others.
We recall the internment of Japanese Americans
during the Second World War.
We recognize that mass deportations
precipitated the very atrocity the word genocide
was created to describe:
the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey.
We acknowledge that
genocides are not merely a relic of the distant past—among others,
Tutsi Rwandans and
Bosnian Muslims
have been victims in our lifetimes.
Today we stand together to say: not on our watch, and never again.
We commit to the following actions:
- We refuse to participate in the creation of
databases of identifying information
for the United States government
to target individuals based on race, religion, or national origin.
- We will advocate within our organizations:
- to minimize the collection and retention of data
that would facilitate ethnic or religious targeting.
- to scale back existing datasets
with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.
- to responsibly destroy high-risk datasets and backups.
- to implement security and privacy best practices,
in particular,
for end-to-end encryption to be the default wherever possible.
- to demand appropriate legal process
should the government request that we turn over
user data collected by our organization, even in small amounts.
- If we discover misuse of data that we consider illegal or unethical
in our organizations:
- We will work with our colleagues and leaders to correct it.
- If we cannot stop these practices,
we will exercise our rights and responsibilities to speak out publicly
and engage in responsible whistleblowing
without endangering users.
- If we have the authority to do so,
we will use all available legal defenses to stop these practices.
- If we do not have such authority,
and our organizations force us to engage in such misuse,
we will resign from our positions rather than comply.
- We will raise awareness and ask critical questions
about the responsible and fair use of data and algorithms
beyond our organization and our industry.
Note: Signatories’ references to affiliated organizations below
are for identification purposes
and are not intended to imply an endorsement by the organization.
Signed,
- Aaron Couch, DKAN
- Aaron Kraus, Reciprocity, Inc.
- Adam Bender, Senior Software Engineer, Google
- Adam Thomason, Fastly
- Adarsh Jupudi, Cloud Architect, Datacom
- Adnan Alam, IT @ GitHub
- Adam Herzog, Trifork
- Adam C. Foltzer, Galois
- Aidan Fitzgerald, Cornell University
- Aki Rose Braun, Programmer, PayPal/Venmo
- Akil Harris, First Look Media
- Akiva Leffert
- Alan McConchie, Stamen Design
- Alana Hanson, Leapfrog Online
- Alec Perkins
- Alesandro Ortiz, Software Engineer
- Alex Baldwin, Poncho
- Alex Cook, Software Engineer (Part-time Thought Leader)
- Alison Buki, Developer/Designer
- Alison Hodges, Founder, Erlea Documentation Professionals
- Amy Farrell
- Andreia Gaita, GitHub
- Andreas Fuchs, Stripe
- Andrew Bonventre, Google
- Andrew Cheung, Signal Sciences
- Andrew Dunham, Stripe
- Andrew Green, Creator of NetPhone
- Andrew Losowsky, The Coral Project
- Anthony Martinez, Twitter
- Andrew Michaud, Quantcast
- Anil Dash, Fog Creek Software
- Annie Tuan, Mobile Software Engineer
- Aram Zucker-Scharff, Full Stack Engineer, Salon Media Group
- Aria Stewart, npm Inc
- Arthur Richards
- Asher Cohen
- Asher Langton
- Asumu Takikawa, Igalia
- Audrey Eschright, Recompiler Media
- Ben Cohen
- Ben Kraft, Khan Academy
- Ben Mendis, Software Engineer, Novetta Solutions
- Ben Tarnoff
- Ben Williamson
- Ben Wood, Autodesk
- Benjamin Esham, Ellucian
- Benjamin Stockwell
- Bill Nottingham, Red Hat
- Blain Smith
- Brady O'Connell
- Brandon Faloona
- Brandon Istenes
- Bret Lowery
- Brett Houtz
- Brian Geppert, metacode
- Brian Jenkins, CTO, FoodCare
- Brian Mastenbrook, AirStash
- Brian T. Rice, Awake Networks
- Briar Rose Schreiber, Software Engineer, Board Member of Stumptown Syndicate
- Britton Watkins
- Bryan Naegele, Integrity
- Calvin Ashmore, Google
- Carmen Andoh, Travis CI
- Casey Dunham
- Chris Radcliff, Return Path
- Chris Short
- Christian Monaghan, Cofounder, Nava PBC
- Christian R. Vozar, XumaK, Rogue Ethic
- Christine Sun, Software Engineer
- Christopher Allan Webber
- Christopher Vermilion
- Christian Heilmann
- Cody Brocious, Optiv Security
- Colin Kelley, CTO, Invoca
- Conrad Meyer
- Cristos Lianides-Chin, Anchor-Buoy Software
- Dan Auerbach, Application Developer, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- Dan Bornstein, Computer Programmer
- Dan Copeland
- Danny Glover, Plastiq
- Dan Kaminsky, Chief Scientist, White Ops
- Dan Phiffer, Mapzen
- Danielle Leong, Software Engineer, GitHub
- Danne Stayskal, Artificial Intelligence, Lifeboat Foundation; Cryptographer, March Hare
- Darren Vengroff, Chief Scientist, Hestan
- Dave Mayo, Software Developer, Harvard University
- Dave Reid, Lullabot
- David Adrian
- David Beckley
- David Glasser, Meteor Development Group
- David Golightly, Software Developer, Substantial
- David Hartunian, Position Development
- David Reid, Engineer, Fig
- David Welton
- David Yip
- Derek Eder, DataMade & Chi Hack Night
- Don Marti, Mozilla
- Donald Ball, SparkFund
- Drew Durbin, CEO, Wave
- Drew Erny
- Daniel Espeset, Etsy
- Drew Stokes
- Ed Ropple, edboxes
- Edgar Aroutiounian, Programmer, iterate hackerspace founder
- Edin Cenanovic, Software Engineer
- Eldan Goldenberg
- Elsie Powell, 2U
- Emma Claire Humphries, Mozilla Corporation
- Eric Jackson, City of Asheville, IT Services
- Erica Portnoy, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Erik Ogan, Principal Engineer, Change.org
- Erik Osheim, Stripe
- Erin Ptacek, Latacora
- Erin Resso
- Ethan Fremen, Invitae
- Ethan Schlenker, Twitter
- Erik Straub, Odd Networks
- Femi Agbabiaka
- Fred Benenson
- Frederic Jacobs, Security Engineer
- Gabe Medrash, Web Application Developer
- Galen Charlton
- Geoffrey Irving, Google Brain
- George Tankersley, Cloudflare
- Goss Nuzzo-Jones, Head of Software at Superpedestrian
- Grayson Chao, Software Engineer
- Haldean Brown
- Harlan Lieberman-Berg, Akamai Technologies
- Heather Rivers, Director of Engineering, Mode Analytics
- Henry Chen, Hackbright Academy
- Holly Allen
- Ian McKellar
- Ian Ynda-Hummel, PreVeil
- Ilya Kreymer, Engineer, Rhizome/Webrecorder
- Ingrid Avendaño, Uber
- Ivan Montilla, Miralles IT
- J. Patrick Lanigan, Web Developer
- Jacob Farkas
- James Gates
- James Vasile, Partner, Open Tech Strategies LLC
- James Turnbull, Empatico
- James Wrubel
- Janardan Yri
- Jane Ruffino
- Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Jason Griffey, Measure the Future Project
- Jason Suárez, Zendesk
- Jason Uhlenkott, IBM Watson
- Javier Vegas, Nuzzel
- Jeanine Adkisson, GitLab
- Jeffrey Cutler, MadGlory
- Jeff Forcier
- Jeffrey Stanton, SparkFund
- Jeffrey Wescott
- Jen-Mei Wu, Liberating Ourselves Locally
- Jenny Tong, Pumping Station: One
- Jérôme Petazzoni, Docker
- Jeremy Rauch, Latacora
- Jesse Adametz, Cloud Operations Engineer, Invoca
- Jesse James, Developer Evangelist, Raygun
- Jesse Luehrs, Stripe
- Jesse Phelps
- Jess Frazelle
- Joe Biggica, Web Developer, Reuters
- Joe Blubaugh, Lightstep
- Joe Crawford, Web Developer
- Joel Teply, Founder, CEO, Cambrian
- John Barbuto, Indiegogo
- John Firebaugh, Mapbox
- John Manoogian III, Internet Artisan, Design Hacks
- John Mott, Lead Software Developer, O'CONNORS
- John Ryan
- John Slivka, Oracle
- John Wineman, Cloudflare
- Jonathan Bisson, UIC
- Jonathan Freedman, Autodesk
- Jonathan Haddad, The Last Pickle
- Jonny Gerig Meyer, OddBird
- Josef Grosch
- Josh Feldman
- Joshua Wise, Imaging Architect, NVIDIA Corporation
- JR Conlin, mozilla
- Judy Tuan, Software Engineering Manager
- Julie T. Do, Obscura Digital
- Justin T. Conroy, Pumping Station: One
- Justin Falcone
- Justin Holguín
- Ka-Ping Yee, Engineer, Wave
- Kai Dalgleish, Mapbox
- Kai Mast, Cornell University
- Karl Fogel, Partner, Open Tech Strategies LLC
- Karl-Rainer Blumenthal, Internet Archive
- Karl Schults, Engineer, Scribd
- Karl Stolley, Associate Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology
- Katerina Marchán, npm, Inc.
- Keith McKnight, Software Engineer, Splash
- Kelly Buchanan
- Kelly Shortridge
- Kelsey Gilmore-Innis, Callisto
- Ken Kinder, Developer
- Ken Mayer, CTO
- Kent Brewster
- Kent Quirk, Software Architect, The Achievement Network
- Kev Kitchens, Qualcomm
- Kevin Burke, consultant
- Kevin Cantwell, Timehop
- Kevin London
- Kit Cambridge, Mozilla
- Krysten Alberg, thedatabank, gbc
- Kyle Drake, Neocities
- Laurel Ruhlen, SPINS
- Laurie Voss, npm, Inc.
- Lee Jensen, Big Cartel LLC.
- Leigh Honeywell, Slack
- Lennon Day-Reynolds, Stripe
- Liam Stewart, Ginge Digital
- Lincoln Quirk, Founder, Wave.com
- Lindsey Bieda
- Liz Fong-Jones, Google
- Lode Claassen, Lead developer, The Correspondent
- Lou Huang, Mapzen
- Lukas Bergstrom, Google
- lvh, Latacora
- Maggie Ronan
- Majid Razvi, Sage
- Mano Marks, Docker
- Marc Hedlund, Skyliner
- Marc Love, Carbon Five
- Mark Fletcher, Groups.io
- Mark A. Matienzo, Stanford University Libraries
- Marky Jackson
- Marlena Compton, IBM
- Martin Robinson, Igalia
- Matthew Avant, Palantir
- Matthew Harris, Principal R&D Engineer
- Matthew Garrett, CoreOS
- Matthew Gaudet, IBM
- Matthew Lane, Rithm School
- Matt Lee, GNU Project
- Matthew McVickar
- Matthew Pfeffer
- Matt Schaar, GitHub
- Matt Van Horn, Principal Engineer, Habit Inc.
- Maurice Edward Borasky
- Max T. Curran, UC Berkeley, School of Information
- Megan Tong, Software Engineer, Grovo
- Meghan Purvis
- Melinda Jacobs
- Melissa Elliott
- Michael Downey
- Michael Hoye
- Michael Jeremiah Curry
- Michael Ricks-Aherne, Sauce Labs
- Michael Wilber, Cornell Tech
- Michelle Bu, Stripe
- Mike Morris
- Michael Nolan, Giphy
- Mike Perry, Tor Project
- Mikeal Rogers, Node.js Foundation
- Milan Griffes, Head of Risk, Wave
- Mindy Preston, Docker
- Mitchell Zubarev-Foxworth, Network Engineer
- Mohamad Fayez Taha, Atheer
- Molly de Blanc
- Morgan Astra
- Morgante Pell, Gandalf
- Myk Klemme, Engineer
- Nate Parsons, Planet Labs, Inc.
- Nathan Sorenson, SparkFund
- Nathaniel J. Smith, UC Berkeley
- Nesan Waran, Software Developer
- Nathaniel Wolf, Pandora
- Ned Batchelder, edX
- Nicholas Roy, Internet2
- Nick Doty, UC Berkeley, School of Information
- Nick Sull, Cloudflare
- Nicki Anselmo
- Nikki Everett, Internal Communications, GitHub
- Nikko Patten-Weinstein, SparkFund
- Nicholas Young, Uptime Ventures
- Noah Berman
- Noah Hall
- Noel Hidalgo, Executive Director, BetaNYC
- Obi Onyeador, Founder, Revalor Consulting Group
- Oliver Keyes, Senior Data Scientist
- Olivier Lacan, Software Engineer
- Patrick Hammons
- Patrick O'Doherty, Intercom, Noisebridge
- Patrick Granvold, West Coast Informatics, LLC
- Paul Coldren
- Paul Kruczynski
- Paul Ostazeski
- Paul Swartz
- Peter Abrahamsen
- Peter Eckersley, Chief Computer Scientist, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Pete Gamache, Appcues
- Peter Reilly, Software Engineer
- Philip James, Stripe
- Philip Neustrom, Shotwell Labs
- Philip Porada, Systems Administrator
- Richard Esteban Martinez Hughes, MIT Class of 2008
- Richo Healey, Stripe
- Rick Altherr, Google
- Robby Russell, Planet Argon
- Rusty Foster, COO, Scripto
- Robert Gaal, TQ
- Ross Grady, IBM
- Russell Johnston
- Ryan DeBeasi, STAT
- Ryan Grove, Cake
- Ryan Sablosky, Bard College
- Sam Stokes
- Sam Balinghasay, BuzzFeed
- Sean T. Edwards, Software Engineer
- Sam Bleckley, Mutually Human
- Sam Dukhovni
- Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Indiana University
- Sathya Sekaran, Software Engineer
- Roy Pardee, Group Health Research Institute
- Scott Arciszewski
- Serena Wales
- Seth Price, RS & GS Engineer, Planet, Inc.
- Shannon Turner
- Sha Hwang, Cofounder, Nava
- Shanthanu Bhardwaj, Quality Engineer, Palantir Technologies
- Shaun Carland, Software Engineer, Yesware
- Shauna Gordon-McKeon
- Shauni Deshmukh
- Sheila Miguez, Canonical
- Shelly X Ni
- Siena Aguayo, Software Engineer, Indiegogo
- Sophie Haskins, SRE, GitHub
- Stefan Hayden, Shutterstock
- Stephen Schieberl, Wieden+Kennedy
- Stephen Woods, Salesforce
- Steven Johnson, Google
- Steven Schwartz, Sr. Dev/Ops Engineer, Blackbaud
- Stuart Geiger, UC-Berkeley Institute for Data Science
- Sufi Avonne Sidhu, Product Designer
- Sven Slootweg
- Tab Atkins-Bittner, Google
- Tamim Sookoor, Senior Cyberphysical Researcher, G2, Inc.
- Tara Vancil
- Ted Scharff, Planet Labs
- Teresa Murphy, Marketing Associate, Indiegogo
- Todd Kennedy
- Tom Chen
- Tom Hutchinson
- Thomas H. Ptacek, Latacora
- Thomas Fish, Washington College GIS Program
- Thor Kell, Spotify
- Tiffany Taylor, Designer
- Tim Chevalier, Google
- Tim Heckman
- Timothy Kempf, Meadow
- Tom Tanaka Software Engineer
- Todd Siegel
- Travis Donia
- Tre Murillo Software Engineer, Capital One
- Tymm Zerr
- Valerie Aurora, Frame Shift Consulting
- Victor Gama, Software Developer, D3 Estúdio
- Victor Lourng, Temple University & StudentRND
- Will Barton
- Will Hayworth, Google
- William Wnekowicz, Developer in Residence, KPCB
- Will Greenberg, Endless Computers
- Yan Zhu, Security Engineer
- Joe Karlsson
- Zach Holman
- Zach Wick, Stripe
- Greg Wilson
How to sign this pledge
If you would like to join us in signing this pledge,
we ask that you send us your name and
optional position, affiliation, and/or URL,
exactly as you would like to be listed here,
in one of the following ways:
Additional resources
If you’re reading this and want to take action beyond signing,
some things you can do include:
Donate
Volunteer
Legal assistance and referrals
Other resources
Further reading
Footnotes