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Of 8 Tech Companies, Only Twitter Says It Would Refuse To Help Build Muslim Registry For Trump (theintercept.com) 588

On the campaign trail last year, President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database. While he has back-stepped on a number of campaign promises after being elected president, Trump and his transition team have recently resurfaced the idea to create a national Muslim registry. In response, The Intercept contacted nine of the "most prominent" technology companies in the United States "to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry." Twitter was the only company that responded with "No." The Intercept reports: Even on a purely hypothetical basis, such a project would provide American technology companies an easy line to draw in the sand -- pushing back against any effort to track individuals purely (or essentially) on the basis of their religious beliefs doesn't take much in the way of courage or conviction, even by the thin standards of corporate America. We'd also be remiss in assuming no company would ever tie itself to such a nakedly evil undertaking: IBM famously helped Nazi Germany computerize the Holocaust. (IBM has downplayed its logistical role in the Holocaust, claiming in a 2001 statement that "most [relevant] documents were destroyed or lost during the war.") With all this in mind, we contacted nine different American firms in the business of technology, broadly defined, with the following question: "Would [name of company], if solicited by the Trump administration, sell any goods, services, information, or consulting of any kind to help facilitate the creation of a national Muslim registry, a project which has been floated tentatively by the president-elect's transition team?" After two weeks of calls and emails, only three companies provided an answer, and only one said it would not participate in such a project. A complete tally is below.

Facebook: No answer. Twitter: "No," and a link to this blog post, which states as company policy a prohibition against the use, by outside developers, of "Twitter data for surveillance purposes. Period." Microsoft: "We're not going to talk about hypotheticals at this point," and a link to a company blog post that states that "we're committed to promoting not just diversity among all the men and women who work here, but [...] inclusive culture" and that "it will remain important for those in government and the tech sector to continue to work together to strike a balance that protects privacy and public safety in what remains a dangerous time." Google: No answer. Apple: No answer. IBM: No answer. Booz Allen Hamilton: Declined to comment. SRA International: No answer.

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Of 8 Tech Companies, Only Twitter Says It Would Refuse To Help Build Muslim Registry For Trump

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  • Bad Headline (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:02AM (#53414285)

    They were also the only one to give *any* answer.

    • Re:Bad Headline (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:55AM (#53414493)

      I need to agree. The news loves to take "no comment" as an admission of guilt.
      Trump is very anti-journalism I can see things going two ways.
      1. Expansion of fake news and more emotional profit driven journalism.
      2. A renewed effort into making journalism a trusted source to get information free of trying to push a political bias.

      I would love to see #2 but I get the feeling we are just going to get more crap stories trying to get an emotional response vs forcing us to look at what is really said and in context.

      • Re: Bad Headline (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Bartles ( 1198017 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:16AM (#53414579)

        He's not anti journalism. He's anti shit-journalism, which this story clearly is.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by jellomizer ( 103300 )

          If the facts from the journalism puts him in a bad light then it is "shit-journalism".
          If the info about him is positive no matter how incorrect it is it is good journalism.

          That is scary.

          • Re: Bad Headline (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Wuhao ( 471511 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @11:22AM (#53415175)

            This isn't shit journalism because it puts Trump in a bad light. It's shit journalism because it asks a loaded question, and attempts to make a story out of the landslide-majority of polled companies that didn't take the bait. It fits into a broader narrative in which Trump represents the second coming of Hitler, and everyone who does not unconditionally reject him is a neo-nazi.

            For decades, we were warned about the dangers of increasing media consolidation. And since the rise of online journalism, we've been warned that this new model does not support the kind of journalistic integrity we came to expect in our news. A decade ago, Fox News showed us that facts and integrity are not necessary to win viewers. Now the major outlets are controlled by a handful of entities, and they do not practice journalism as we once understood it. Those entities are in turn controlled by the ultra-wealthy. The ultra-wealthy have political agendas based on their wishes and needs. Because they live very different lives from everyone else, their agendas are unlikely to match the wishes and needs of the broader population. So the institution we relied upon to inform us in our democratic decision making is now in the business of pushing agendas that are unlikely to match the wishes and needs of the broader population.

            That's scary.

            • Re: Bad Headline (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Dread_ed ( 260158 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @03:06PM (#53416161) Homepage

              Nice post. It seem that modern journalism, instead of informing the public, is selling our biases back to us in a mad rush to produce page clicks. The result is an echo chamber effect on a national scale that balkanizes the electorate into self-selecting political entities, blind to the overall facts and hopelessly spun in the direction of their original predilections. See also the rise of Facebook as an adjunct to the news media, where users control what news they see by blocking uncomfortable or non-congruent sources.

              Not only does this create division, but the inherent bias that draws in the targeted groups serves as a mental barrier to entry for non-aligned groups. As long as there is a safe harbor for intellectually and politically similar ideas from one news source, and other sources violate the entrenched norms and standards with biased reporting designed for another group, mobility from one ideological clade to another is limited. Plainly stated, when news outlets produce content which is canted towards a politically limited audience the underlying facts are presented in a way that prevents consumption by individuals with non-aligned ideals. This produces extremely polarized individuals, not only blind to any other interpretations of the issues, but also belligerent to representatives and outlets that contradict their viewpoints.

          • by Kohath ( 38547 )

            No, it's just transparently self-serving. Try not to wet your pants every day from now until 2021. You don't know the future. Stop making up (and believing) "scary" imaginary stories that take place in the future.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Bad Headline (Score:5, Insightful)

      by flopsquad ( 3518045 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:09AM (#53414837)

      They were also the only one to give *any* answer.

      This, exactly. Look, Trump's Muslim tracking plan (and most everything else about Trump) is batshit crazy and not-even-trying-to-hide-it evil.

      BUT the fact that most huge companies don't wring their hands over responding to every question posed to them by random strangers is... common sense and completely unsurprising?

      I could just as easily send a flurry of questionnaires to the mail room of every Forbes 50 company asking whether they support genocide and puppy punting. Get one of them to write back "No, we think that's awful" and all of a sudden "Only 1 of 50 Top Companies is Opposed to Genocide and Puppy Punting."

      It's not even "gotcha" journalism--no one was gotten. MS said $formResponseToDiversityQuestion, and Twitter said "No." Everyone else didn't feel obligated to give these folks an answer.

      • Re:Bad Headline (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Pieroxy ( 222434 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @11:46AM (#53415281) Homepage

        Trump's Muslim tracking plan

        You can bitch all you want on this piece of garbage-journalism, they still got into your head making you believe there is such a plan. This is classic persuasion. Make people think about what should be their reaction *if* something would happen. You start thinking about your reaction and before you know it you've taken the something for granted.

        • Re:Bad Headline (Score:5, Informative)

          by flopsquad ( 3518045 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @03:01PM (#53416133)
          Hell, I don't even have to go outside of my own post history to find the rebuttal.

          GS: "Are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?" Trump: "No, not at all"

          That was the final word on Trump's proposal to create a database to track all Muslims, which he had tried to backtrack to just "refugees". I'm not sure if it came before or after his idea that mosques need to be placed under surveillance.

          I can update that statement with some better dates. The instances I can find of Trump talking about tracking Muslims ("Ooops! What I said about Muslims wasn't about Muslims, but refugees, mainly Muslim ones, or not, except wink wink it's about Muslims!") occurred in (at least) November 2015. The instances I can find of Trump talking about surveilling mosques occurred in (at least) November 2015 and June 2016. The instances I can find of Trump saying he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country occurred in (at least) December 2015.

          I'd put in all the extra work to meticulously link all this stuff, where Donny is saying it, on video, but I assume you haven't been living under a rock for the last 18 months, and thus already know about it and have somehow rationalized it all away. Maybe the Lamestream Media had an evil Trump stunt double who was saying all that crazy bullshit on video? Or it was secretly Hillary in orangeface and a bad wig?

          Of course, we've all taken Trump too literally, which I learned just this week from the Lewmeister. Maybe trashing minorities of every stripe and giving the middle finger to women (which he bragged about doing in a grossly literal way) was just pleasant banter and he doesn't remember saying it. Or maybe he remembers saying it, but he didn't mean it because that's just how us Americans all talk around the dinner table and in the bar and in the locker room, "You know, Norm, there oughta be a way to track all those damn terr'ist moslems. Maybe like a number or something they have to wear all the time so we can know who the bad guys are."

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Tracking religion is not so much evil as stupid, unless they push religion into a compulsory family generational requirement. You can not be any other religion other than the one you were born into by your parents, this as a legal requirement. Without this of course, with freedom of religion, you can change your religion from moment to moment, even quite legally make up a new one for any reason. The whole messy business of once you are tagged with a religion for what ever reason, parents forcing it on you,

    • Here's the official tally of responses:

      No - 1
      Please stop wasting our time. - 2
      It turns out there IS such a thing as a stupid question! - 5

  • by Oxygen99 ( 634999 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:04AM (#53414287)
    I think I speak for anyone who's read a history book when I say this is an absolutely awful idea. I know Twitter gets a lot of stick but well done them. If you're in favour of this then you're a fascist or you're an idiot. There's literally no middle ground. This is how it starts.
    • Will, it certainly starts with "othering" some group, blaming many or most of a society's problems on them, and trying to drum the rest of society into a bunker, "us or them" mentality regarding the out-of-group.

      Whether that out-group is Muslims or traditional Americans is up for debate.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:38AM (#53414413)

        Whether that out-group is Muslims or traditional Americans is up for debate.

        Would be hard to debate it without knowing what a traditional American is. For example, does being a Muslim rule you out from also being a traditional American? Does being an atheist? Does race or ethnicity come into it? Or are there just particular traditiona you have to observe? And is it every one on the list of traditions or just 7 out of 10 or so?

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Based on how I understand the teachings of Islam, being muslim excludes you from being anything else. It is their job, their purpose, to spread Islam and the Sharia law to every corner of the globe. Do you want America to remain the culture it is today? Islam - and by extension (an unknown sized subset of) muslims - does not.

          • by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:19AM (#53414591) Journal

            Based on how I understand the teachings of Islam, being muslim excludes you from being anything else. It is their job, their purpose, to spread Islam and the Sharia law to every corner of the globe. Do you want America to remain the culture it is today? Islam - and by extension (an unknown sized subset of) muslims - does not.

            In every way, your statement is equally correct with Christianity and Christian substituted for Islam and Muslim.

          • by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:01AM (#53414803)

            " It is their job, their purpose, to spread Islam and the Sharia law to every corner of the globe"
            that certainly sounds ominous. But then one should take a look at the history of the spread of Christianity.
            And the actions of America through its foreign policy & military. Or the actions of the colonial nations, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, etc.

            • by Minupla ( 62455 )

              Mark 16:15-16

              And he said to them, âoeGo into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

              Matthew 28:19

              Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

              Matthew 24:10-20

              And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. ...

              And that was just 3 minutes of cursory research.

              The point being, we're all living in the same glass house and it behoves all of us to be sparing with our rocks :).

              For the record, in the 'none of the above' camp, being a follower of the flying spaghetti monster, may His noodley appendages flavor your life with aromatic spices.

              Min

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            That's hardly unique to Islam. Christians in the US seem to want to force their values on everyone else too.

            Like most religious people, Muslims pick which bits they will follow. Some drink. Some take out loans. Some Jews wrap themselves in plastic on aircraft. Some Christians use contraception.

            I sometimes wonder how many people realise that many Muslims don't have beards or wear a head covering.

          • by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 ) <angelo.schneider@nOSpam.oomentor.de> on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:12AM (#53414845) Journal

            Based on how I understand the teachings of Islam
            Then you should learn about islam.

            It is their job, their purpose, to spread 1) Islam and the 2)Sharia law to every corner of the globe.
            No it is not.

            1) it is their Puprose to spread islam to the unbelievers. Which are heathens and/or Pagans. Which excludes by definition Jews and Christians and other religions that believe in the same god as Muslims do.

            2) wrong on all accounts. Traditional islam has nothing to do with late middle ages Sharia Law. Sharia law is spread/held up by idiots that are still stuck in the middle ages. Hint: Christian law was not very different to Sharia law in the middle ages.

            Islam - and by extension (an unknown sized subset of) muslims - does not.
            That is an idiotic claim. Muslims that emigrated from muslim countries are usually those that don't want to live under Sharia but want to live in a free society. A free society where they can celebrate and interpret Islam as they see fit and not as the Imam sees fit. As it was e.g. during the high times of Islam, when that "world view" was the most advanced of the planet, when science, medicine, art and philosophy where at their prime.

            But you likely never have heard about those times.

          • by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:41AM (#53414971)

            It is their job, their purpose, to spread Islam and the Sharia law to every corner of the globe.

            Exactly, as the Quran says:

            “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.'” - Mark 16:15-16

            “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” - Matthew 24:14 NKJV

            And what about those that are sinners?

            Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves - Numbers 31:17-18

            And let us not forget how the Quran deals with unruly children:

            If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 21:18-21

            And what if someone mentions other faiths?

            If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. - Deuteronomy 13

            At least I swear that was the Quran, I always get my fairy tales mixed up.

        • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:05AM (#53414539)

          Does being a Muslim rule you out from also being a traditional American?

          The first muslims arrived in Jamestown VA in the year 1619, aboard a Portuguese slave ship. That was a year before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock.

        • Whether that out-group is Muslims or traditional Americans is up for debate.

          Would be hard to debate it without knowing what a traditional American is. For example, does being a Muslim rule you out from also being a traditional American? Does being an atheist? Does race or ethnicity come into it? Or are there just particular traditiona you have to observe? And is it every one on the list of traditions or just 7 out of 10 or so?

          Yes, as per Quran 2:190:193 [gomen.org]

          And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors.

          And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing. And fight not with them at Al-Masjid-al-Haram (the sanctuary at Makkah), unless they (first) fight you there. But if they attack you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

          But if they cease, then Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

          And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allah (Alone). But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)

          The above section, which calls for the elimination of all worship except that of allah i.e. Islam - flies directly in the face of the first amendment clause about the protection of religion. So any Muslim who truly believes in the latter would be a MINO (Muslim in name only), which would be a good thing. But yeah, to answer your question, being Muslim does rule you out from being a traditional American.

          Being an atheist doesn't, unless you happen to be an ACLU fanatic determin

      • Will, it certainly starts with "othering" some group

        I certainly have no problem with "othering" any group that wants to kill me. That includes neo-Nazis as much as radical Muslims. Not only do I not have a problem with "othering" those groups, neither does the US government, or the SPLC for that matter.

        blaming many or most of a society's problems on them

        I don't blame "most of society's problems" on hate groups, just the occasional mass murder.

    • I think I speak for anyone who's read a history book when I say this is an absolutely awful idea. I know Twitter gets a lot of stick but well done them. If you're in favour of this then you're a fascist or you're an idiot. There's literally no middle ground. This is how it starts.

      Well, maybe Muslims should be required to sew a crescent on all of their clothing, so we can identify them in public. That method of ID has been tested and used already.

      Oh...... wait.....

    • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:59AM (#53414513)

      Bush and Clinton tried to build one before, part of it eventually was used to become what we now know as the no-fly list. Obama had the chance to get rid of it and didn't. But I guess it's okay if the establishment does it.

    • by BlueStrat ( 756137 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:26AM (#53414625)

      I think I speak for anyone who's read a history book when I say this is an absolutely awful idea. I know Twitter gets a lot of stick but well done them. If you're in favour of this then you're a fascist or you're an idiot. There's literally no middle ground. This is how it starts.

      This story is based on an NPR interview with Muzaffar Chishti who directs the Migration Policy Institute's office at NYU School of Law. So, we're talking about a Muslim professor at an extremely Left-wing university being interviewed by a Left-wing government-funded "news" service. Naturally there will be a balanced, fair, and unbiased tone regarding PE Trump in any reporting.

      They noted that Trump has made a number of statements, many contradictory, regarding the influx of immigrants, refugees, and temporary-visa visitors from nations known for harboring and exporting radical Islamic terrorists.

      Currently there are only minimal and mostly ineffective systems for vetting/screening these people and enforcing deportation of those who violate the conditions of their visas and/or overstay the temporary-visa limits. This IS a problem that needs to be addressed.

      They were not discussing, as many here attempt to imply, that Trump wants to 'register' every Muslim, including US citizens who have lived here their whole lives. They are talking about recent/current immigrants and visa applicants from regions that many radical Islamic terrorists call home. I'd call it common sense to keep better tabs on visitors/new immigrants from such regions, particularly as (like with Somalia) there are often no criminal or other databases from those regions with which to vet them against, or to even verify where they were born.

      If you think it's a good idea to just throw open the doors and let anyone into the US from those regions, can we place them all into your neighborhood/city? You may want to visit Londonistan and look around a bit before you answer.

      Strat

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I'd call it common sense to keep better tabs on visitors/new immigrants from such regions

        Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.

        That lack of self-awareness must require Orwellian levels of doublethink.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      If you're in favour of this then you're a fascist or you're an idiot.

      Unfortunately having read history books myself I'm rather unconvinced that being in favor it is the critical question. I think the critical question is this: would you go along with it?

  • by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @08:09AM (#53414297)

    based on hypotheticals? Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?

    • Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?

      So, we should wait until the actual contracting stage to express indignation? The fact the other companies didn't unanimously and immediately shit-can this idea says more bad things about America than burning a flag could ever accomplish.

      • Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?

        So, we should wait until the actual contracting stage to express indignation? The fact the other companies didn't unanimously and immediately shit-can this idea says more bad things about America than burning a flag could ever accomplish.

        The very appeal to "keep calm" and to "let's see how this unfolds first" is pretty creepy as well.

    • based on hypotheticals? Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?

      Huh? NO! If there is anything really bothersome about the Pepe's taking over, it is this order to sit back and watch them at work . So after we get the Muslim registry, what will you demand next? We just just give it a try it a try and see how it works?

      It's obvious to anyone with a brain cell that Il Pepe and followers are built on hate and anger. While useful in small amounts, when it is the core principle, it always kills itself.

      Make no mistake, I believe that religion is responsible for most of mank

  • This is just stupid. Why would anyone ask Twitter to do anything of the sort? It's like asking Ford Motor Company "Would you build electric chairs?" Of course they'll say no, just for the PR and to not alienate customers, since they know the government is not going to ask them to build electric chairs.

    The fact of the matter is any of several thousand software companies could easily throw together a registry of this kind. It's straightforward stuff. Heck, outsource it to India. They'd have no problem doi

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Build the (still hypothetical) database, not so much. Help *populate* it though? Twitter, like all social media companies, undoubtedly has a lot of data on its users, and that data is going to include stuff that would help identify someone as a Muslim, even if it's just "Went to Mosque today..." type tweets. Think about how this (again, hypothetically) might work - voluntary registration first (the most harmless), mandatory registration second (the weaker-willed protestors to add to low-grade watch lists
      • Twitter doesn't get a choice about whether to comply with a subpoena authorized by a court (e.g. FISC), unless they want to make like Lavabit. Donald Trump would probably find it hilarious if they did that.

  • Bullshit article (Score:2, Informative)

    by allo ( 1728082 )

    Ask 8 companies a suggestive question with the intend to either dissect their answer to find anything speaking against them or pointing at the answer later trying to accuse them of not fully staying to it. Companies either have no time to put up with your bullshit or do not want to have an answer people may mistake as binding in the media and do not answer. Then post "7 our of 8 companies do to refuse to do it". Nope. 7 out of 8 companies refused to contribute to your shitty article.

  • "Hi , this is some random website called The Intercept (fair warning, if this is a legit site, I personally have never heard of it, ever)

    Would you ever sell your services to make a registry for muslims? We need a response in 24 hours."

    Every single legitimate company: "uh... this is the media department, we can pass this up the chain, but this is a legitimately open-ended and confusing question with a lot of "what-if's" that haven't been defined yet. I'll pass this up to my higher ups, but I can't say when I

  • "If you pay us enough, we'll do whatever you want." No sure why this would surprise anyone after the Yahoo revelations.
  • Only one responded, the others didn't. That could have as much to do with who asked the question to who as it could to the question itself.

    Anyway I expect that if this administration-to-be were to go down this path of fuckwittery they sure as hell wouldn't get any cooperation from any tech company. I expect their efforts wouldn't get much cooperation from anybody for that matter.

    • by jrumney ( 197329 )
      The summary is confused - is it 8 or 9 companies they asked? If 3 companies "gave an answer", then obviously they are counting Microsoft's rather long winded way of saying "no comment", but what was the third? Was it Booz Allen Hamilton's explicit "no comment", or the missing 9th company?
    • by johanw ( 1001493 )

      Hey, I will contribute: just run this on your population database:
      ALTER TABLE Person ADD COLUMN Muslim char((1)
      UPDATE Person SET Muslim = "Y"

      The second statement is only required if the tech companies will not delicver sufficient data. then default to muslim and let all non-muslims opt-out.

  • by jgullstr ( 2864603 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:23AM (#53414609)
    Out of 8 tech companies, not one says it would help build Muslim registry for Trump.
  • On my way to Tai Chi class just to fuck with them.
  • I wouldn't be surprised of Booz Allen declined to comment on the basis of they don't discuss classified projects. They do all sorts of projects for the NSA, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's already a secret list making a public registry irrelevant.

  • Trump talks about considering an idea (which means nothing) and then another company starts getting feedback about the hypothetical situation that might never occur sparking outrage about faux news. There is never going to be a Muslim registry, and many of Trump's comments after that initial comment reflect what might actually happen: People from terror states being tracked, which is just prudence -- and already happens. This whole based on religion tracking thing will get destroyed in any higher court in t
  • ... about the Jew registries.
    Or the Armenians ...

  • by Teppy ( 105859 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:05AM (#53414817) Homepage
    ...then as a good atheist-Jew, I will certainly register.
  • IBM famously helped Nazi Germany computerize the Holocaust

    And, incidentally, Germany today still has government databases containing the religious affiliation of every citizen (not just police databases of radical Muslims; it has those too).

  • by Grand Facade ( 35180 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @11:38AM (#53415243)

    Race baiting, discrimination baiting, and any other form of political masturbating has no place on this site.

    This never would have happened under the original ownership, and it makes me sick to see it here.

    I have a huge fuck you right here for the person that submitted this article and more so for the person that approved it.

    I was not happy when this site was sold off, I am saddened to see it decline to be a tool for political hacks.

    FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK YYYYYYYOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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