No one can make that choice for you. But I can say with a confidence born of experience that such choices can be made more easily if employees know exactly what the companies they work for are doing with the armies at home and abroad. And I know this too: the same companies themselves will never disclose this information unless they are forced to do so—or someone does on their behalf.
For those who doubt that workers can make a difference in how trillion dollar corporations pursue their interests, I’m here to remind you that we’ve done it before. In 2017, I participated in the successful #CancelMaven campaign that got Google to end its participation in Project Maven, a contract with the US Department of Defense to equip US military drones with artificial intelligence. I helped bring it to light information that I considered extremely important and within the limits of what anyone who worked for Google or used its services had a right to know. The information I posted—about how Google had signed a contract with the DOD to put AI technology on drones and later tried to misrepresent the scope of that contract, which the company’s management had tried to keep from its staff and the general public—was a critical factor in prompting management to cancel the contract. As #CancelMaven became a rallying cry for the company’s staff and customers, it became impossible to ignore.
Today, a similar movement, organized under the banner of the No Tech for Apartheid coalition, is targeting Project Nimbus, a joint contract between Google and Amazon to provide cloud computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence capabilities to the Israeli government and military. As of May 10, just over 97,000 people had signed his petition calling for an end to the partnership between Google, Amazon and the Israeli military. I’m inspired by their efforts and disappointed by Google’s response. Earlier this month the company laid off 50 workers reported that he had engaged in “disruptive activity” demanding transparency and accountability for Project Nimbus. Several were arrested. It was a determined breakthrough.
Google is a very different company than it was seven years ago, and these layoffs are proof of that. Googlers today face a company that, in direct response to those earlier labor movements, has fortified itself against new demands. But every Death Star has its thermal exhaust port, and Google today has the same weakness it had then: dozens, if not hundreds, of employees with access to information it wants to keep out of the public domain.
There are not many known on the Nimbus contract. It is worth $1.2 billion and is recruiting Google and Amazon to provide wholesale cloud and AI infrastructure for the Israeli government and its defense ministry. Some brave soul leaked a document to year last month, providing evidence that Google and Israel negotiated the contract extension as recently as March 27 of this year. We also know, from the report from The Interceptthat Israeli arms companies are required by government procurement guidelines to buy their cloud services from Google and Amazon;
Leaks alone will not end this contract. Winning #CancelMaven required consistent focus over many months, with regular escalations, coordination with external academics and human rights organizations, and extensive internal organization and discipline. Having worked in Google’s public policy and corporate communications teams for a decade, I’ve come to understand that its management doesn’t care about a negative news cycle, or even a few of them. Management caved only after we were able to keep up the pressure and escalate our actions (leaking internal emails, reporting new information about the contract, etc.) for over six months.
The No Tech for Apartheid campaign seems to have the necessary ingredients. If a strategically placed undercover leaked information not known to the public about Project Nimbus, it could really increase the pressure on the administration to reconsider its decision to go to bed with a military that currently oversees the mass killings of women and children.
My decision to leak was deeply personal and a long time coming. It certainly wasn’t a spontaneous response to an op-ed, and I don’t suppose I’d advise anyone right now at Google (or Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir, Anduril, or any of the growing companies peddling artificial intelligence to the military) to follow suit. my.