President-elect Donald Trump hasn't been the most favourite person in Silicon Valley, mainly for his opposing views on various things such as immigration, encryption and surveillance. To get face-to-face with the leaders of the tech world in the U.S., Trump has setup a roundtable meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan on December 14.
While the meeting will begin shortly, some leaders of the tech industry have taken a stand against Trump's hard stance on various issues. According to Reuters, more than 200 employees of technology companies including Google and Twitter have signed an open letter, vowing to not help Trump's administration build a database of people based on religion or assist in immigration reform.
The letter, at the time of publishing, had about 60 signatures, but it quickly scaled up the ladder in a matter of few hours. Engineers, designers and business executives have participated in the protest against Trump's administration.
"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," reads the letter. "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."
During the U.S. elections campaign, Trump lashed out on various issues with Silicon Valley. Immigration, government surveillance and encryption were among them. Most of the countries now fear if Trump would actually follow through on his pledges now that he has won the elections.
Trump has been clear about expanding surveillance programs by hiring supporting individuals in senior posts in his administration. The letter vows not to participate in creating a database, which would identify U.S. citizens by their religion, race or national origin. Such information could lead to targeting specific set of people, which the letter deems illegal and unethical.
The open letter is published at neveragain.tech, where you can find the list of all the people who've signed it and all the views in simple bullet points for readers to follow and support.
