No Tech For Apartheid Statement from “Nimbus 9” Arrestees
STATEMENT from the Nimbus Nine, the nine workers Google ordered arrests on during protests against Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel:
Last night, Google made the decision to arrest us, the company’s own workers — instead of engaging with our concerns about Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel. Those of us sitting in Thomas Kurian’s office repeatedly requested to speak with the Google Cloud CEO, but our requests were denied. Throughout the past three years, since the contract’s signing, we have repeatedly attempted to engage with Google executives about Project Nimbus through company channels, including town halls, forums, petitions signed by over a thousand workers, and direct outreach from concerned workers.
Google executives have ignored our concerns about our ethical responsibility for the impact of our technology as well as the damage to our workplace health and safety caused by this contract, and the company’s internal environment of retaliation, harassment, and bullying. At every turn, instead, Google is repressing speech inside the company, and condoning harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers.
Workers have the right to know how their labor is being used, and to have a say in ensuring the technology they build is not used for harm. Workers also have the right to go to work without fear, anxiety, and stress due to the potential that their labor is being used to power a genocide. Google is depriving us of these basic rights, which is what led us to sit-in at offices across the country yesterday.
Meanwhile, Google continues to lie to its workers, the media, and the public. Google continues to claim, as of yesterday, that Project Nimbus is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.” Yet, reporting from TIME Magazine proves otherwise. Google has built custom tools for Israel’s Ministry of Defense, and has doubled down on contracting with the Israeli Occupational Forces, Israel’s military, since the start of its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. By continuing its lies, Google is disrespecting and disregarding consumers, the media, as well as, most importantly, us — its workers.
We will not stay silent in light of Google’s bare-faced lies. Hundreds and thousands of Google workers have joined No Tech for Apartheid’s call for the company to Drop Project Nimbus. Despite Google’s attempts to silence us and disregard our concerns, we will persist. We will continue to organize and fight until Google drops Project Nimbus and stops aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide and apartheid state in Palestine.
Please direct media inquiries to jane@justicespeaks.us
