samuel

I am outside Roosevelt now, my daughter goes there. Talked to staff, ICE was in a car pursuit of someone and they crashed and went up on school property. Teachers formed a circle around the person to protect them. Ice releases tear gas and took two people

In the words of an AWS software engineer, "When the AI bubble pops, Amazon will have taken a huge amount of land, water, and wealth, and the public needs to know."

PR: AI hype is a distraction from its staggering costs, say 1000+ Amazon employees FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, November 26, 2025 Press contact: hello@amazonclimatejustice.org AI hype is a distraction from its staggering costs, say 1000+ Amazon employees Over 1,000 Amazon emplo...

We're firing a shot across the bow!

1000 Amazon workers have signed our Open Letter: AI hype is a distraction from its staggering costs.

And here's the letter if you haven't signed yet (Not just for Amazonians; we also love solidarity signatures): www.amazonclimatejustice.org

Amazon Workers Issue Warning About Company’s ‘All-Costs-Justified’ Approach to AI Development Amazon Employees for Climate Justice says that over 1,000 workers have signed a petition raising “serious concerns” about the company’s “aggressive rollout” of artificial intelligence tools.

“It’s not just about what will happen if they succeed in developing superintelligence,” says a decade-long veteran in Amazon’s entertainment business. “What we’re trying to say is, look, the costs we’re paying now aren’t worth it. We are in the few remaining years to avoid catastrophic warming.”

Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…

This is fucking brilliant, and you should read it: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

Amazon is Building a Surveillance Empire on the Backs of Delivery Drivers. A new report from the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) exposes the dark underbelly of technology-driven workplace surveillance.” Above the text is an old school television with an antenna featuring a surveillance snapshot from a camera inside of an Amazon delivery van. The Amazon logo is upside down and is a frown. Around the television are disembodied eyes and ears.

🚨NEW🚨 from DAIR:

Today we are releasing "Driven Down", a new report on how workplace technology enables Amazon to steal wages, hide labor,
intensify poor working conditions, and evade responsibility.

Read the full report here: drive.google.com/file/d/1yBxy...

Israel accused of detaining Greta Thunberg in infested cell and making her hold flags Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water

““They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.”+

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

"...it becomes hard to ignore how this fantasy of frictionless governance—the dream of a politics that provides a seamless user experience only for actors powerful enough to afford a premium membership— unites Trumpian platform authoritarianism and Democratic techno-solutionist centrism."

1/ It’s time to get real about Amazon and AI. Amazon coworkers: sign our open letter below to tell Amazon leadership that we need a more responsible rollout of AI. Everyone else: Send our letter to anyone who works at Amazon or even in the tech industry.
www.amazonclimatejustice.org/open-letter?...

America can still build (data centers) The Abundance thesis is that America can't build anymore, so how do we explain the surge of data center construction across the country?

In this new piece, I explain why focusing only on red tape and proceduralism (as the Abundance thesis does) misses the bigger story about the American Political Economy and fails to explain the staggering build out of data centers across the country.

www.valueadded.tech/p/america-ca...

Screenshot of the CSCW 2025 paper "The Future of Tech Labor: How Workers are Organizing and Transforming the Computing Industry" CELLA M. SUM, Carnegie Mellon University, USA ANNA KONVICKA, Princeton University, USA MONA WANG, Princeton University, USA SARAH E. FOX, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Abstract: The tech industry’s shifting landscape and the growing precarity of its labor force have spurred unionization efforts among tech workers. These workers turn to collective action to improve their working conditions and to protest unethical practices within their workplaces. To better understand this movement, we interviewed 44 U.S.-based tech worker-organizers to examine their motivations, strategies, challenges, and future visions for labor organizing. These workers included engineers, product managers, customer support specialists, QA analysts, logistics workers, gig workers, and union staff organizers. Our findings reveal that, contrary to popular narratives of prestige and privilege within the tech industry, tech workers face fragmented and unstable work environments which contribute to their disempowerment and hinder their organizing efforts. Despite these difficulties, organizers are laying the groundwork for a more resilient tech worker movement through community building and expanding political consciousness. By situating these dynamics within broader structural and ideological forces, we identify ways for the CSCW community to build solidarity with tech workers who are materially transforming our field through their organizing efforts.

What can #CSCW learn from tech workers who have been involved in collective action and unionization about how to make transformative change within our field?

My new #CSCW2025 paper with Mona Wang, Anna Konvicka, and Sarah Fox seeks to answer this question.

Pre-print: arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12579

For those at #chi2025, PhD student @smlso.bsky.social will present on “The Cruel Optimism of Tech Work: Tech Workers' Affective Attachments in the Aftermath of 2022-23 Tech Layoffs” in G302 at 5:08pm today.

It’s in a session where you may not look for this topic, so please come check it out!

BREAKING: An immigration court determined our client Mahmoud Khalil to be removable from the U.S. based solely on his political speech.

The fight isn't over — we'll keep fighting for Mahmoud's freedom and all of our First Amendment rights in federal court.

For almost 2 weeks, Badar Khan Suri was kept in a room without a bed & with TV blaring 21 hrs/day.

He was given used underwear & red uniform "usually reserved" for "high security" detainees.

Not allowed to spend more than 2 hrs/week outside dorm.

His little son has stopped talking in his absence.

A graphic that reads Free Rümeysa Öztürk with a photo of her.

This week, my Somerville constituent Rümeysa Öztürk was abducted in broad daylight by DHS officials and sent to Louisiana to be locked in a detention center. She has not been charged with any crime.

Pomona College will give protest disciplinary records to Congress Rep. Tim Walberg sent a letter asking for records related to two divestment protests and other incidents. Pomona said they will "fully cooperate."

#BREAKING: POMONA COLLEGE SAYS IT WILL TURN OVER STUDENT DISCIPLINARY RECORDS TO CONGRESS:

Pomona College said it would comply with a congressional request to hand over all disciplinary records related to pro-Palestine activity on campus.

These schools are fascist collaborators

Farmworker activist Alfredo Juarez detained by ICE Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez is an outspoken advocate for farm worker rights. His supporters believe he was targeted for those beliefs.

WA Farmworker activist Alfredo Juarez detained by ICE:

Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez is an outspoken advocate for farm worker rights. His supporters believe he was targeted for those beliefs.

www.king5.com/article/news...

Zoom in: The idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any student visa-holders grew out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" program, which now is focusing on students who protested against the war in Gaza. A senior State Department official called the demonstrators it's targeting "Hamasniks" — people the government claims have shown support for the terror group. More than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks "Catch and Revoke" has been in operation, the official said. There are 1.5 million student visa-holders nationwide. "Everyone is fair game," the official said.

"Everyone is fair game."

More than 300 students have apparently had their visas revoked in the 'Catch and Revoke' program for their solidarity with the right of Palestinians to exist.

www.axios.com/2025/03/27/t...

Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying.

They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks.

From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY

Columbia Student Hunted by ICE Sues to Prevent Deportation (Gift Article) Yunseo Chung, a legal permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7, participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Immigration agents visited residences looking for her.

A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her.

Yunseo Chung participated in a Barnard sit-in this month.

Tweet from Yuval Abraham: "A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co director of our film no other land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since."

BREAKING: Yuval Abraham, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," says Israeli settlers beat his co-director Hamdan Ballal, injuring his head and stomach — and then Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance he was in and seized him.

Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown.

🧵 IN SHOCKING MOVE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FIRES UNION PRESIDENT ONE DAY BEFORE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN, IN FURTHER CRACKDOWN ON FREE SPEECH

looks like the DHS is scrubbing its website of references to abuse at its ICE facilities.

BREAKING: DHS Detains Palestinian Student from Columbia Encampment, Says Advocates Agents told him his student visa was revoked. But he had a green card. Agents then said that was revoked too.

NEWS: Last night, the Department of Homeland Security detained a Palestinian who helped lead the Columbia encampment.

Agents told him his visa was revoked. He said he had a green card. They were confused—then said that was revoked too.

His attorney demanded a warrant. Agents hung up instead.

"Gov. Hochul orders CUNY remove Hunter College ‘Palestinian Studies’ job posting, calls for probe into ‘antisemitic theories’"

The attempt to preemptively shut down a search to hire academics to teach Palestinian Studies, for fear of potential antisemitism, is a deep threat to academic freedom. And I hope everyone criticizing the Trump admin's threats to academic freedom is just as critical when it comes from a Democrat.

in his statement "cancelling" congestion pricing, sean duffy calls people who ride the subway "an elite few" and i just feel as a communication professional that they gotta decide if they're going with that or crime-ridden drug den homeless shelter

hill i been dying on is that externalization/outscourcing of migration detention is template for global policing, new bilateral trade agreements, and pillar of global & regional imperialism of this era.

what was normalized for migrants is boomeranging for "citizens" already also disenfranchised.