10 Things in Politics: Big Tech's private partnerships with ICE
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Here's what we're talking about:
- Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have taken advantage of a commonly used but little-known tool to quietly enter dozens of contracts with ICE and CBP
- The Facebook whistleblower is set to testify before Congress
- These 37 millennials are the new Supreme Court clerks
With Phil Rosen.
1. INSIDER INVESTIGATION: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have repeatedly used a common tactic to sidestep public scrutiny and work with US immigration agencies, an Insider investigation found. This work also illustrates the long reach of tech companies into the immigration system.
Here are the details from Insider's investigation:
How intermediaries are side-stepping public scrutiny: Take Amazon and its AWS cloud technology: Insider obtained documents showing that AWS is already used in several Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases and programs that are otherwise not mentioned in public procurement records. Third-party companies sold AWS to ICE, but experts say Amazon would still be aware of what's going on.
- Some contracts are for professional tools like Google Workspace: The AWS contracts in question are related to important ICE databases. For instance, AWS is used to support ICE's Investigative Case Management system (ICE's main law-enforcement database) and Student and Exchange Visitor Program Portal (which stores information on student visitors to the US).
This business raises questions about some of the companies' previous pledges: Google, in particular, said after several employee protests that it would not work on immigration-enforcement contracts with ICE or CBP.
- But …: Google was involved in at least four contracts with CBP, all through third-party contractors, when Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian told employees the company's tech wouldn't be used for immigration enforcement at the southern border. (Google declined to comment on the record.)
Read more about Insider's investigation, including how employees of the companies are reacting to what my colleague dug up.
2. Biden says he can't guarantee there won't be a debt default: President Joe Biden told reporters it's up to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on whether the US breached the debt ceiling in less than two weeks. McConnell has insisted that since Democrats control Congress they alone should be responsible for raising the debt ceiling. Republicans are set to block a debt-ceiling vote on Wednesday for this reason. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is insisting the issue must be resolved "by the end of this week." More on the economic brinksmanship just days away from catastrophe.
3. Facebook whistleblower is set to testify before Congress: The former product manager Frances Haugen is expected to tell lawmakers that Facebook's products "harm children, stoke division," and "weaken our democracy." Her appearance comes just days after she revealed on "60 Minutes" that she was the main source behind the internal documents The Wall Street Journal used in a series about problems inside Facebook. Here's how you can watch it.
4. These 37 millennials are the new Supreme Court clerks: Of this year's 37 Supreme Court clerks, nearly a third graduated from Yale Law School. Others come from the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School. At least seven clerks were in The Federalist Society, reflecting the court's conservative majority. And three clerks are graduates of Hillsdale College, a small conservative school in Michigan. Read more about the clerks who are set to be the most powerful lawyers, judges, and politicians in the US.
5. Francis Collins is resigning as NIH head: Collins, a 71-year-old physician, has served at the National Institutes of Health for nearly three decades and has led the agency for 12 years. His departure had been planned for a while, Politico reports. The White House has increasingly used Collins in its pandemic plan to talk about vaccines and its booster strategy. More on the news.
6. Facebook says it has identified the cause of its widespread outage: The social-media giant attributed the massive global outage that took its services and internal communications tools offline for several hours to a "faulty configuration change" to its routers. Facebook said it had "no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime." Here's a breakdown of what happened.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost more than $6 billion as shares in the company tanked.
7. Biden kicks off efforts to tout his spending plan: Biden is traveling to Michigan today to talk up his $3.5 trillion social-spending plan after weeks of Democratic infighting over the size and scope of the president's proposal, the Associated Press reports. Biden has already signaled that a final deal will most likely cut trillions off of the top number. The White House is eager to change the subject and to get back to the transformational details - such as how the bill would change America's safety net.
8. Attorney general pledges DOJ will address threats against school officials: Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI and US attorneys' offices to meet with officials throughout the country to address increasing harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school-board members, teachers, and workers. The rising threats and sometimes even violence at school-board meetings is usually centered on COVID-19 policies. More on what the federal government is doing.
9. Fed may release its long-awaited paper on central-bank digital currencies soon: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said such currencies could eliminate the need for so-called stablecoins, though an expert told Insider these would complement, rather than compete with, private cryptos. Bank of America described the transformative potential of digital assets as "difficult to overstate," and movement by the Fed may be coming within days. Here's what to look out for.
10. William Shatner plans to boldly go where none of his costars have gone before: After decades of playing Captain Kirk, Shatner plans to travel to space in Blue Origin's second space-tourism launch. The trip, scheduled for next week, is set to make Shatner, 90, the oldest person to travel into space.
Today's trivia question: Monday marked the anniversary of the start of the construction of Mount Rushmore. While not publicly accessible, what is located behind Lincoln's head that somewhat fulfills one of Gutzon Borglum's original plans? Email your answer and a suggested question to me at bgriffiths@insider.com.
- Yesterday's answer: Justice Neil Gorsuch is the first former Supreme Court clerk to serve on the high court alongside his former boss. Gorsuch clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. The pair briefly served together before Kennedy retired.