> Explaining why this was way off-piste, the DoJ said in a statement yesterday: "Under these regulations, asylees, refugees, lawful permanent residents, US citizens and US nationals working at US companies can access export-controlled items without authorization from the US government. Therefore, these laws do not require SpaceX to treat asylees and refugees differently than US citizens or green card holders."
U.S. person means a person who is a lawful permanent resident as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20) or who is a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
And this seems to be interpreted by people[1] that employing lawful permanent residents does not need export authorisation.
If you are smart enough to be a rocket scientist you are more likely to be smart enough to see when your country is being ruled by thieves and going to the dogs.
Either you hide it and leave ASAP, you don't hide it and try to change your country for the better (= jail, regime doesn't like people like that) or you suppress your conscience (or not have it) and enjoy a nice lifestyle. The last option is more rare because smart people are usually allergic to propaganda
>> The last option is more rare because smart people are less susceptible to propaganda
This is actually bullshit, you can easily manipulate smart person, by appealing to their perceived smartness :)
Anyway, just because someone is smart does not mean that they are also highly moral. It's often like: give a person opportunity for professional growth ("you'll be working on our moon landing program") and they will sell their own mother.
It does not mean they are moral, it means it's more likely they are moral because they know more (know to check their sources, follow the money, less susceptible to conspiracy theories etc) and also they due to being smart don't need to worry as much about financial security or where their next meal comes from and can worry about higher things
Working on lunar landing is great but when you have the smarts to see that all your work ultimately props up the thieving violent elites you have to think about your values and whether you'd enjoy to work on lunar landing in a democratic country more
Where do people keep seeing those things I didn't write?
Knowledge does not magically make you moral, knowledge "just" makes it more possible to become and act moral. There may be exceptions that prove the rule..,
Maybe Von Braun was a dick, I don't know that story, but some factory worker in Crapovsk with no degree who needs to make money to feed family every day can't just decide to leave the country even if he is moral, and is more likely to be immoral by ignorance of real events by watching one sided and misleading account on TV. He has no CPU left to wonder abstract things like whether the government is bombing civilians far away and he only speaks one language in which 80% of info says "no they don't". No scientific community will stand up for him if he goes to jail for protesting war. Maybe he would not mind to emigrate for economical reasons, sure. But as a rule of thumb rocket scientist over in Moscow with fancy credentials has means and ways to think about higher values than money and leave if conscience says so.
> Knowledge does not magically make you moral, knowledge "just" makes it more possible to become and act moral.
I fundamentally do not agree with that. With intelligence and opportunity it may be possible for a moral person to more effectively do things which are moral, but that doesn't make that person more moral.
Unfortunately actions and words is what matters. If you are deeply "moral" but support the gov in what you do, say by continuing to live in a violent dictatorship and work for/pay tax to the czar, you are acting immorally.
Therefore between two equally moral people (self assessed) whoever actually acts moral is more moral (effective).
So even if we pretend that knowledge is irrelevant to morality and only assume that smarter people are generally richer and richer people can afford to act moral then the fact is richer people are more moral IRL.
And yes, this means circumstances beyond your control can make you unable to act moral even if you are moral. It's called "tragedy" and dictatorships are known for causing this
This is actually not because smart people are not the target group. On the other hand, I've seen smart people fall victim to the propaganda machine more than once in order to adjust and conform. They were smart, but not strong enough.
A certain degree of sociopathy seems to be required to think independently because you must ignore the fact that everyone agrees (or seems to agree) with party policy if you live in certain regimes. It's not a very well adjusted human thing to do...
Not sure that really encompasses the way things work. For example, people doing "rocket scientist" stuff under one government, however their government gets overthrown fairly unexpectedly.
All kinds of spies in all kinds of projects existed in American history. SpaceX being a relatively new organization and the roles they hire are both not immune to this. For example, “Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II.” from Wikipedia.
Von Braun and his team chose to surrender to the Americans because they saw America as a Christian nation where they might be forgiven and allowed to live normal lives, in contrast to the Soviet Union, where that would never be allowed. Before the end of the war von Braun was only nominally a Christian, but after coming to America he doubled down on Christianity and received the treatment he had predicted.
To whom do you think he was sending his coded messages? A secret nazi base under Antarctica? The fuhrer was dead, Germany was occupied and divided. Get real.
> Sneaking in spies as refugees is a fairly common strategy.
Is it really? Are there any examples we can point to?
Refugees are often dispossessed and struggling to build a new life. I guess if you want your spies to gather intelligence on what it's like to drive a cab or bus tables in your geopolitical adversaries, then it might be a great cover identity.
I’d absolutely plant cab drivers to spy on my geopolitical adversaries. People who have a plausible explanation to be in and around hotels, airports, industrial areas, and a legitimate reason talk to lots of different people would seem like quite good candidates for spying. Maybe a bit too obvious.
Klaus Fuchs may not have been committed to spying when he arrived in Britain, but his case is close enough to show that spy infiltration under the guise of being a refugee is not out of the question (I believe there were even cases of precisely this in West Germany, but I don't recall a specific case offhand.)
Given the legal channels for immigration into the USA, having a technically-skilled spy infiltrate as a refugee may not make much sense, but that's a different argument. Furthermore, the arguments against infiltrating that way are based on the uncertainty of it succeeding and length of time it takes, not the false assumption that refugees are condemned to working in low-skill occupations.
Yeah... But spaceX does have to face the consequences if one of them ends up being a foreign intelligence asset. Seems like a reasonable precaution to me considering the stakes.
Besides, they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country. It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.
> they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country.
What do you mean by that? How would that be even possible with ITAR?
> It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.
How can it be “not even a conscious choice”? This is a large company. They train their HR people who they can or cannot hire. How can that training be “not even a conscious choice”?
probably not much more than you can tell by looking at it. there's no way to hide in space except by bringing your own cover. other than what it looks like, they know its mass, how to move it around, and how it physically separates from the launch vehicle. not particularly interesting
The government isn't a hivemind, it's a "city" unto itself with different factions with different interests. Only when one awakens to this reality can one see what is going on is not necessarily a malicious, cynical conspiracy by design but ambivalent neglect by Tragedy of the Commons for the most part. Except for campaign financing pulling the strings of the political class at the top, that adds a good 90% of the corruption.
(Also, whenever you hear about some scandal in the news that involves politicians and money, the sums are almost always laughably low compared to eg government budget or compensation for top CEOs in the private sector. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU_donations_scandal for a German example.)
I agree with the rest of your comment about organisations being made up of different people with different motivations, not a hive mind.
To be fair among people with appropriate qualification, there are many more americans who think USA is an "evil capitalistic empire" than immigrants who would support in any way the country they have escaped from.
Also Soviets got lot's of technologies from communist sympathizers in US, but in the end that did not help them much.
So letting SpaceX to handle its trade secrets the way it wants, and hire whomever it wants, is the best way to go.
By the time Caracalla gave everyone citizenship, roman citizenship was a burden and not the same heavily sought after thing as before. American citizenship is still extremely heavily sought.
However you can (and many do) work for nasa as an employee of a contractor. Working for NASA as a "civil servant" means "are an employee of the federal government", which is a very different thing in employment law.
It is also a different thing in terms of compensation: a friend of mine just started working at NASA in Mountain View. They were given two offers for the same job "you work directly for NASA for $60k as an entry level federal employee with federal employee benefits" or "you work for a contractor for 100k and shitty contractor benefits". They went the "I need to pay Bay Area rent" path, but have found that because they aren't "civil servant" they essentially cannot work with other organizations or universities.
Hat tip. Good share. Serious question: Are there and well known examples of these exceptions? I cannot believe that anyone with exclusively Five Eyes citizenships would not be accepted.
Cool, I didn't know about CSIRO. Google tells me: <<The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research.>>
Also, Australia hosts a very important part of the NASA Deep Space Network in Canberra. I would assume there are lots of NASA and CSIRO employees there, and cooperation (trust) must be exceptionally high.
What disturbs me the most is that there is a kind of activist aspect behind all the corruption...
Apparently a lot of people believe and support these corrupt ideologies and portray the corruption as a kind social service and they keep virtue signaling; essentially bragging about their involvement in censorship and anti-freedom hate-mongering.
It's like they expect people to thank them for ruining everything and being be embodiment of evil, insanity and corruption... These people see everything as superficial labels and make no effort to reconcile these labels with reality (quite the opposite). They only care about their social status and winning at all cost within this abstract, elaborate facade of a society they've created.
And the number of people involved appears to be substantial based on their influence. There are a lot of insane people out there and they're calling the shots.
Something changed in the last few decades. Such people would never have been given any power a few decades years ago.
Hate to tell you it has always been this way. If you are a person of color, you knew in US there is a two tier Justice system and there is a reason why your parents would tell you to never talk to the police. It is good that only after all these years its now dawning on to others especially people from the right (who would have thought right ).
But the bigger point is - selective prosecution, pushing the whole weight of mighty US Justice System to individuals just to overwhelm them knowing fully well this is not typically necessary, special treatment for individuals with axis of connections and credentials - these have been the typical hallmarks of US Justice System.
Sooner we rid of this whole “American exceptionalism” concept the better we are to face the reality which is US is no different than other empires that existed on the face of the planet where nation states and those who really rule it override the so called “we the people”. Yes you plebes have rights and what not and get to have some nice things like social services but you piss off the wrong people and do that enough - you will be behind the bar in no time. Protecting civil rights, protecting rule of law etc are just vessel slogans for this nation state to wave its might and protect its most powerful.
This is what democratic backsliding looks like. Each side believes the other is escalating and trying to seize absolute power, and so each side escalates in response. There's never, ever a "good" side in backsliding countries. Just participants who don't believe the other is willing to play by any rules, and therefore seek a game theoretic optimum, which means defecting. Institutional neutrality is always a casualty.
As much as I dislike SpaceX's owner, the phrasing here would seem "reasonable" to me.
Remember, Space-X can't use the more "normal"/general "you must be legally permitted to work in the US" because not everyone who can work in the US can work at Space-X, because rockets.
Order SpaceX to hire applicants who were victims of the discriminatory practices
alleged in this Complaint and were qualified for employment;
Order SpaceX to pay back pay, including interest, and all other relief available to
each individual discriminated against who was qualified and who is found to have
suffered uncompensated lost wages due to denied or delayed employment as a
result of the discriminatory practices alleged in this Complaint
I am not a lawyer so who is going to look for these imaginary refugees who didn’t apply for a job because they were discouraged by the wrongly-set job ad? Will the DOJ somehow come up with an estimation of the number of people affected?
Read the complaint. There were specific instances of job applicants being turned away because of this imaginary law. If the DoJ wins the suit, they’ll require SpaceX to look back through their records and put together a full list.
It's not a punishment for punishment's sake, individuals were allegedly affected by SpaceX's incorrect (and apparently illegal) policy, and they lodged a complaint via the official channels.
There are 17 specific examples of instances where Musk/SpaceX were publicly and repeatedly disseminating incorrect information about their hiring requirements (sections 34-51), the appropriate governmental department looked into it, found out that yes, Musk and SpaceX officials were repeatedly providing incorrect and false information, and that the complaints they received were legitimate complaints.
It's not a targeted attack; persons had legitimate grievances against SpaceX, went to the appropriate governmental departments to register their complaints, the department investigated and found out that indeed, Musk and SpaceX were violating the law. The emphasis on Musk is only because there are multiple instances cited in the filing where Musk himself was spreading the incorrect information on his social media sites consistently and repeatedly. Even if we give the most benign understanding that SpaceX just misunderstood the laws, it still was incorrect behavior that needs to be stopped.
I really cannot see this as political motivated; regardless of the reasons SpaceX did this, they were not compliant with the law and actively spreading incorrect information. If it was any other company not Musk-adjacent, probably we wouldn't be having this conversation :) Instead we have another example where Musk and Musk-adjacent companies are being held to tasks for the things they say and actions they've taken which have negatively affected others improperly.
Not even that, ITAR and other regulations are "vague" because a non-legal person just being in the room where ITAR work is performed can be considered a violation of ITAR. Then you have to spare significant expense sectioning off buildings, access control and security just to maintain that ITARness.
This makes non-ITAR compliant janitors a harder bargain to hire. Same for the cafeteria workers the DOJ mentions, they may overhear discussion of ITAR work in the cafeteria and that's a problem.
For companies that mostly do ITAR work, it's a no brainer to stick to hiring just ITAR compliant individuals. Companies would fall over themselves to hire cheap labor otherwise LOL.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to communicate here. If this is the requirement for the type of business someone ones, it's expected they are following the law, and corrected when they are not. Ignorance might grant some clemency, but you still need to follow it.
My above post is not commenting on the validity of the regulations surrounding ITAR, SpaceX, etc, it was responding to the implication that this effort was politically motivated when it clearly was not.
I don't know how many other companies the governmental department was checking, and it's not really relevant, just like the naughty things other kids may or may not have done when you're explaining why it's not correct to punch another kid just because they didn't share their toys.
"It's hard" isn't really an excuse; other industries are held to pretty strict regulatory standards (the entire medical industry for example) and while there are violations and it's a lot of work to validate that a hospital and the doctors and nurses are meeting these requirements, they do it. There are times hospitals need to be corrected, but they still do it. Same with the legal field, same with engineering fields, etc.
So I'm not sure what exactly is meaning to be communicated here; especially with a company like SpaceX, I expect they should be able to follow the regulations and check their applicants appropriately, not just decide "it's too much work" and deny legitimate and legal candidates a chance for employment.
Yes it is extremely difficult and expensive but thats besides the point, what I'm getting at here is its unworkable/unfeasible.
You will inevitably break ITAR, this is why most companies under ITAR (& gov agencies like NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa) does exactly what SpaceX is being prosecuted (persecuted) for.
This is a cut and dry case of political persecution. Not only was this practice not scrutinised, its commonplace and recommended by other agencies (intelligence/enforcement). Refugees/Asylees is a common way to get spies into the country.
SpaceX (any other company) would love to hire cheap labour that would be extremely gracious for the opportunity. They are literally using videos by Elon Musk in the case where he is saying ITAR laws are silly (I disagree btw).
> You will inevitably break ITAR, this is why most companies under ITAR (& gov agencies like NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa) does exactly what SpaceX is being prosecuted (persecuted) for.
NASA employees are in civil service, not the private sector; there are different rules.
Yes, it's not like we can hold the government to the same standard that the government tries hold the private companies to. Clearly, government couldn't possibly be expected to follow the regulations it imposes on everyone else.
It's... not expensive at all? Companies don't do their own investigations. The FBI does them, and they charge the same rate for everyone. If the clearance application fee is what's going to break your company, you've got some bigger problems.
I've worked for several DoD contractors. The question on the job application is "is there anything that would prevent you from obtaining a clearance?" It's not "are you a citizen or green card holder?"
And all that doesn't even really matter. Export controlled information is Controlled, Unclassified Information (CUI). It's one of the lowest grades of information we handle. It's in the name, you don't need a clearance to have access to it. Thus you don't need an investigation. The most you need is a background check, which most companies do for everyone, anyway.
In this case its not about clearance, its about immigration status.
I'm not an expert on any of this but my understanding is you can work straight away as a refugee with a pending status. This is fine for normal companies but it gets very tricky for companies under ITAR.
If the asylum application gets rejected, the work the person did when on pending status could be a violation. All the work they do after rejection would be an ITAR violation (so the company would have continuously monitor status).
Sorry, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
> "is there anything that would prevent you from obtaining a clearance?"
If SpaceX asked that, it would be even easier for govies to prosecute them, because very few of SpaceX employees actually need clearance, and you cannot require clearance eligibility if you don't actually plan to clear them and have them work on cleared work. You are confusing ITAR regulations with classification regime, and these two are wholly separate things.
> Export controlled information is Controlled, Unclassified Information (CUI).
It's not, how could it possibly be? CUI is labelling the government bodies put on stuff. ITAR and EAR covers stuff regardless of whether the government had anything to do with it. For example, if you work as a hobby on software to model nuclear bomb explosions, you'd better not show it your colleagues on H1B, as it's covered by ITAR. It's not CUI, because no govie has slapped CUI on it.
It’s utterly malicious on the part of the government. Note the only complainant on the lawsuit is the Justice department, who have standing as part of the law. No one harmed individual is suing SpaceX.
The idea that SpaceX is pursuing some invidious scheme of anti-immigrant discrimination is ludicrous. If you read the complaint, every incident DOJ cites really appears to be a good faith attempt to comply with ITAR rules.
I think it is right and proper that low-income victims of labor law crimes don't need to be able to afford attorneys to resolve grievances, and that there exist public institutions that litigate on their behalf, for free.
The DoJ should enforce laws within in its jurisdiction, and that should not be in dispute. Your suggestion that they turn a blind eye to crimes committed against victims belonging to a certain category is odious and lacking civic principles.
That is a strict constructionist view which is widely and appropriately mocked.
English common law informs literally every word of the constitution. "The People" are the demos. dêmos (δῆμος): “ordinary citizens, common people from a district, in a city-state.” It never included tourists. Also, the Privileges or Immunities Clause explicitly concedes that citizens have both privileges and immunities. Why would that be?
>It would be inappropriate, however, to require every statutory exclusion of aliens to clear the high hurdle of "strict scrutiny," because to do so would "obliterate all the distinctions between citizens and aliens, and thus depreciate the historic values of citizenship." Mauclet, supra at 432 U. S. 14 (BURGER, C.J., dissenting). The act of becoming a citizen is more than a ritual, with no content beyond the fanfare of ceremony. A new citizen has become a member of a Nation, part of a people distinct from others. Cf. 31 U. S. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 559 (1832). The individual, at that point, belongs to the polity, and is entitled to participate in the processes of democratic decisionmaking. Accordingly, we have recognized "a State's historical power to exclude aliens from participation in its democratic political institutions, as part of the sovereign's obligation "to preserve the basic conception of a political community.'" 413 U.S. at 413 U. S. 647.
Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291 (1978)
This means that there need not be a compelling government interest to justify discriminating between citizens and non-citizens. Nor need the discrimination be done via the least restrictive means available. At least not in the general case.
Reaction I: This story is only newsworthy "because SpaceX".
Reaction II: The statements by the DoJ ("can't discriminate against") and Elan ("at least a green card to be hired") may both be correct...from their respective PoV's: The DoJ is technically right on the law. Vs. Elan knows that any asylees or refugees he hires will, over time, be 100X the legal and security grief that SpaceX has with green cards and citizens - due to everything from Boarder Patrol harassment to the DoD expecting a 5-inch-thick SpaceX Policy manual on how they'll keep any SpaceX employees who the DoD regards with suspicion away from anything slightly sensitive. With said manual backed up by teams of badge-checking security guards, compliance officers, and lawyers - and all on SpaceX's dime.
It’s not on their dime. If they are housing sensitive material to keep away they got an extremely lucrative contract that is likely extremely bloated in their favor.
Or they could get that extremely lucrative contract AND not have to deal with all the overhead and hassle that results from hiring non-green card holders. If you could have a rule that tremendously simplifies your hiring process and saves you a lot of headache in the future it makes sense from business perspective, especially when there’s already a lot of grey area.
Elan knows that any asylees or refugees he hires will, over time, be 100X the legal and security grief that SpaceX has with green cards and citizens
Hiring managers who wish to discriminate against physically disabled applicants (and women!) often use the same flawed reasoning. I am glad those laws exist to protect those groups!
True. OTOH, those "$Victim_Group can't do the job" assertions are generally counter-factual. Vs. I feel far more sympathy toward the employer when it is the victim of conflicting requirements from different parts of the government - which generally have a "Who cares? - $Private_Company will be suffering, not us" attitude toward their 'Made in the GVT' f*-ups.
Looking at recent supreme court rulings in the US, I can‘t even see a lid on the can anymore, and I‘m honestly not even sure there‘s any piece of can left.
If the political right does not give a damn about neutral and impartial courts, I guess it‘s fair game to the left as well.
At this point, I'm not sure if it's Elon trying to turn everything into a conspiracy theory or journalist are playing dumb.
This is nothing burger - this is just basic enforcement of some laws, which happen all the time. Just look at the https://www.justice.gov/news/press-releases website and search "Justice Department Sues". They sue everybody and their mother - that's their job.
Did you read what I've wrote ? They're not "choosing" SpaceX - they're suing a lot of companies, all the time. That's their job. I guess if SpaceX chooses to settle, it will be something around 1M$ fine - peanuts.
If you did search their site, you would see, that they also sued pretty much every big company. Microsoft settled in a similar case in 2021...
I think everybody agrees that it's a weak case, and it's small one - nothing to write articles about. For some reason, those article are getting written.
Uh what? How is this a problem? I work for a large telco in a former socialist country, where the telco is still 51% owned by the government. We have projects that require you to be a national citizen, and pass a security check of course.
They're building SPACE ROCKETS. I would imagine even tighter security.
Building rockets doesn’t require citizenship in the US. Refugees and asylees are eligible for employment at SpaceX under US law, but SpaceX falsely claimed that they weren’t. That’s illegal. You can have your own take on what the law should say, but excluding a class of people that the law allows to work for you is illegal discrimination.
I know most people on HN heavily lean a certain way but come on, blatant persecution of political enemies.. No matter how you try to rationalise this you know this is wrong.
Weaponisation of the judicial branch is what you see in countries we look down on with pity.
Hate him all you want, the guy is not a racist or a xenophobe. He would much rather have geniuses from all over the world come work for his company.
Even if he set up a very expensive system (probs breaks INA & civil rights) to determine and monitor the legibility of refugees and asylees, he'll still inevitably break ITAR. Most companies that has to follow ITAR does the same thing, this is as cut and dry as it gets when it comes targeted prosecution.
I am not sure why it's getting downvoted. About we hire white people only: H1B has totally changed the dynamics of the world trade. One of the astrophysicists, Michio Kaku, said, H1B is like a magnet attracting all the best minds in the world. So, I think US is doing good allowing all people.
DOJ will win. This case looks simple to win. SpaceX will likely get a slap on the wrist, a few million dollar fine, and importantly, change their hiring practices. More exciting would be someone blogging/interviewing after getting a job at SpaceX with this special visa status. I like how barista was one of the jobs used as an example. That seems like a good role for someone who has limited language skills upon arrival as a refugee/asylee. I am sure Starbucks has training manuals in at least 50 different languages!
"Other than extremely rare exceptions, you must be a U.S. citizen in order to work for NASA as a civil service employee."
You can google up similar examples at other contractors that mostly do ITAR work. When there are exceptions its mostly in the form of alternative facilities in other countries (which usually require you to be a citizen of those countries).
146 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 194 ms ] threadSometimes it feels like various branches of the US government are set up to sabotage each other.
As someone who works on ITAR-regulated things, that is flat-out wrong.
§ 120.62 U.S. person.
U.S. person means a person who is a lawful permanent resident as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20) or who is a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
And this seems to be interpreted by people[1] that employing lawful permanent residents does not need export authorisation.
1: https://exportcompliancesolutions.com/blog/2018/09/20/u-s-pe...
Sneaking in spies as refugees is a fairly common strategy.
Either you hide it and leave ASAP, you don't hide it and try to change your country for the better (= jail, regime doesn't like people like that) or you suppress your conscience (or not have it) and enjoy a nice lifestyle. The last option is more rare because smart people are usually allergic to propaganda
This is actually bullshit, you can easily manipulate smart person, by appealing to their perceived smartness :)
Anyway, just because someone is smart does not mean that they are also highly moral. It's often like: give a person opportunity for professional growth ("you'll be working on our moon landing program") and they will sell their own mother.
EDIT: tangentially related https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/01/why-smart-peop...
Working on lunar landing is great but when you have the smarts to see that all your work ultimately props up the thieving violent elites you have to think about your values and whether you'd enjoy to work on lunar landing in a democratic country more
Von Braun was happy to use jewish slave labor to develop his rockets. He thought that humanity going to space was important enough to justify that.
Knowledge does not magically make you moral, knowledge "just" makes it more possible to become and act moral. There may be exceptions that prove the rule..,
Maybe Von Braun was a dick, I don't know that story, but some factory worker in Crapovsk with no degree who needs to make money to feed family every day can't just decide to leave the country even if he is moral, and is more likely to be immoral by ignorance of real events by watching one sided and misleading account on TV. He has no CPU left to wonder abstract things like whether the government is bombing civilians far away and he only speaks one language in which 80% of info says "no they don't". No scientific community will stand up for him if he goes to jail for protesting war. Maybe he would not mind to emigrate for economical reasons, sure. But as a rule of thumb rocket scientist over in Moscow with fancy credentials has means and ways to think about higher values than money and leave if conscience says so.
I fundamentally do not agree with that. With intelligence and opportunity it may be possible for a moral person to more effectively do things which are moral, but that doesn't make that person more moral.
Therefore between two equally moral people (self assessed) whoever actually acts moral is more moral (effective).
So even if we pretend that knowledge is irrelevant to morality and only assume that smarter people are generally richer and richer people can afford to act moral then the fact is richer people are more moral IRL.
And yes, this means circumstances beyond your control can make you unable to act moral even if you are moral. It's called "tragedy" and dictatorships are known for causing this
This is actually not because smart people are not the target group. On the other hand, I've seen smart people fall victim to the propaganda machine more than once in order to adjust and conform. They were smart, but not strong enough.
That’s actually an interesting thought, thank you.
Maybe Egypt or similar would be examples?
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/scientist-refugees-and-manhatt...
He came to the US after the war in Europe was over. Pretty difficult to spy on behalf of a political regime that no longer exists.
If he was spying for anyone - which I don’t think has ever been seriously alleged, let alone proven - it would’ve been the USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#Religious_co...
> spying
To whom do you think he was sending his coded messages? A secret nazi base under Antarctica? The fuhrer was dead, Germany was occupied and divided. Get real.
There's a documentary about it here: :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky
Is it really? Are there any examples we can point to?
Refugees are often dispossessed and struggling to build a new life. I guess if you want your spies to gather intelligence on what it's like to drive a cab or bus tables in your geopolitical adversaries, then it might be a great cover identity.
My usual one being advice to invest heavily in manganese futures.
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/crime/18.08.2023-suspecte...
Given the legal channels for immigration into the USA, having a technically-skilled spy infiltrate as a refugee may not make much sense, but that's a different argument. Furthermore, the arguments against infiltrating that way are based on the uncertainty of it succeeding and length of time it takes, not the false assumption that refugees are condemned to working in low-skill occupations.
https://theprint.in/defence/china-luring-tibetan-refugees-in...
https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/tibetan-refugee-who-t...
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/2/26/are-eritrea-gov...
https://www.nytimes.com/1960/04/22/archives/refugee-held-as-...
https://www.tibetanjournal.com/india-arrests-suspected-chine...
https://apnews.com/article/travel-sports-crime-figure-skatin...
https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/544604/Description
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11611165/Chinese-sp...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-...
https://www.reuters.com/world/aid-workers-face-trial-greece-...
Besides, they have the largest applicant pool of any company in the country. It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.
What do you mean by that? How would that be even possible with ITAR?
> It's completely reasonable to believe this is purely a consequence of meritocracy and not even a conscious choice.
How can it be “not even a conscious choice”? This is a large company. They train their HR people who they can or cannot hire. How can that training be “not even a conscious choice”?
See https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... for some numbers and a deeper analysis.
(Also, whenever you hear about some scandal in the news that involves politicians and money, the sums are almost always laughably low compared to eg government budget or compensation for top CEOs in the private sector. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU_donations_scandal for a German example.)
I agree with the rest of your comment about organisations being made up of different people with different motivations, not a hive mind.
Not sabotage each other, but sabotage people they no longer like.
In this case though, Spacex is enormously important to US national security and NASA.
It's effectively NASA skunkworks.
Also Soviets got lot's of technologies from communist sympathizers in US, but in the end that did not help them much.
So letting SpaceX to handle its trade secrets the way it wants, and hire whomever it wants, is the best way to go.
https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa
Other than extremely rare exceptions, you must be a U.S. citizen in order to work for NASA as a civil service employee.
It is also a different thing in terms of compensation: a friend of mine just started working at NASA in Mountain View. They were given two offers for the same job "you work directly for NASA for $60k as an entry level federal employee with federal employee benefits" or "you work for a contractor for 100k and shitty contractor benefits". They went the "I need to pay Bay Area rent" path, but have found that because they aren't "civil servant" they essentially cannot work with other organizations or universities.
Also, Australia hosts a very important part of the NASA Deep Space Network in Canberra. I would assume there are lots of NASA and CSIRO employees there, and cooperation (trust) must be exceptionally high.
Apparently a lot of people believe and support these corrupt ideologies and portray the corruption as a kind social service and they keep virtue signaling; essentially bragging about their involvement in censorship and anti-freedom hate-mongering.
It's like they expect people to thank them for ruining everything and being be embodiment of evil, insanity and corruption... These people see everything as superficial labels and make no effort to reconcile these labels with reality (quite the opposite). They only care about their social status and winning at all cost within this abstract, elaborate facade of a society they've created.
And the number of people involved appears to be substantial based on their influence. There are a lot of insane people out there and they're calling the shots.
Something changed in the last few decades. Such people would never have been given any power a few decades years ago.
But the bigger point is - selective prosecution, pushing the whole weight of mighty US Justice System to individuals just to overwhelm them knowing fully well this is not typically necessary, special treatment for individuals with axis of connections and credentials - these have been the typical hallmarks of US Justice System.
Sooner we rid of this whole “American exceptionalism” concept the better we are to face the reality which is US is no different than other empires that existed on the face of the planet where nation states and those who really rule it override the so called “we the people”. Yes you plebes have rights and what not and get to have some nice things like social services but you piss off the wrong people and do that enough - you will be behind the bar in no time. Protecting civil rights, protecting rule of law etc are just vessel slogans for this nation state to wave its might and protect its most powerful.
Remember, Space-X can't use the more "normal"/general "you must be legally permitted to work in the US" because not everyone who can work in the US can work at Space-X, because rockets.
https://www.justice.gov/media/1311656/dl?inline
THEREFORE, Complainant respectfully requests:
...
Order SpaceX to hire applicants who were victims of the discriminatory practices alleged in this Complaint and were qualified for employment;
Order SpaceX to pay back pay, including interest, and all other relief available to each individual discriminated against who was qualified and who is found to have suffered uncompensated lost wages due to denied or delayed employment as a result of the discriminatory practices alleged in this Complaint
https://www.justice.gov/media/1311656/dl?inline
There are 17 specific examples of instances where Musk/SpaceX were publicly and repeatedly disseminating incorrect information about their hiring requirements (sections 34-51), the appropriate governmental department looked into it, found out that yes, Musk and SpaceX officials were repeatedly providing incorrect and false information, and that the complaints they received were legitimate complaints.
It's not a targeted attack; persons had legitimate grievances against SpaceX, went to the appropriate governmental departments to register their complaints, the department investigated and found out that indeed, Musk and SpaceX were violating the law. The emphasis on Musk is only because there are multiple instances cited in the filing where Musk himself was spreading the incorrect information on his social media sites consistently and repeatedly. Even if we give the most benign understanding that SpaceX just misunderstood the laws, it still was incorrect behavior that needs to be stopped.
I really cannot see this as political motivated; regardless of the reasons SpaceX did this, they were not compliant with the law and actively spreading incorrect information. If it was any other company not Musk-adjacent, probably we wouldn't be having this conversation :) Instead we have another example where Musk and Musk-adjacent companies are being held to tasks for the things they say and actions they've taken which have negatively affected others improperly.
Set aside how expensive it will be, you will inevitably end up breaking ITAR laws which is significantly worse.
This makes non-ITAR compliant janitors a harder bargain to hire. Same for the cafeteria workers the DOJ mentions, they may overhear discussion of ITAR work in the cafeteria and that's a problem.
For companies that mostly do ITAR work, it's a no brainer to stick to hiring just ITAR compliant individuals. Companies would fall over themselves to hire cheap labor otherwise LOL.
My above post is not commenting on the validity of the regulations surrounding ITAR, SpaceX, etc, it was responding to the implication that this effort was politically motivated when it clearly was not.
I don't know how many other companies the governmental department was checking, and it's not really relevant, just like the naughty things other kids may or may not have done when you're explaining why it's not correct to punch another kid just because they didn't share their toys.
"It's hard" isn't really an excuse; other industries are held to pretty strict regulatory standards (the entire medical industry for example) and while there are violations and it's a lot of work to validate that a hospital and the doctors and nurses are meeting these requirements, they do it. There are times hospitals need to be corrected, but they still do it. Same with the legal field, same with engineering fields, etc.
So I'm not sure what exactly is meaning to be communicated here; especially with a company like SpaceX, I expect they should be able to follow the regulations and check their applicants appropriately, not just decide "it's too much work" and deny legitimate and legal candidates a chance for employment.
You will inevitably break ITAR, this is why most companies under ITAR (& gov agencies like NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa) does exactly what SpaceX is being prosecuted (persecuted) for.
This is a cut and dry case of political persecution. Not only was this practice not scrutinised, its commonplace and recommended by other agencies (intelligence/enforcement). Refugees/Asylees is a common way to get spies into the country.
SpaceX (any other company) would love to hire cheap labour that would be extremely gracious for the opportunity. They are literally using videos by Elon Musk in the case where he is saying ITAR laws are silly (I disagree btw).
NASA employees are in civil service, not the private sector; there are different rules.
I've worked for several DoD contractors. The question on the job application is "is there anything that would prevent you from obtaining a clearance?" It's not "are you a citizen or green card holder?"
And all that doesn't even really matter. Export controlled information is Controlled, Unclassified Information (CUI). It's one of the lowest grades of information we handle. It's in the name, you don't need a clearance to have access to it. Thus you don't need an investigation. The most you need is a background check, which most companies do for everyone, anyway.
I'm not an expert on any of this but my understanding is you can work straight away as a refugee with a pending status. This is fine for normal companies but it gets very tricky for companies under ITAR.
If the asylum application gets rejected, the work the person did when on pending status could be a violation. All the work they do after rejection would be an ITAR violation (so the company would have continuously monitor status).
> "is there anything that would prevent you from obtaining a clearance?"
If SpaceX asked that, it would be even easier for govies to prosecute them, because very few of SpaceX employees actually need clearance, and you cannot require clearance eligibility if you don't actually plan to clear them and have them work on cleared work. You are confusing ITAR regulations with classification regime, and these two are wholly separate things.
> Export controlled information is Controlled, Unclassified Information (CUI).
It's not, how could it possibly be? CUI is labelling the government bodies put on stuff. ITAR and EAR covers stuff regardless of whether the government had anything to do with it. For example, if you work as a hobby on software to model nuclear bomb explosions, you'd better not show it your colleagues on H1B, as it's covered by ITAR. It's not CUI, because no govie has slapped CUI on it.
The idea that SpaceX is pursuing some invidious scheme of anti-immigrant discrimination is ludicrous. If you read the complaint, every incident DOJ cites really appears to be a good faith attempt to comply with ITAR rules.
I think it is right and proper that low-income victims of labor law crimes don't need to be able to afford attorneys to resolve grievances, and that there exist public institutions that litigate on their behalf, for free.
English common law informs literally every word of the constitution. "The People" are the demos. dêmos (δῆμος): “ordinary citizens, common people from a district, in a city-state.” It never included tourists. Also, the Privileges or Immunities Clause explicitly concedes that citizens have both privileges and immunities. Why would that be?
>It would be inappropriate, however, to require every statutory exclusion of aliens to clear the high hurdle of "strict scrutiny," because to do so would "obliterate all the distinctions between citizens and aliens, and thus depreciate the historic values of citizenship." Mauclet, supra at 432 U. S. 14 (BURGER, C.J., dissenting). The act of becoming a citizen is more than a ritual, with no content beyond the fanfare of ceremony. A new citizen has become a member of a Nation, part of a people distinct from others. Cf. 31 U. S. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 559 (1832). The individual, at that point, belongs to the polity, and is entitled to participate in the processes of democratic decisionmaking. Accordingly, we have recognized "a State's historical power to exclude aliens from participation in its democratic political institutions, as part of the sovereign's obligation "to preserve the basic conception of a political community.'" 413 U.S. at 413 U. S. 647.
Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291 (1978)
This means that there need not be a compelling government interest to justify discriminating between citizens and non-citizens. Nor need the discrimination be done via the least restrictive means available. At least not in the general case.
Reaction II: The statements by the DoJ ("can't discriminate against") and Elan ("at least a green card to be hired") may both be correct...from their respective PoV's: The DoJ is technically right on the law. Vs. Elan knows that any asylees or refugees he hires will, over time, be 100X the legal and security grief that SpaceX has with green cards and citizens - due to everything from Boarder Patrol harassment to the DoD expecting a 5-inch-thick SpaceX Policy manual on how they'll keep any SpaceX employees who the DoD regards with suspicion away from anything slightly sensitive. With said manual backed up by teams of badge-checking security guards, compliance officers, and lawyers - and all on SpaceX's dime.
If the political right does not give a damn about neutral and impartial courts, I guess it‘s fair game to the left as well.
This is nothing burger - this is just basic enforcement of some laws, which happen all the time. Just look at the https://www.justice.gov/news/press-releases website and search "Justice Department Sues". They sue everybody and their mother - that's their job.
If you did search their site, you would see, that they also sued pretty much every big company. Microsoft settled in a similar case in 2021...
I think everybody agrees that it's a weak case, and it's small one - nothing to write articles about. For some reason, those article are getting written.
They're building SPACE ROCKETS. I would imagine even tighter security.
Weaponisation of the judicial branch is what you see in countries we look down on with pity.
Hate him all you want, the guy is not a racist or a xenophobe. He would much rather have geniuses from all over the world come work for his company.
Even if he set up a very expensive system (probs breaks INA & civil rights) to determine and monitor the legibility of refugees and asylees, he'll still inevitably break ITAR. Most companies that has to follow ITAR does the same thing, this is as cut and dry as it gets when it comes targeted prosecution.
I’m sure you can see this can become a problem.
EDIT: why the downvote? You are either for total freedom (including that one) or against (so then you need to draw a line). What’s it gonna be?
See also NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/working-with-nasa
"Other than extremely rare exceptions, you must be a U.S. citizen in order to work for NASA as a civil service employee."
You can google up similar examples at other contractors that mostly do ITAR work. When there are exceptions its mostly in the form of alternative facilities in other countries (which usually require you to be a citizen of those countries).
DOJ needs to sue themselves!
...
I just can’t … roflmao … the irony is too much
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1695484357333631134