Activists target a Google engineer at his Berkeley home [View all]

[Nye Bevan]

On Tuesday, an activist group styling itself the “Counterforce” took the San Francisco Bay Area “protests” against tech-boom-driven gentrification to a new, absurd and potentially dangerous level. They rallied in front of the Berkeley home of Google engineer Anthony Levandowski, ringing his doorbell at 7 a.m. and passing out fliers in his neighborhood that claimed he “develops war robots for the military and builds surveillance infrastructure.”

From Counterforce’s manifesto:

After previous actions against the Google buses, many critics insisted that the individual Google employees are not to blame. Taking this deeply to heart, we chose to block Anthony Levandowski’s personal commute. We also respectfully disagree with this criticism: We don’t see one action as better than the other. All of Google’s employees should be prevented from getting to work. All surveillance infrastructure should be destroyed. No luxury condos should be built. No one should be displaced…

We will not be held hostage by Google’s threat to release massive amounts of carbon should the bus service be stopped. Our problem is with Google, its pervasive surveillance capabilities utilized by the NSA, the technologies it is developing, and the gentrification its employees are causing in every city they inhabit. But our problem does not stop with Google. All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and everyone else building the new surveillance state — We’re coming for you next

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It is also an act of demonization sure to backfire. I have a hard time imagining a more effective way to rally public support for tech workers than this display of juvenile delinquency. The intersection of new technology and growing income inequality presents us with plenty of real, and very difficult, issues to grapple with. How we build a fairer society that treats everyone with respect is something everyone who lives in the Bay should be concerned with.

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/22/the_tech_protests_get_personal_and_ugly/