'Googlers against Genocide' protest in Sunnyvale, employees arrested

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Several dozen demonstrators, including Google employees, on Tuesday protested in front of the company’s Cloud headquarters in Sunnyvale.

They took their complaints directly to the office of CEO Thomas Kurian.

Demonstrators occupied his office in Building 4 and read a list of demands.

Organizers say Google must end Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract for Cloud services that provide facial recognition, big data analysis, and object tracking, to name a few.

They say this technology can be used by the IDF in its war against Hamas being fought in Gaza.

"We demand an end to the contract Project Nimbus," Emaan Hasseem said. "We demand Google execs drop Project Nimbus now. And we also demand that Google protect their Arab, Palestinian and Muslim workers who have been speaking out against Project Nimbus who have been facing harassment, suppression, retaliation, at work."

Demonstrators concede there’s no proof Project Nimbus is being used against the civilian population in Gaza.

But they believe it could, and want the contract canceled.

Hasseem said he did not have plans to lose his job right out of college. "But I think it is impossible for me to continue coming into work every week without acknowledging and loudly condemning Project Nimbus." 

A spokesperson for Google told KTVU that Google Cloud supports numerous governments from around the world in countries where they operate. That includes the Israeli government. 

"We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services," the spokesperson's written statement read. 

Google's spokesperson also said the protests were part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who "largely don't work at Google." 

"A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a couple of our locations. Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action," Google's spokesperson said. 

Those employees were put on administrative leave. Their access to the company's systems has also been cut off. 

Protest organizers said Google ordered the arrest of nine workers involved in demonstrations against the company at offices in Sunnyvale and New York City. 

Google's spokesperson was not specific with numbers, but said after refusing to leave the premises, law enforcement removed the employee protesters to "ensure office safety." 

Sunnyvale Police Department said in all, five protesters who remained in the building were arrested without incident for criminal trespassing and booked at the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Headquarters. It is not clear if all five were employed at Google. Police said that the protesters who refused to leave the building were admonished by both Google representatives and Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. Their officers had monitored the protests, which included roughly 80 participants.