In the 21st century America, the Internet has become an essential communication tool and a basic part of daily life. Yet in recent years, the has been a trend toward big technology companies seeking to prevent those who hold differing political views from having free access to the communication channels that they control. From demonetization on YouTube to shadow bans on Twitter, those who deviate from progressive orthodoxy on contentious issues far too often find themselves blocked. Now, a group of software engineers claiming to represent the open source community is trying to take the industry’s influence in politics to a new level. They have issued an open letter asking GitHub, a source code hosting service owned by Microsoft, to refuse to do business with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

This petition takes no position on the policies enforced by ICE or what changes should or shouldn’t be made to these policies. Rather, our concern is over who should be making these decisions in the first place. In a democratic society such as the United States, decisions of national importance are supposed to be made by the people through their duly elected representatives, with judicial review to ensure that they are in compliance with the Constitution. It is a subversion of democracy for the leadership of one industry to use its power to override the will of the people as expressed through the democratic process. Please join us in urging Microsoft to leave political decisions to the voters and refrain from denying access to ICE or any other customer on the basis of their politics.