The Project Nimbus Files - Week 1 Part 2
Project Nimbus · Part 1 of 4 · 2 of 2
Yesterday the contract. Today the people who read it and said no. What Google did to them.
The sit-ins. The arrests. The mass firings. The workers who spoke on record. The Amazon petition. The contract that remained active.
April 16-17 2024. Three cities. Nearly 10 hours.
02 / 08
New York. Seattle. Sunnyvale. Nearly 10 hours. Livestreamed on Twitch. 9 arrested.
No Tech for Apartheid staged sit-ins at Google offices in three cities.
Workers unfurled a 15-foot "No Tech for Genocide" banner in the New York office.
Nine were arrested.
The group had raised concerns through town halls, petitions and direct executive outreach since 2021.
Google responded by shutting down internal message boards discussing the contract and describing posts as "divisive content."
Source: NBC News April 18 2024 · No Tech for Apartheid statement April 18 2024 · CNBC April 18 2024
Fired. One day after the sit-in.
03 / 08
28 fired. One day after the sit-in.
Google VP of Global Security Chris Rackow sent an internal memo: "Following investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed."
No Tech for Apartheid stated some fired workers were not inside the offices.
TIME called it "one of the largest mass firings in the tech industry."
Rackow warned all remaining staff: "If you're tempted to think we'll overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again."
Source: CNBC April 18 2024, Chris Rackow memo · TIME April 19 2024 · No Tech for Apartheid statement
Amazon Labor Union co-founder. Not going silent.
04 / 08
He built Amazon's first union. Joined the flotilla. Got beaten in Israeli custody. Still speaking.
Chris Smalls co-founded the Amazon Labor Union and won the first union election in Amazon US history in 2022.
TIME named him one of its 100 most influential people.
In July 2025 he joined the Freedom Flotilla.
Israeli forces intercepted and detained him.
According to the coalition, IDF soldiers choked and kicked him, the only force of that level applied to any activist.
On May 4 2026 he projected a statement onto Bezos's penthouse: "Amazon invested billions in Project Nimbus, used to surveil and target Palestinians."
He was arrested outside the Met Gala.
Source: The Nation August 15 2025 · Freedom Flotilla Coalition statement July 2025 · The Union Star May 5 2026
Named workers. Their own words. On record.
05 / 08
These are not anonymous claims. They spoke on record. They were fired for it.
Eddie Hatfield, Google Cloud engineer, interrupted a Google Israel keynote and said: "I refuse to build technology that powers genocide." He was fired in March 2024.
Hasan Ibraheem, Google software engineer, said: "The fact that I am receiving money from Google and Israel is paying Google, I am receiving part of that." He was arrested April 16 2024.
No Tech for Apartheid stated: "Workers have the right to know how their labor is being used, and to have a say in ensuring the technology they build is not used for harm."
Source: CNBC April 18 2024 · No Tech for Apartheid statement April 18 2024
Amazon workers. 2023. No response.
06 / 08
1,700 Amazon workers petitioned to withdraw from Project Nimbus. No executive responded.
In 2023, approximately 1,700 Amazon employees signed a petition demanding withdrawal from Nimbus.
Amazon did not respond publicly.
In September 2025 an Amazon engineer was fired after emailing leadership with ethical concerns about the contract.
Neither Google nor Amazon has publicly addressed the Electronic Frontier Foundation's documented argument that Nimbus violates their own AI ethics principles prohibiting weapons and surveillance applications.
The contract remains active.
Both companies remain silent.
Source: No Tech for Apartheid petition 2023 · NPR April 19 2024 · Electronic Frontier Foundation statement
We are not making a claim. We are asking a question.
07 / 08
28 fired. 9 arrested. 1,700 petitioned. One engineer interrupted a keynote. One union leader went to Gaza and got beaten. The contract is still active. What does it take to be heard?
The workers read the same documents.
Raised concerns since 2021.
Were warned to think twice.
Staged sit-ins.
Were fired.
The contract is still active.
The weapons manufacturers are still required users.
Google still says it is not for military workloads.
Next week: the technology. What AI and cloud infrastructure actually means when applied to a military operation.
The workers said no. The contract is still active.
Next Week · Part 2 of 4
The technology. What AI and cloud infrastructure means when applied to a military operation.