Google Workers Detained by Police for Protesting Cloud Contract With Israel

Nine Google workers were removed by police from company offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, late Tuesday after staging an hours-long sit-in protest against a cloud contract with Israel’s government.

The Sunnyvale protest occupied the office of Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google’s cloud division, at a building close to Google’s main HQ in Silicon Valley for more than eight hours. The New York protest occupied a common area on the 10th floor of Google's Chelsea location.

Videos seen by WIRED showed people who appeared to be Google security staff walking up to protesting workers in two different offices accompanied by local police. In the video from New York, a man who appears to be relaying a message from Google management informs the protesting workers that they have been placed on administrative leave, and asks them to take the opportunity to depart peacefully.

“We will not be leaving,” a protesting worker replies. A man in uniform then introduces the officers as NYPD and delivers a final ultimatum, saying the workers have a last chance to walk out freely. “If not, you can be arrested for trespass,” he says. When the protesters again decline to go, police officers put them in handcuffs.

WIRED could not independently verify that the four workers in New York and five in Sunnyvale who had apparently been detained by police were arrested or charged. A person involved in coordinating the protests says the New York workers were arrested with desk appearance tickets, which specify when a person must appear in court. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Early on Wednesday an Instagram account linked to the protests said all the detained workers had been released.

Tuesday night’s police action came after “dozens” of employees were placed on administrative leave after participating in the day’s sit-in protests but leaving peacefully, the person involved says. Protest rallies also took place outside Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale, and Seattle.

The action called on Google to drop a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government known as Project Nimbus that also involves Amazon. Last week, Time reported that the contract