Former Tesla contractor rejects $15 million payout in racial abuse lawsuit

Last year Owen Diaz, a former contracted elevator operator at Tesla’s Fremont assembly plant, successfully sued the automaker for creating a hostile, racially abusive work environment, and was awarded $137 million by the jury. That award was winnowed down to just $15 million by a judge who gave Diaz two weeks to accept or reject the new amount. As reported by Bloomberg, lawyers for Diaz have taken the latter option.

“In rejecting the court’s excessive reduction by asking for a new trial, Mr. Diaz is again asking a jury of his peers to evaluate what Tesla did to him and to provide just compensation for the torrent of racist slurs that was directed at him,” wrote Diaz’s lawyers in a statement to NBC News.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2017, described a work environment where Black workers were regularly subjected to racial slurs and other abuse, with at least one supervisor allegedly telling Diaz to “go back to Africa” — issues which he also claims the company was negligent in addressing. Tesla has pushed back against some of Diaz’s claims, arguing that it took timely action to stop the harassment, as well as claiming these racial slurs were “used in a “friendly” manner and usually by African-American colleagues.” It also argued that it was not liable for how Diaz was treated given his status as a contractor.

Last year a jury awarded Diaz a total of $6.9 million of compensatory damages and $130 million of punitive damages, which likely would have amounted to one of the largest payouts in a corporate racial discrimination lawsuit. US District Judge William Orrick, in an opinion filed in April, rejected Tesla’s claims that it was not liable for a contract employee, but also slashed the award amount, calling it “excessive.” He reduced the amount of compensatory damages to $1.5 million and punitive damages to $13.5 million. Since Diaz’s lawyers have now rejected the award, the case will proceed to a new trial.

The automaker is also facing another lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing on the behalf of more than 4,000 former and current Black Tesla employees. According to three former Tesla workers interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Black workers at the Fremont facility were segregated, given the most difficult tasks and subject to more discipline than other workers.

Meta settles US lawsuit over housing discrimination

Meta has agreed to settle 2019 charges that it enabled housing discrimination through ad targeting. The deal with the Justice Department will have the company end use of a “Special Ad Audiences” tool that allegedly used a discrimination-prone algorithm to widen the reach of housing ads on Facebook. Meta is instead developing a new method, the “variance reduction system,” to ensure home ads match their eligible targeted viewers.

The decision to retire Special Ad Audiences also applies to credit and employment ads, Meta added. The company said all three categories were part of a “deep-rooted problem” with discrimination in the US.

This is the first time the DOJ has used a case to tackle algorithmic biases under the Fair Housing Act, according to officials. Meta said it collaborated with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for over a year to more accurately target ads and avoid discrimination. The new system will also be subject to DOJ approval and monitoring.

The firm had already limited ad targeting in 2019 after settling another lawsuit accusing it of violating housing discrimination law. Advertisers haven’t been allowed to target campaigns based on age, gender or ZIP code. Special Ad Audiences was launched at the same time to help address issues with a previous system, but Meta said its algorithms needed to adapt to ensure fairness.

A settlement isn’t shocking. Meta has faced other accusations of allowing problematic ad targeting in fields like politics. Other tech heavyweights have also faced penalties. The Federal Trade Commission slapped Twitter with a $150 million fine for reportedly “deceptive” ad targeting that relied on sensitive contact information. The agreement could help Meta avoid similar punishments, and suggests it’s willing to cooperate when ad systems come under scrutiny.

Apple Store employees in Maryland vote to unionize

Apple Store employees at the company’s Towson Town Center location in Maryland have voted to unionize. According to the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, the group that led the unionization effort, workers voted “overwhelming” in favor of joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). With the historic vote, the store is now on track to become the first unionized Apple retail location in the US.

Towson Town Center became the first Apple Store in the US to hold a union election after workers at another retail location in Atlanta withdrew their petition to hold a union vote last month. While Apple hasn’t explicitly come out against its frontline workers organizing, the company has been broadly accused of employing union-busting tactics. It reportedly hired the same anti-union law firm employed by Starbucks and subjected workers to so-called “captive audience meetings.” In Georgia, organizers called off a union vote at the company’s Cumberland Mall location over intimidation claims. Ahead of today’s vote, AppleCore said it was organizing out of a “deep love of our role as workers within the company and out of care for the company itself.”

Apple declined to comment. 

“I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory,” said IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. in a statement following the vote. “They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election. I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and fast-track a first contract for the dedicated IAM CORE Apple employees in Towson. This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple stores and different industries across our nation.”

In the immediate future, today’s vote is likely to bolster ongoing unionization efforts at two Apple Stores in New York and Kentucky, but if recent history shows anything, it’s that a domino effect isn’t guaranteed. After the Amazon Labor Union led workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island to a historic labor win in April, the group failed to achieve the same result one month later a facility across the street. 

Former Amazon engineer convicted in 2019 Capital One data breach

A Seattle jury has found Paige Thompson, a former Amazon software engineer accused of stealing data from Capital One in 2019, guilty of wire fraud and five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. The Capital One hack was one of the biggest security breaches in the US and compromised the data of 100 million people in the country, along with 6 million people in Canada. Thompson was arrested in July that year after a GitHub user saw her post on the website sharing information about stealing data from servers storing Capital One information. 

According to the Department of Justice, Thompson used a tool she built herself to scan Amazon Web Services for misconfigured accounts. She then allegedly used those accounts to infiltrate Capital One’s servers and download over 100 million people’s data. The jury has decided that Thompson violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by doing so, but her lawyers argued that she used the same tools and method also used by ethical hackers.

The Justice Department recently amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to protect ethical or white hat hackers. As long as researchers are investigating or fixing vulnerabilities in “good faith” and aren’t using the security holes they discover for extortion or other malicious purposes, they can no longer be charged under the law.

US authorities, however, disagreed with the assertion that she was only trying to expose Capital One’s vulnerabilities. The Justice Department said she planted cryptocurrency mining software onto the bank’s servers and sent the earnings straight to her digital wallet. She also allegedly bragged about the hack on online forums. 

“Far from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, she exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself,” US Attorney Nick Brown said. Thompson could be sentenced with up to 20 years of prison time for wire fraud and up to five years for each charge of illegally accessing a protected computer. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 15th.

Former Amazon engineer convicted in 2019 Capital One data breach

A Seattle jury has found Paige Thompson, a former Amazon software engineer accused of stealing data from Capital One in 2019, guilty of wire fraud and five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. The Capital One hack was one of the biggest security breaches in the US and compromised the data of 100 million people in the country, along with 6 million people in Canada. Thompson was arrested in July that year after a GitHub user saw her post on the website sharing information about stealing data from servers storing Capital One information. 

According to the Department of Justice, Thompson used a tool she built herself to scan Amazon Web Services for misconfigured accounts. She then allegedly used those accounts to infiltrate Capital One’s servers and download over 100 million people’s data. The jury has decided that Thompson violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by doing so, but her lawyers argued that she used the same tools and method also used by ethical hackers.

The Justice Department recently amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to protect ethical or white hat hackers. As long as researchers are investigating or fixing vulnerabilities in “good faith” and aren’t using the security holes they discover for extortion or other malicious purposes, they can no longer be charged under the law.

US authorities, however, disagreed with the assertion that she was only trying to expose Capital One’s vulnerabilities. The Justice Department said she planted cryptocurrency mining software onto the bank’s servers and sent the earnings straight to her digital wallet. She also allegedly bragged about the hack on online forums. 

“Far from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, she exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself,” US Attorney Nick Brown said. Thompson could be sentenced with up to 20 years of prison time for wire fraud and up to five years for each charge of illegally accessing a protected computer. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 15th.

UK government approves Julian Assange’s extradition to the US

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK home secretary Priti Patel, according to a UK government factsheet. “Under the Extradition Act 2003, the secretary of state must sign an extradition order if there are no grounds to prohibit the order being made,” a Home Office spokesperson said in a statement. “In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange.”

Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health.

The announcement was expected after a UK court issued a formal order to extradite Assange in April, a necessary legal step required before the government can act. “Extradition requests are only sent to the home secretary once a judge decides it can proceed after considering various aspects of the case,” the spokesperson stated. 

After the earlier trial, Assange’s team would have had the opportunity to submit information to sway Patel, but that apparently failed to move her. The order isn’t necessarily the final word on the case, though. Assange’s legal team is expected to appeal within the 14-day window allowed, likely on the grounds of freedom of expression and whether the order was politically motivated. 

It’s not unprecedented for such appeals to be successful, either. Alleged British hacker Lauri Love won his US extradition appeal on human rights grounds, arguing that the order would have caused his Asperger’s condition to deteriorate.