Originally published April 10, 2014 at 9:22 PM | Page modified April 11, 2014 at 11:49 AM


Protesters want Gates Foundation to stop investing in prison operator


About two dozen demonstrators protested outside the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday, demanding the philanthropic organization dump its investments in a company that runs private prisons.


By Lornet Turnbull

Seattle Times staff reporter



Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times

Immigrant-rights supporters protest outside Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle on Thursday, calling on the foundation to drop its investments in GEO Group, the world’s largest operator of private prisons and detention centers. GEO operates the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

Reader Comments Hide / Show comments Let's see. Do the prisons decide who goes to prison? Do prisons convict people so they can fill their prisons? You... (April 10, 2014) MORE Hey Lornet, you're using Newspeak when you say Bill Gates is "a supporter of immigration." Do you mean he's a supporter... (April 11, 2014) MORE " Maru Mora Villalpando, who is in the country illegally and active in an anti-deportation movement called, Not1More,... (April 11, 2014) MORE Read all comments Post a comment

Here’s something you won’t see everyday: protesters outside the Seattle headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation proclaiming social injustice.

On Thursday, about two dozen immigrant-rights advocates and other demonstrators gathered outside the foundation’s offices, demanding it dump its investments in one of the nation’s largest operators of private prisons.

Specifically, they want the Gates Foundation — whose co-chairman, Bill Gates, has been a steadfast supporter of immigration — to divert the $2.2 million that its trust invests in The GEO Group.

The world’s largest operator of private prisons and detention centers, GEO runs 59 facilities across the country, including the 1,500-bed Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

“This isn’t just a moral argument,” said William Winters, senior campaign adviser with the Latino advocacy group Presente.org, which organized the protest.

“If the Gates Foundation wants to have the effect in the world they say they want to have, then investing in private prisons is the antithesis of that.”

Organizers said they staged the demonstration after getting no response to a letter they sent to Bill Gates a month ago.

After the demonstration, a handful of protesters were invited inside, where they presented officials with nearly 11,000 signatures collected online.

Gates Foundation spokesman Jonah Goldman, in an earlier conversation, said the foundation and the trust are separate and that the foundation does not control the trust’s investment decisions.

Trust investments, he said, are “the reason we have about $4 billion a year to spend on vaccines, AIDS drugs, on U.S. education and the millennium scholars program — on all the work the foundation does in Seattle and around the world.”

He noted the $2.2 million invested in GEO, compared to the $36 billion foundation trust and GEO, a $2 billion company.

Questions about the foundation’s investments have been raised before, forcing the foundation in the past to issue a statement explaining its policy.

The Gateses guide endowment managers to vote proxies “consistent with the principles of good governance,” the statement said, pointing out that the foundation has defined areas in which it will not invest, such as tobacco stocks.

Winters, who was among those invited inside, said foundation representatives assured protesters that their letter would be submitted to the trust.

He said they wanted to be sure protesters understood all the good the foundation does around the world. It’s something Presente acknowledges and appreciates, Winters said.

“But by investing in GEO, it’s capitalizing an organization that then uses that money to incarcerate more people, which seems to run counter to the foundation’s own mission.”

With Congress declining to act on overhauling the nation’s immigration system, demonstrations over detention and deportation across the country have become more frequent.

One after another, Thursday’s presenters spoke of the effect detention has on families. Winters read portions of statements by some who he said signed the petition, including a Gates scholar from California who said that while he is forever in the foundation’s debt for his education, he is “saddened to know that some of that money was due to investment in the prison industry complex.”

Jose Moreno, 25, who participated in a recent hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center, said in Spanish that he wanted to be part of it to draw attention to the conditions inside the facility, saying, it’s “jail not a detention.”

Maru Mora Villalpando, who is in the country illegally and active in an anti-deportation movement called, Not1More, said it was morally wrong for the foundation to profit from separating families.

“The Gates Foundation should be ashamed for putting money into the business of separating families and into the business of making money off those that are the most vulnerable,” she said.

Initially “curious” about the protest, Goldman said Gates Foundation officials “totally understand the passion that comes from this.”

The allegations made against GEO seem deplorable, he said, “and we certainly understand people standing up for justice. That’s the reason we come to work every day.”


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These corporate non-profits are now taking the place of our public sector with no oversight and accountability.  Some corporations tie employee evaluations and promotions to donating to these specific non-profits.  STOP ALLOWING NATIONAL AND GLOBAL CORPORATE NON-PROFITS TAKE OVER YOUR COMMUNITIES----BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND ARE ELIMINATING THE ENTIRE PUBLIC SECTOR WITH THESE NATIONAL CORPORATE NON-PROFITS!


Be sure to do your homework and check out the non-profits you donate to. We suggest donating to local grassroots non-profits that keep the money local and put it towards helping the people within your community who need it most.


[Collected via e-mail, October 2010]

Keep these facts in mind when "donating". As you open your pockets for yet another natural disaster, keep the following facts in mind; we have listed them from the highest (worse paid offender) to the lowest (least paid offender).

The worst offender was yet again for the 11th year in a row is, UNICEF - CEO, receives $1,200,000 per year, (plus use of a Royal Royce for his exclusive use where ever he goes, and an expense account that is rumoured to be well over $150,000.) Only pennies from the actual donations goes to the UNICEF cause (less than $0.14 per dollar of income).

The second worst offender this year is Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross... for her salary for the year ending in 2009 was $651,957 plus expenses. Enjoys 6 weeks - fully paid holidays including all related expenses during the holiday trip for her and her husband and kids. including 100% fully paid health & dental plan for her and her family, for life. This means out of every dollar they bring in, about $0.39 goes to related charity causes.

The third worst offender was again for the 7th time was, Brian Gallagher, President of the United Way receives a $375,000 base salary (U.S. funds), plus so many numerous expense benefits it's hard to keep track as to what it is all worth, including a fully paid lifetime membership for 2 golf courses (1 in Canada, and 1 in the U.S.A.), 2 luxury vehicles, a yacht club membership, 3 major company gold credit cards for his personal expenses...and so on. This equates to about $0.51 per dollar of income goes to charity causes.

Fourth worst offender who was also again in the fourth spot, for every year since this information has been made available from the start 1998 is amazingly yet again, World Vision President (Canada) receives $300,000 base salary, (plus supplied - a home valued in the $700,000 - $800,000 dollar value range, completely furnished, completely paid all housing expenses, including taxes, water/sewer, telephone/fax, HD/high speed cable, weekly maid service and pool/yard maintenance, fully paid private schooling for his children, upscale automobile and an $55,000 personal expense account for clothing/food, with a $125,000 business expense account). Get this, because it is a "religious based" charity, it pays, little to no taxes, can receive government assistance and does not have to declare were the money goes. Only about $0.52 of earned income per dollar is available for charity causes.

Of the sixty some odd "charities" we looked at, the lowest paid (President/C.E.O/Commissioner) was heading up a charity group right here in Canada. We found, believe it or not, it was......

The Salvation Army's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 Billion dollar organization. Which means about $0.93 per dollar earned, is readily available and goes back out to local charity causes... truly amazing... and well done "Sally Ann".

No further comment is necessary..."Think Twice" before you give to your charity of choice as to which one really does the best for the most - or the least for the most, for that matter.

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The best time to bring the public to an issue is well before the issue becomes policy.  With this net neutrality issue we knew back in 2010 that Obama was failing in his promise to protect net neutrality and we have watched as his administration has allowed consolidation beyond what anti-trust/monopoly laws would bear.  Has anyone seen the commercials where Verizon and Comcast offer the exact product for the exact same cost?  That is price-fixing and this happens when markets have no competition.  The American people have heard nothing on net neutrality since public media NPR/APM was taken corporate in 2010.  They do not know how much it will adversely affect their lives because if they did----they would be in the streets protesting.

So, when Baltimore Sun comes out with an article that explains net neutrality is ending-----giving people no opportunity to fight or have a voice on this issue----The Sun is protecting corporate interests and not public interest.  DID YOU HEAR YOUR MARYLAND POLS SHOUTING AGAINST THIS THESE FEW YEARS?  NOT A PEEP.  THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU!

Democratic voters have to start running and voting for labor and justice in all primaries to shake these corporate pols from the party.  You would have been well educated if your pol was shouting against policies that are killing democracy and public good.

Fight for free, open Internet renewed as FCC considers new regulations 'Net neutrality' at stake as rules governing Internet traffic considered

By Scott Dance, The Baltimore Sun 7:48 p.m. EDT, May 2, 2014

On one side are technologists, preaching that open access to unlimited Internet bandwidth is the bedrock of innovation for a 21st-century economy — and is under threat.

On the other are telecommunications giants that say they are equally committed to an unrestricted Internet but face the challenge of squeezing more and more streamed movies and cable show binges through networks they constantly must beef up.

In the middle, regulators are refereeing a debate that could come to yet another tipping point this month. On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission is set to propose new rules requiring Internet service providers to disclose how they manage and prioritize Web traffic while allowing them to strike "commercially reasonable" deals to juggle demand for bandwidth.

Chairman Tom Wheeler tried to allay fears last week that the rules could lead to a so-called pay-to-play "fast lane" of speedy Internet for Web giants that can afford it, but some still fear the forthcoming regulations leave room for unequal treatment of Web traffic. Entrepreneurs for whom the Internet is a vital marketplace say that could end the freedom that offers anyone with a good idea the ability to create the next YouTube or Netflix.

"The nature of innovation is about creating things no one has expected and creating things we can't necessarily predict," said Alexis Ohanian, the Columbia native who co-founded the online message board reddit. "It's not just a company now that would be hampered. It's all the ones that haven't been created."

Because the Internet developed outside traditional telecommunications regulations, it grew with few boundaries in the 1990s and through the turn of the century. But as the lines between cable, phone and Internet service blurred and the amount of data skyrocketed, a regulatory gray area grew.

Decisions by the FCC and the Supreme Court in the early 2000s left cable-based Internet access unregulated, and phone-based DSL service joined it in 2005. But the FCC has moved since to assert authority over broadband Internet providers and set rules for what is known as Net neutrality, the concept that all Internet traffic should be given equal priority on networks.

But in January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down FCC "Open Internet" rules that broadly prohibited discrimination against Web traffic. The court said the FCC improperly treated Internet service providers as regulated public utilities providing telecommunications services, like telephone companies, while they actually were classified as information service providers.

Consumer advocates have called on the FCC to reclassify Internet providers as more heavily regulated telecommunications services, an idea that has faced resistance from the broadband industry and Republican lawmakers who urged the FCC to tread lightly.

Now the FCC has indicated it is rewriting the rules using different legal standards to support its authority, applying them only to deals between businesses on connections in the last leg of the network that reaches the consumer. The regulations have not been publicly detailed but are set to be formally proposed in the middle of the month and offered up for public comment after that.

But some critics worry that the commission's efforts won't resolve the issue.

While Wheeler dismissed the notion that the rules would allow Internet providers to create a "fast lane" of Web traffic, the rules are expected to permit some agreements between the network operators and content providers. Netflix recently struck deals with Comcast and Verizon to pay fees to ensure its videos are streamed smoothly.

"It's a very slippery slope," said Robert Wray, a Baltimore technology entrepreneur, of the idea that "commercially reasonable" deals will be allowed. "That's a very squeaky term you can find lots of ways to get around."

Many see the FCC action as an end to the Internet's "neutral" founding and the beginning of a future in which costs for higher priority on networks, and faster Internet speeds, will be passed along to businesses and consumers. And that puts innovation at risk, they argue.

"It really helps entrenched power become even more entrenched," said Scott Paley, managing partner of Baltimore digital marketing agency Abstract Edge. "It puts a lot of friction on the ability for a disrupting player to come in."

Rules like the ones being proposed might have hindered the growth of companies that have grown from startups to become household names, Wray said.

"How hard would it have been for Netflix to get funding … if investors knew these types of regulatory demands were in place?" he asked.

Broadband industry officials say fears of an Internet fast lane are unfounded. The industry, however, has begun to employ alternatives such as metered Internet usage, in which users pay based on how much data they use.

Verizon officials declined to comment because of a continuing lawsuit between the company and the FCC over its 2010 Net neutrality rules. Comcast officials declined to comment because the FCC has not revealed the details of its forthcoming rules.

But both companies pointed to statements on their websites supporting an open Internet.

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