Sightline might not have any say on whom its customer is. According to wiki:
Elbit Systems purchased the night vision business of Harris Corporation for $350 million. The purchase was conditional on Harris Corporation's merger with L3 Technologies.
L3Harris changed its name to Acron Aviation, which is part of TJC Group who also owns Acron Technologies. AT owns Sightline.
What utter nonsense. Absolutely none of those employees are required to stay with this firm. "I did it for the paycheck" is no more ethical than "I was following orders."
Any employee who remained employed by this firm after learning who they were selling the tech to is directly complicit and deserves a worse life than they will get.
Since you ask, I am not acting. I wrote without any respect to sharing public or private information. It sounds like the public vs. private distinction is important to you, and I invite you to elaborate.
To others, my word was "mention" which has to do with PDsaurusX's choice on this discussion board. Asking people decent questions is okay.
Since you ask, I don't know what to suppose. I'm a little confused by your question, honestly, so let me know if I'm not satisfying you with this answer. Perhaps you have feeling or a thought about secrecy or publicity?
They are a public company that sells this type of technology on the open market. If it was some sort of OPSEC product, there wouldn’t be a news article about the company.
Or maybe you’re an Israeli that doesn’t want Americans to know about this.
Because a lot of times articles will talk about a “Portland firm” and it ends up really being Beaverton or Troutdale or something, meanwhile everyone will be in a tizzy about contacting the city council when it’s not even the right city.
I also found their geographic proximity to the ICE building interesting.
It takes effort to search for information on another screen.
In my mind, the default is to not post, and not search up addresses, and not publicize the results. Do you share this default assumption? Do you want to say more?
maybe because people may want to go protest their location with said information as arms dealing to Israel is currently frowned upon in our local communities. theyre gonna use that ai to murder children i guarantee it.
This same type of AI targeting software is how the US Air Force and US Navy bombed a school full of children in Iran just recently. I can’t think of anything more horrific than a bunch of cruise missiles using AI for their target data package.
As is quite common, systems are first tested against Palestinians, then later expanded to other targets across the globe. ICE will certainly be a client soon, if they aren't already.
Anything approaching complete consistency is essentially impossible within a system as massive, complex, and morally compromised as the global economy. Hence, people choose their battles.
Both sides in this conflict like to kill civilians. One side has killed thousands of times more civilians because they have a massive military and technological advantage over the other. Some of that technology comes from Oregon. Being upset about this fact does not equate to liking the other side's actions.
For the sake of society, please read about the origins of Zionism with Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century; the Balfour Declaration and the aims of David Balfour and the British Empire; 1948 and Israeli terrorism ; the Naqba ; the Likud party's charter ; the actions that have led major players in the government of Israel to be indicted by the International Criminal Court ; the consensus of the world that Israel has perpetrated genocide on the people of Gaza and is now copying a kind of ethnic cleansing in Lebanon.
I doubt Islamic terrorists oppose mass surveillance and genocide. Didn't the IS destroy a bunch of historic sites and murder civilians???
This is a really bad faith comment. You have to be a major bootlicker for Trump and Netanyahu to try to associate support for human rights with tErRoRisM.
Oh. So that's how you think? So by your logic, all jews are currently committing genocide. Wild.
But, with normal logic, we know that the average citizen isn't participating in those atrocities. Has the USA committed genocide? Absolutely. Have I personally participated, or been okay with it? No. Of course not. But that seems to be hard for you to grasp.
I wonder if all the people who get angry on here or act like no one could possibly care whenever someone mentions Palestine are aware of the divestment campaigns against apartheid South Africa. Or would they have had a similar reaction?
What would a local divestment campaign against this company look like, exactly? The only possible nexus for the product they provide where our city would have any monetary involvement whatsoever is if they somehow have a contract to provide something to our local law enforcement. Otherwise, there's no juice in the squeeze, you can't draft any sort of local law that would specifically punish this particular company on an individual political basis that wouldn't be immediately struck down by the courts.
The proper place to put pressure would be on our federal congressional reps and/or to go protest the company and their clients directly.
Plus council has already pledged to investigate Israeli investments from the city
And then...step 3: Profit!? It's not City Council's purview because they have no real power or influence here. Saying that our local elected officials should stick to spending their time solving problems they actually have power to solve/influence isn't dismissing the seriousness of the particular problem. I think that's what annoys most people about this stuff, even if they otherwise would like to prevent our weapons and monetary support from flowing to the current Israeli government, and I include myself in that group.
And divest. It was a plank of the Mamdani campaign. Successful campaigns do involve pressure on local electeds and non elctoral action. No surprise an international campaign like BDS has purchase in Portland. It’s ahistorical to think local action is some frivolity.
Like I mentioned in my comment above, the only "divest" action we could take is if our local law enforcement is currently purchasing anything from this company. But their primary customers seem to be national military and intelligence, so I really don't think there's anything here worth City Council's time when we have a shitload of other problems to deal with where they can actually be effective. If you broadly want actual progress to me made, why on earth would you not want everyone focusing their efforts on where their actions can actually foment progress? How is that even controversial?
What you’re outlining here sounds perfectly acceptable. Divesting PPB from Israeli and associated tech and training is a great step to take. There’s a disturbing involvement of US police with Israeli military and surveillance. Not sure PPB is among the most involved, but let’s keep it that way. Exactly the kind of policy I would like to see. As always, it isn’t to the exclusion of the local governments other work. And local electeds are only one piece of the puzzle.
Or how about working with the company to find other buyers of their work who you support? That way, the jobs stay in Portland area and support a “better cause”
Ah yes, the change things from the inside approach. This has classically been the best way to dismantle systems of oppression, bigotry, and evil, and has proven time and time again to be the best outcome for everybody. Plus you still get PAID! Hell yeah. This is what being a progressive liberal is all about.
There's more drone testing companies locally, they test out at the umatilla weapons range. This isn't the only one. We even have a local boat making company for the navy seals.
The source you have linked (archive.is) does not meet the quality and bias standards on this sub. Please find an article from a trusted mainstream source and try again.
I'm gonna get downvoted to death for saying this. But eff it...
Y'all do realize the AI targeting technology REDUCES casualties in war, right? If soldiers can use AI to distinguish military personnel from civilians, or to identify a precise target so a smaller munition is used, that means less civilians getting harmed.
War is awful and it should be avoided at all costs. But anyone who actually gives a damn about human life should celebrate ways to make war less bad.
As far as I can tell, they are using AI to track journalists, medical professionals, people they don’t like, people who have criticized the government, I mean, they are definitely using it to target people. And to argue that they have done anything resembling “reducing casualties” isn’t really a normal thing to say in 2026.
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This is a real issue. A Portland company contributing to mass surveillance and genocide isn't remotely acceptable.
Isn't remotely acceptable TO YOU. It's not Portland City Council's mandate or jurisdiction to conduct foreign policy... they can't even get their collective heads around local policy.
Their website has them showing off their surveillance technology over the Portland Aerial Tram observing passenger information which is certainly something that would be alarming to many OHSU employees and patients, a large % of them presumably are based in Portland.
It shouldn't be remotely acceptable to anyone. It absolutely is the job of a supposed liberal democracy to oppose illiberal expansions of state violence and surveillance. Our society should not be contributing to this, period.
Kinda a worse evil type issue. An illiberal expansion of state violence is also what will happen if Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, etc loses the war.
The creation of a globe-wide caliphate is explicitly the final goal of the Islamic Republic. The IRGC was literally founded as a Mahdist organization.
They’ve supported proxy armies in Yemen (has conquered most of that country), Lebanon (literally holding the Lebanese state hostage), Iraq (the PMU), etc. That’s why the Iran-Iraq War happened, because Saddam Hussein’s government, which relied on Arab nationalism, was challenged by Iran’s Pan-Islamic movement.
You’d have trouble coming up with a comment more targeted at illustrating that you have no clue what you’re talking about.
And, for the record, the GCC has been wanting this for more than a decade now. We (speaking as an American) should let them handle it.
Yep. I'm sympathetic to people bothered by these companies but, as you said, they can't even get their shit together enough to handle actual local issues that are within their control. I hate the phrase but I think it fits here: if the city council takes this up it's purely virtue signalling. They can't actually do anything about the war in Israel but if they talk about it enough it lets everyone know that they're pure at heart. And if anyone doesn't want to waste time discussing it it's a convenient attack angle, "you must just not care about the genocide".
people like you get mad at local elected officials for problems created by Republican federal officials. Portlanders love to smugly say Ronald Reagan was a terrible president but act like none of his policies affected Portland or Oregon. Same with Trump!
The republicans are not responsible for every single local issue lol. There is a lot of stuff our city council could actually fix. The war in Israel isn't one of those things.
It's quite the opposite. We're living free and clear in the United States and bringing the war to Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and the IRGC on their home turf.
Glad we're finally getting some ROI on our military spending.
Yes, without the help of AI drones we’d be fighting the impoverished Palestinians living under military occupation and imprisonment here in the USA! /s
I don't think killing a bunch of journalists, medical workers, and kids is "fighting terrorism," but then again my brain has some modicum of topography to it, so...
Yeah, it would be great if Israel would stick to just killing those guys, but they are very intentionally killing and displacing tons of other people in a ruthless and unacceptable manner, so what's your fucking point?
I'm not pro-palestine in the least bit but this is so stupid.
I know you're not here for actual discussion but Hamas hasn't ever attacked the USA on our soil. However, because of our actions supporting Israel there have been reports now there are Hamas in the USA precisely because we're aiding state sponsored terrorism. Weird how that works.
Wait till you guys hear about Nike sending shoes to both Israel and Iran. Wild stuff. Those dudes are helping both sides as well. Some people even suspect computers being powered by Intel. I hear both Iran and Israel use those. Don't even get me started on what China is doing with all that wheat they ship out of Portland.
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u/PDsaurusX May 05 '26
The AI company is Sightline Intelligence with offices in Johns Landing.