Guest Blog: Intel Censoring Congo Advocates
From Ann Shannon:
Intel just never seems to learn. After creating a media furor over deleting the posts of Congo advocates on its Facebook Page last week, Intel opened a CSR blog dedicated to conflict mineral legislation inviting us to submit our questions and comments, promising that our questions would be answered. It is censoring our comments, though. Below is my submission (submitted May 21 and resubmitted May 23 after it did not appear on the blog) examining Intel’s statement of May 19th, made by Suzanne Fellender, its Portland CSR person, on the blog. Lisa also submitted a piece on Friday which was never approved or posted)
Now Intel has buried the blog (Intel’s Statement on Conflict Minerals Issue) as No 22 in a long list of blogs available through a link on its Facebook page. Scroll down long enough and you will find it (without Lisa’s or my most recent submissions).
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Dear Suzanne,
You stated in your last post here: “we are genuinely working to find ways to move things forward and help improve supply chain responsibility around the sourcing of these minerals.”
I am tired of being argumentative with Intel…I really don’t like posing enemies. Fighting dragons is exhausting and, frankly, I am too old for it. I have other things I would rather be doing with my time. But the specific proposals that Intel has promoted in the ITIC behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts make your/Intel’s statement seem completely disingenuous and outright hypocritical. Every change it has sought to the legislation is obviously designed to circumvent any meaningful improvement in supply chain responsibility.
One case in point of the MANY ways Intel/HP/ITIC has sought to undermine an importer’s accountability for its supply chain:
1. Intel/HP/ITIC have sought to remove an importer’s responsibility to certify a Customs Declaration that the articles it is importing are “conflict mineral free” or “contain conflict minerals” as specified in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States as having been identified in the Potential Conflict Goods List.
2. It then replaces that requirement with the far more general requirement that an importer declare to THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE every 180 days that: a) it has implemented a system to determine whether its suppliers that produce such articles use metals produced from facilities designated to ‘contain conflict minerals’ or are ‘conflict mineral free’; and b) based on that system, which articles it has imported in the last 180 days contain conflict minerals; AND c) evidence that an importer has imported articles containing conflict minerals in the prior 180 days shall not prevent the importer from claiming the reasonable care defense.
So basically, an importer has only to DECLARE it has implemented a system to determine whether articles it imported over the previous six months had conflict minerals.
But THERE ARE NO STANDARDS OR DEFINITIONS OF WHAT AN ADEQUATE SYSTEM WOULD ENTAIL, OR FOR THE IMPORTER’S ENFORCEMENT OF ITS OWN SYSTEM, NOR ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES OR PENALTIES FOR AN IMPORTER’S FAILURE TO ENFORCE ITS “SYSTEM”! There is ZERO enforceability or accountability involved.
FURTHER, reducing the importer’s obligation to making one declaration every 180 days to the Department of Commerce concerning all that it has imported in the prior 180 days, rather than certifying a Customs Declaration as articles enter the country is a ridiculously vague and general requirement that it appears to mock the objectives of the legislation. It is so transparent as to be laughable, if it were not for the fact that Intel/HP/ITIC seriously proposed it while there are 45,000 lives at stake every month.
How could you or any Intel executive expect anyone genuinely concerned about those lives to take your professed good intentions at face value? How could Intel brass not expect the public to be choking on our rage at their hypocrisy? The evidence stands in clear and direct contradiction to Intel’s professed concerns about working toward “real change” on conflict minerals.
What kind of fools do they take us for? (I know you are just doing your job, Suzanne, …and can only feel for you at how embarrassing that must be for you.) How much contempt does the CEO & Bd of Directors have for our intelligence and for the intelligence of the Senators and Representatives that are working toward meaningful legislation to stem the tide of the carnage in the DRC? I am speechless at the magnitude of your bosses’ arrogance, to think that they can continue spouting these platitudes while promoting such shameless amendments to this legislation.
There are too many other issues, serious and complicated issues, for me to go into at the moment. But believe me, I will get to them, and I will continue to plaster them all over the internet, and I will be sending them to others to send to our Representatives and Senators.
Intel cannot, and will not, get away with this.
[...] like Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel and many others do not want you to know just how bloodsoaked their products are. Americans are [...]
What a disgrace. I sent a comment to Intel’s CSR page (posted below). Will they block this too?
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Suzanne -
Why are you censoring comments? You invite people to voice their concerns, submit questions and comments, and now you’re censoring them? Intel is making itself look worse. Did you really think that your censorship would not be made public? You might be able to block us in one forum, but you can only get so far. You can’t block all the blogs (including mine) that will be letting people know what you’re up to. Shame on you.
I wondered what happened to your recent posts…I have been waiting for them to be posted. :(
I am so glad you kept a copy of your message! I hope they post it, but if they don’t it will still get seen.
I don’t think most large companies have really mastered social media. A week on the internet is like a year in real life!