The title underplays it. It’s more than just membership in a despicable organization. He has actively participated in violent hate crimes. Specifically, he was involved in a drive-by shooting at a synagogue.
This is not the kind of background I would want for an employee (or CEO) of a surveillance company with sensitive and private data about US citizens.
> 32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my adult lifetime working to make amends for this shameful period in my life.
> In my teens, I dropped out of school, lived on the streets, ate out of dumpsters and raised money panhandling. I was desperate and afraid. I was taken in by skinhead gangs and white supremacist organizations. Over the course of a few years, I did many things as part of those groups that I am profoundly ashamed of and sorry about.
Eventually, I was able to get myself away from this world while serving in the United States Navy. This turned my life around. While serving my country, I worked with law enforcement agencies in hate group prosecutions and left this world behind.
> Since then, I have tried and failed to completely accept and come to terms with how I, a child of Jewish heritage, became part of such a hateful, racist group. One thing I have done, through therapy and outreach, I have learned to forgive that 15 year old boy who, despite the absence of ideological hate, was lured into a dark and evil world. For all of those I have hurt, and that this revelation will hurt, I’m sorry. No apology will undo what I have done.
> I have worked every day to be a responsible member of society. I’ve built companies, employed hundreds and have worked to treat everyone around me equally. In recent years, I’ve sought to create technologies that stop human suffering and save lives without violating privacy. I know that I will never be able to erase my past but I work hard every day to make up for mistakes. This is something I will never stop doing.
It seems extreme but I think we should give everyone a chance to learn.
He changed his opinions on a range of subjects. If everybody has to step down from a CEO position because of opinions and affiliations they had 30 years ago we will severely limit leadership options to a more narrow group of people than we should.
I think zeitgeist and thereby society is moving quicker than we realize and thereby we shouldn't hold people accountable for every thought they had for an eternity. We should narrow it maybe down to a maximum of decade or so.
The boom of data recording on individual level is otherwise going to hunt people down into infinity.
Especially around the most controversial topics like sexism, racism and other bigotry people will make mistakes and what we are doing today is likely to be seen as immoral by a majority of the people living next century.
In 1901 a woman was sentenced 30 days to jail because she smoked in public in New York City.
In 1958 the government of Belgium decided to invite 500 people out of a colonial of Africa , to put these people on display next to the chimpanzees.
Today both examples from last century would at least end in a career suicide.
I don't know, it's more complicated that this. He was a terrorist. Would you give a second chance to a terrorist? It is a bit more complicated than how he wrote it.
Indeed, he was involved in a terrorist attack against a synagogue, as the getaway driver.
There are people in entertainment who were in gangs. Nelson Mandela was also a terrorist who got a second chance. This deeply gets into philosophy and I don't really have a good answer.
Nelson Mandela had questionable means, but no one has a leg to stand on to critique his goal. As for people in gangs, there is a difference between a criminal and a Nazi terrorist.
Let's not defeat by analogy here. He was not a guerilla fighter that assassinated people in order to stop an oppressive regime. He was not a run of the mill criminal.
He was part of an operation to kill Jews, because they were Jews, in an attempt to bring upon genocide and misery. This is not a philosophical question; it is a question of experience. In different places of the world, your hear a very good argument that he's the only kind of criminal that deserves the death sentence, possibly the most heinous type of person imaginable.
I love this trail of thinking though. Like, what if I told you that there are museums named after a violent domestic abuser? Should we judge Picasso for who he was, for his work, or for both?
I think so, the harm comes from judging someone from the past through the lens of the modern day. Maybe there will be a movement to add asterisks to everything? *the painter, not the domestic abuse performance artist.
Life is complicated especially when people are traumatized. I don't know about his particular case.
Interpret my comment more in general as a plea for the term we should hold people accountable for what is recorded in our digital memory than a plea for forgiveness of terrorist.
Sure, but he participated in a drive by shooting. I'm on board with giving people a chance to learn etc, but I don't see why giving someone a second chance involves contracting with them to purchase surveillance services, and give them access to security camera footage, 911 calls, etc. Especially with already existing concerns about bias and privacy rights with these platforms. I don't think that a good second chance for someone that participated in a racially motivated drive by shooting is putting them in charge of a very sensitive part of the criminal justice system...
I tell my kids that being a teenager means you lose your brain for awhile, then it comes back. I know I had my share of brain-dead moments as a teenager. This guy appears to be the definition of a reformed person, and I am grateful to have read his story.
I'm glad he's reformed, but participating in a racially motivated drive by shooting is not your typical brain dead teenager moment, and this is something that he should have been honest and upfront about, not something that should have been found through investigative journalism. Especially when his job involves surveillance service contracting for the criminal justice system, where racial bias and privacy ethics issues are at the forefront.
> I'm glad he's reformed, but participating in a racially motivated drive by shooting is not your typical brain dead teenager moment
Being made homeless at 15 isn't your typical teenager experience, either. Omitting the fact that he was recruited at a time where he was exceptionally vulnerable is a substantial change.
I met and talked to Damien Patton in the last year: he gave a talk at my college. I remember feeling inspired by his perspective on how anomalies of real-time public data could be used to protect and help people at their most vulnerable moments.
His company does surveillance tech for the criminal justice system, meaning they handle sensitive data and are involved in areas with high risk of racial bias and important privacy and ethics questions. If I was contracting with him, I'd be concerned about why his criminal history wasnt communicated sooner given how relevant it is to the nature of his business (especially with concerns about racial discrimination in the criminal justice system), and I'd be curious why I only found out about it through a news report. He isn't owed societies trust with something so sensitive, delicate, and important. I'm glad he's reformed as a person from his getaway driver for a racially motivated drive by shooting days, but I don't feel sad at all that government is taking the background history of their contractors very seriously and that he is responding by stepping down to signal to people impacted by the criminal justice system the values of Banjo and to alleviate concerns people will have if their police force is contracting with an ex KKK member.
> If I was contracting with him, I'd be concerned about why his criminal history wasnt communicated sooner given how relevant it is to the nature of his business (especially with concerns about racial discrimination in the criminal justice system) and I'd be curious why I only found out about it through a news report.
Why is this concerning? Do you expect people to post their criminal histories on their LinkedIn? Even if said crimes occurred as a minor and the person has spent their whole adult lives as a law abiding person?
I don't find it curious at all as to why he didn't go around announcing his past criminal connections: because it would hamper his career prospects, and because he doesn't want people to portray the actions he took as a homeless teenager as reflecting his character as an adult. This whole thread demonstrates why not highlighting his past history was a wise decision.
Looking at the original article, it looks like he continued associating with skinhead groups in his time in the military[0], and that the reason it didn't come up in background searches is because his name was misspelled.
Yes, I absolutely expect someone entrusted with enormous responsibility in the criminal justice realm to be upfront and open about their past and be held to a far higher, far more stringent standard. And it doesn't help that his company hasn't been the most morally upright company in recent times either[1].
Also, he did state that he had been involved in gangs, as per your own source:
> “We all have a personal story,” Patton told an audience at the Domopalooza tech conference in Salt Lake City in March 2019. “It’s probably what drives you every day to do what you do. Drives your family life, your work life. It’s no different from me.”
> “I came out of an abusive household,” he told the crowd. “When I was a young kid. And I left. And I was a homeless kid living on the streets, under the underpass of the freeway in Los Angeles, eating out of the dumpster. Never finished high school, belonged to street gangs,” he said. “Was up to no good.”
> Looking at the original article, it looks like he continued associating with skinhead groups in his time in the military
He refers to associating with these groups in the past tense, in his 1992 testimony (at which time he was 19). As I stated, the evidence corroborates Patton's explanations that these activities were limited to his teenage years.
I would be more concerned about the government spying and their programs with private companies like this as an end run around several Constitutional limits on government power
> He continued to associate with neo-nazis as an adult.
Can you link to a source? I haven't heard this and it substantially changes things. I want to make sure it's true before speaking it but I can't find it.
"But Patton does not mention that, by his own testimony, he continued to socialize with white supremacists while in the Navy. Patton told prosecutors that he gathered with skinheads while stationed in Virginia for training. “I had known some of the Skinheads there from prior rallies in Tennessee and because of not knowing anybody there, I ended up meeting with them and hung out with them for some time,” he said.
Patton received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the West End Synagogue shooting while he was still in the Navy, ultimately giving his first testimony in the case in September 1991.
In addition to the shooting, Patton was implicated in at least one other hate crime that occurred during his time in Tennessee. According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by a Nashville-area FBI agent in support of a search for Patton and his residences, Patton allegedly defaced the Greater Bethel AME Church in Nashville, an African American Methodist denomination. By his own grand jury testimony, Patton admitted to spray-painting buildings in the area with “KKK” and swastikas. The affidavit also alleges that Patton also impersonated an FBI agent to uncover spies among the skinheads he associated with."
He mentions that he associated with white supremacists, in the past tense, in his 1992 testimony. That would still mean he has not associated with white supremacists since he as a teenager.
It’s not a false dichotomy — it’s pointing out a differing standard in conduct based on race, which is racism.
It’s also pointing out that the fundamental choice in what’s acceptable or not is dumb: someone who made a mistake while young and genuinely has tried to build a better life should be welcomed into society, while criminals who continue to promote a criminal and violent lifestyle should not be.
It’s also mocking that people who talk about “social justice” are often deeply racist and unforgiving people — which perhaps could be fairly criticized for tone, but is again not a false dichotomy.
I think you point out a dichotomy that's interesting, except that I can't find any evidence that people who talk about social justice "often" support violence-inducing criminals and condemn reformed criminals who are white. This sounds like a specter manufactured to make a point about a reality that doesn't match up with the world we (or at least I) live in.
You are creating a false reality where people can only be for "urban" gangsters and against the white CEO. Reality strongly disagrees with this and I suggest you join us on the other side instead of constantly trying to find things to be outraged about.
This is not the kind of background I would want for an employee (or CEO) of a surveillance company with sensitive and private data about US citizens.
https://onezero.medium.com/ceo-of-surveillance-firm-banjo-on...