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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Congressional Committee Urges NBA Players to Drop Endorsements Tied to Chinese Slave Labor

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Terrorism

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A U.S. Congressional Committee on China issued a letter Tuesday urging NBA players to end their endorsements of sportswear companies that use materials manufactured in Chinese slave labor camps.

In a letter to the NBA, the chairs of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China pointed out that more than a dozen pro basketball players have inked deals with companies such as China-based ANTA, Li-Ning, and Peak, to sponsor shoes, jerseys, and other types of sportswear. Many of these products are manufactured using cotton from China’s Xinjiang Province, an area notorious for massive camps where inmates serve as forced laborers to make the products and farm the cotton.

“Players have continued to sign new deals with Anta Sports,” said the letter from Senator Jeff Merkley (D, OR) and Representative Jim McGovern (D, MA), Reuters reports.

“We believe that commercial relationships with companies that source cotton in Xinjiang create reputational risks for NBA players and the NBA itself,” the congressmen added.

The committee members note that the U.S. government has officially charged the Chinese government with committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang because of the forced labor camps that literally imprison millions of Chinese subjects. The federal government has also moved to bar imports of cotton from the region.

“The NBA and NBA players should not even implicitly be endorsing such horrific human rights abuses,” the letter exclaims.

The committee members added that the companies the players are working with have publicly embraced cotton from Xinjiang cotton, “likely making them complicit in the use of forced labor.”

“We urge the NBPA to work with its members to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide taking place in Xinjiang and the role of forced labor in the production of products made by brands that NBPA members have endorsed,” the congressional committee added.

“We hope that the result of such efforts would be that the players would leverage their contracts with Anta, Li-Ning, and Peak to push these companies to end their use of Xinjiang cotton. Short of that outcome, we encourage players to end their endorsement deals with these companies,” the congressmen said.

The NBA has stubbornly refused to remark about the forced labor camps making so much of the gear that carries the league’s imprimatur. Indeed, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently claimed that the NBA’s billion-dollar deals with China are a “net plus” for world diplomacy.

“The political science major in me believes that engagement is better than isolation,” Silver credulously exclaimed in May. “That a so-called boycott of China, taking into account legitimate criticisms of the Chinese system, won’t further the agenda of those who seek to bring about global change. Working with Chinese solely on NBA basketball has been a net plus for building relationships between two superpowers.”

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2021/06/01/congressional-committee-urges-nba-players-drop-endorsements-tied-chinese-slave-labor/#

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