Protesters occupy Microsoft office as company reviews its work with Israel's military

REDMOND, Wash. — Police arrested seven people Tuesday after they occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith as part of continued protests over the company's ties to the Israel Defense Forces during the ongoing war in Gaza, organizers said.

Current and former Microsoft employees were among those arrested, said the protest group No Azure for Apartheid. Azure is Microsoft's primary cloud computing platform, and Microsoft has said it is reviewing a report in a British newspaper this month that Israel has used it to facilitate attacks on Palestinian targets.

Eighteen people were arrested in a similar protest in a plaza at the headquarters last week. The group has been protesting the company for months. Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella, and in April it fired two others who interrupted the company's 50th anniversary celebration.

Microsoft employs several ex unit 8200 members in its Defender security service(lots of ex US spooks too). A good deal of the management of its backing data store, web portal and EDR operations are also run out of Israel. This data store contains vast telemetry from the cloud/email/endpoints of most of the fortune 500 and beyond. Let all that sink in for a moment. So if you think the IDF/Mossad is not using these people to gather whatever intel they want from whomever they want to follow around you are only fooling yourself.