On February 18th, hundreds of Oaklanders showed up at the City Council meeting to testify against the Domain Awareness Center – in other words, against spying.
Despite being confronted by scads of police inside the Council Chambers, outside of the chamber, and all around City Hall, despite being spied upon – literally – by OPD as seen in the picture taken that evening inside the Council Chambers, many got up and testified, including those in communities being targeted by Federal agents.
Oakland claims they didn’t take video at this #DAC #oakmtg pic.twitter.com/bc4MmY3IQY #DACPRR http://t.co/iIYPvNVzIb
— Oakland Privacy (@OaklandPrivacy) April 8, 2014
Now Oakland City Government has the audacity to tell its people that the officer in the picture did not take any video and that no information exists about the video or of any use to which it was put.
Here is the Public Records request:
Request #3036
1) Please provide the video taken by this Oakland police officer [pictured here: https://twitter.com/guelo/status/435960608920330241/photo/1] in the Oakland City Council meeting, and in around Oakland City Hall and surrounding plaza area, on the evening of February 18, 2014.
2) Please provide the name and badge number of the Oakland police officer pictured here https://twitter.com/guelo/status/435960608920330241/photo/1
3) Please provide any other video or photographs taken by Oakland police at and around the Oakland City Council meeting and Oakland City Hall and surrounding plaza area on the evening of February 18, 2014.
4) Please provide all documents by all city agencies that referenced the video in #1.
5) Please provide all materials created from images obtained in the video in #1.
Here is the response.
The officer in the photo is Ofc. Ann Pierce 8434. There was no video, materials, or documents created for the below requested date. – Amber C Fuller
It took someone four weeks to determine the non-existence of what obviously exists, an exercise that could produce a good basis for a thesis by some enterprising philosophy graduate student.
This is what passes for transparent government in Oakland. This is their response to those who had the courage to stand up and tell the City Council what it was like to be spied upon.
The City Government of Oakland refuses, in Public Records request denial after Public Records request denial, to tell us, its citizens, what it is doing and why. And yet they question why some refuse to respect their “process.” Perhaps it is because they make things up out of whole cloth, while denying the existence of what is.
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