Calendar
Please email contact@oaklandprivacy.org a few days before the meeting to get up-to-date location information or obtain Zoom meeting access info.
Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for privacy, surveillance regulation of both corporations and the state, and government transparency, around the Bay and nationwide.
We fight against spy drones, facial recognition, tracking equipment and online tracking, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws, and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones; we oppose “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” — to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.
We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We pursue lawsuits as necessary to protect our rights. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.
Check out some of what we worked on in 2024, with links back through 2019.
Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network. We helped fight and in 2018 we helped win the fight against Urban Shield.
Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, mass aerial surveillance, ubiquitous license plate readers, online tracking and ID requirements, street surveillance, and fighting to ensure local governments adhere to State privacy and transparency regulations.
On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work, and on March 16th, 2021 the James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:
Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/
Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy, and/or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@oaklandprivacy, and/or at Bluesky at @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social
Debtors of the world, unite!
Alone, our debts are a burden. Together they give us power. When we share our experiences of debt and economic pressure with each other, we begin to see our collective power to change the systems that exploit us. Everyone is welcome to participate in this debtors assembly, whether or not you are currently debt-burdened.
This is a 100 Days to Build Debtor Power event. Over the first 100 days of the new presidential administration, we’re embarking – together – on an intensive campaign of organizing trainings, political education, and debtors assemblies to build our solidarity AND prepare us with the skills we’ll need in the months & years ahead.
Where do we go from here? Come to the next All-Chapter Gathering and join the discussion! RSVP HERE
One by one and in groups, people are peacefully resisting. An Episcopal bishop, mayors of sanctuary cities, states’ attorneys general. What is the role of a grassroots climate group dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience?
Our newly-formed Strategy and Action Circle, working with break-out room ideas from our last All -Chapter Gathering, will report on their developing recommendations for the Spring Rebellion and gather your input. We need your experiences, wisdom, expertise, and energy to fully develop a Spring Campaign focused on climate, justice, and democracy.
With all the human suffering caused by a wide array of cruel policies, the climate crisis is getting only minor media attention. That’s understandable, but one of our roles is to remind people that fossil fuels were the beginning and must be at the end of this multidimensional crisis. Let’s work together to plan a dramatic, imaginative, and peaceful campaign that focuses on fossil fuels but also connects the dots with all the other policies that help keep the climate deniers in well-funded power.
Join the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity next Wednesday, for a press conference, procession, and day of remembrance vigil. We gather to reaffirm sanctuary, a sacred tradition across many faiths of welcoming immigrants and standing against actions that would tear families and communities apart.
RSVP HERE
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite. All are welcome.
For our January, 2025 meeting we will be reading the first seven chapters Making Sense of Chaos by by J. Doyne Farmer (Yale University Press, Amazon). For our February meeting, we will be finishing the book.
We live in an age of increasing complexity—an era of accelerating technology and global interconnection that holds more promise, and more peril, than any other time in human history. The fossil fuels that have powered global wealth creation now threaten to destroy the world they helped build. Automation and digitization promise prosperity for some, unemployment for others. Financial crises fuel growing inequality, polarization, and the retreat of democracy. At heart, all these problems are rooted in the economy, yet the guidance provided by economic models has often failed.
Many books have been written about J. Doyne Farmer and his work, but this is the first in his own words. It presents a manifesto for how to do economics better. In this tale of science and ideas, Farmer fuses his profound knowledge and expertise with stories from his life to explain how we can bring a scientific revolution to bear on the economic conundrums facing society.
Using big data and ever more powerful computers, we are now able for the first time to apply complex systems science to economic activity, building realistic models of the global economy. The resulting simulations and the emergent behavior we observe form the cornerstone of the science of complexity economics, allowing us to test ideas and make significantly better economic predictions—to better address the hard problems facing the world.
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More, Cannibal Capitalism, Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy, How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World, Wealth Supremacy, The Persuaders, The Path to a Livable Future, Solidarity, Mutual Aid and Breaking Together.
Speaker: Dan Kovalik
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85175860127?pwd=bfZRQOSMuhX9Pfm4qhPMOZMrmE9Ohm.1
Our speaker, international human rights advocate and lawyer Dan Kovalik just returned from Syria, once a beautiful country and the cradle of civilization. He visited so that we could speak out for people there who can’t speak out because they fear violent repression. Dan will report back on the current situation in light of historical developments. The new de facto government was in large part brought to power by the US and other foreign entities and does not have a mandate or right to rule. Multiculturalism has been destroyed by the new government, putting many minorities at risk.
Dan Kovalik has written extensively on international human rights and US foreign policy. He has lectured throughout the world on these subjects and frequently appears on RT. He is the author of books exposing the machinations of US imperialism in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, and most recently Palestine/Israel. Other books include a progressive case against cancel culture and how the US violates international law. He teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He graduated from Columbia University School of Law. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019.
- See this video made on his return to the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2L-R3yXI0
- Here is an earlier interview: https://www.mintpressnews.com/dan-kovalik-on-elections-rebuilding-and-the-ongoing-proxy-war-in-syria/277524/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZBgjZLW8lI
Invite Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
At 18 years of age, Theodore Hall was the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, hired as a junior at Harvard and put to work at Los Alamos in 1944. Assigned the job of testing and refining the complex implosion system for the plutonium bomb, Hall was described as “amazingly brilliant” by his superiors on the project, many of whom were Nobel Prize winners. But what Hall’s colleagues didn’t know was that the teenaged Hall was also the youngest spy taken on by the Soviet Union in search of secrets to the atomic bomb. Spy With No Country tells the gripping story of a brilliant scientist whose information about the plutonium bomb, including detailed drawings and measurements, proved to be integral to the Soviet’s development of nuclear capabilities.
In the dying days of World War II, defeat of the Third Reich became a matter of when, not if. Tensions between wartime allies America and the Soviet Union began to rise, and things only got hotter when the United States refused to share information on its nuclear program. This groundbreaking book paints a nuanced picture of a young man acting on what he thought was best for the world.
Neither a Communist nor a Soviet sympathizer, Hall worked to ensure that America did not monopolize the science behind the atomic bomb, which he felt may have apocalyptic consequences. Instead, by providing the Soviets with the secrets of the bomb, and thereby initiating “mutual assured destruction,” Hall may have actually saved the world as we know it. But his contributions to the Soviets certainly did not go unnoticed. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover opened an investigation into Hall, which was escalated when it was discovered that Hall’s brother Edward was a rising star of the Air Force, leading the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Featuring in-depth research from recently declassified FBI documents, first-hand journals, and personal interviews, investigative journalist Dave Lindorff uncovers the story of the atomic spy who gave secrets away, and got away with it, too.
Dave Lindorff is an American investigative reporter, filmmaker, a columnist for CounterPunch and a contributor to Tarbell.org, The Nation, FAIR and Salon.com.
Lindorff graduated from Wesleyan University in 1972 with a BA in Chinese language. He then received an MS in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1975. A two-time Fulbright Scholar (Shanghai, 1991–92 and Taiwan, 2004), he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University in 1978–79.
In 2019, he was a winner of an “Izzy” for “Outstanding Independent Journalism” awarded by the Park Center for Independent Media.
He is also founding editor of the collectively run journalism news site ThisCantBeHappening!, along with six other journalists: John Grant, Jess Guh, Alfredo Lopez, Ron Ridenour, and Linn Washington, Jr., political cartoonist Dave Kiphuft and resident poet Gary Lindorff. The news site, since its founding in June 2010, has won seven Project Censored awards for its coverage and was labeled a “threat” in a memo TCBH! obtained through a FOIA filing with the Department of Homeland Security,
A former bureau chief covering Los Angeles County government for the Los Angeles Daily News, and a reporter-producer for PBS station KCET in Los Angeles and its Emmy-winning investigative news program “28-Tonight,” Lindorff was also a founder and editor of the weekly Los Angeles Vanguard newspaper (as was TCBH member Ridenour), established in 1976, where he won the Grand Prize of the Los Angeles Press Club for his reporting as well as an award for Best Article in a Weekly.
Lindorff also worked at the Minneapolis Tribune, the Santa Monica Evening Outlook and The Middletown Press in Connecticut, which was his first professional journalism job.
He is the author of five books, the most recent being Spy for No Country: The Story of Ted Hall, the Teenage Atomic Spy Who May Have Saved the World. His previous books include: The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office, written with attorney Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
He is co-producer along with Mark Mitten of A Compassionate Spy,[a feature-length documentary film directed by two-time Academy Award-nominee Steve James, about the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, 18-year-old Theodore (Ted) Hall, hired at Los Alamos to work on the implosion system for the plutonium bomb used in the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, and a month later on Nagasaki. This movie is available from AMAZON.
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
Take To the Streets
“Presidents Day"
Monday, FEB 17
NO! In the Name of Humanity,
We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America!Now Is the Time: Stand Up, Resist, Protest
To STOP Trump’s MAGA FascismFind/host a protest
>> https://t.co/0rw9jIsiZp#NotMyPresidentsDay #RefuseFascism pic.twitter.com/h0lrXasLWi— Refuse Fascism (@RefuseFascism) February 13, 2025
The bellicose foreign policy of the U.S. continues to fuel instability and war worldwide in misguided efforts to attain global hegemony. In Europe, the Mideast, and the Pacific, U.S. covert and overt actions are undermining political stability and endangering peace. The webinar will explain how this process works, review the historic record, and address the dangers posed by continuation of covert and overt U.S. actions that harm other nations and threaten our own national security.
You must pre-register for the webinar HERE or click on the link below
https://us06web.zoom.us/
Panelists:
Matthew Hoh has been a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy since 2010. In 2009, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the American escalation of the war. He advocates a foreign policy centered on diplomacy, human rights, and international cooperation, rather than militarism. He is a disabled veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq.
Dr. Jill Stein was the Green Party candidate for President in 2024, 2016, and 2012. Jill advocates for cutting military spending, ending U.S. interventionist wars, and closing overseas military bases. She supports replacing militarism with diplomacy, promoting international cooperation, and respecting international law. Her approach prioritizes addressing the root causes of conflict, such as poverty, climate change, and inequality, and redirecting resources toward global humanitarian aid and development.
Daniel Kovalik, a human rights lawyer and author, is a strong critic of U.S. interventionist foreign policies. He opposes regime change operations, economic sanctions, and military interventions, arguing that these tactics often violate international law and worsen conditions in affected countries. Kovalik emphasizes the importance of respecting national sovereignty and addressing global issues like poverty and inequality through cooperation rather than coercion.
The webinar moderators will be Madelyn Hoffman, a Co-Chair of GPAX, and Noura Khouri of the Green Party of California.
Madelyn Hoffman is an environmentalist and peace activist. Madelyn served as the director of New Jersey Peace Action from 2000 to 2018 and has been a prominent figure in the Green Party, running as their candidate for U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2020, and for Governor of New Jersey in 1997 and 2021.
Noura Khouri is a U.S. born Palestinian human rights activist and community organizer based in Oakland, California. Over the past two decades, Noura has dedicated herself to advocating for Palestinian rights, serving as a campaign strategist and organizer. She has lived and worked in occupied Palestine and Egypt, gaining firsthand experience in the role and impact of US foreign policy on the region.
On February 19th, federal workers and supporters are gathering to say NO to Elon Musk’s push to gut federal services and impose mass layoffs.
Join us at La Peña Cultural Center for a quick photo op to support this push back against the coup!
There will be singing!
We’ll gather at 2:30–take and share some photos of all of us with our signs. Make your own or just show up! We’ll be done before 3 PM.
Our demands:
- NO cuts to vital services
- NO mass layoffs: respect union workers’ contracts
- END the funding freeze
Join federal workers, unions, and community members rallying for a Save Our Services day of action!
Wear red, white, and/or blue. Bring signs about how your community benefits from federal services. This is a family-friendly events. All are welcome.
The Friends of Public Bank East Bay host general organizing meetings every Wednesday at 6pm via zoom
If you’d like to join us, send us an email and one of our members will be in touch.
We can match your interests and skill set to our needs!
Public Bank East Bay hopes to open by 2025, as a transformative institution that keeps our money local, allowing local governments to divest from Wall Street and reinvest its profits back into our community. Public Bank East Bay’s initial loan policies will support affordable housing development, provide support for small businesses (especially for marginalized entrepreneurs), finance the renovation and electrification of existing buildings, and help cities and counties refinance their municipal debt.
This event is a part of the 100 Days of Debtor Organizing and in particular is for those a part of the Debt Collective’s 50 Over 50. This call is open to anyone and will serve as a training to supporting student debtors in your community with information on the current avenues to debt cancellation. We will be sharing how we hosted events in local communities to educate and support folks on these methods of debt cancellation. This is through existing programs such as Total and Permanent Disability Discharge, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and Income Driven Repayment cancellation. As well, we provide tips in how to have debtor organizing conversation.
Join us on zoom on Feb 19th at 8pm ET, you can register here.
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 894 2358 7022
Passcode: 123456
The Friends of Public Bank East Bay host general organizing meetings every Wednesday at 6pm via zoom
If you’d like to join us, send us an email and one of our members will be in touch.
We can match your interests and skill set to our needs!
Public Bank East Bay hopes to open by 2025, as a transformative institution that keeps our money local, allowing local governments to divest from Wall Street and reinvest its profits back into our community. Public Bank East Bay’s initial loan policies will support affordable housing development, provide support for small businesses (especially for marginalized entrepreneurs), finance the renovation and electrification of existing buildings, and help cities and counties refinance their municipal debt.
https://twitter.com/HeatherThomasAF/status/1894468347636715742
