Calendar
Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state, against Urban Shield, and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area, including the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the BART Board of Directors, and by the Oakland and Berkeley City Councils.
We are also engaged in the fight against Predictive Policing and other “pre-crime” and “thought-crime” abominations, drones, improper use of police body cameras, ALPRs, requirements for “backdoors” to your cellphone and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments.
OPWG originally came together to fight against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network; its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC, and made Oakland’s new Privacy Advisory Commission to the City Council happen. We were also the lead in having Alameda County pass the most comprehensive privacy and usage policy in the country for deployment of “Stingray” technology (cell phone interceptors).
We have presented our work at the recent RightsCon in San Francisco and at Left Forum and HOPE in New York City.
If you would like to attend our meeting and would like a quick introduction to what we’re doing before we dive right into the thick of our agenda, send email to contact@oaklandprivacy.org and one of us will show up twenty minutes early to give you some background on our work.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard our right not to be spied on by the government.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
or send a request to contact@oaklandprivacy.org
For more information on the DAC check out
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Bay Area is a local chapter of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. There are over 150 chapters and affiliates nationwide. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability.
Come learn about our current work and activities much of which focuses on police violence, displacement and dismantling white supremacy. You’ll also hear about what SURJ’s committees are currently working on: Basebuilding, Communications, Fundraising, Mobilization, San Francisco, and Youth & Families.
We’ll answer your questions, and share how you can get involved.
Help stop new jail construction in Alameda County!
Backup location if Paris Baguette has no seating: Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater, outside of City Hall.
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
- organizing for public banking
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- Tiny Homes for the homeless.
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contract
- student debt resistance
- Promoting the concept of Basic Income
- fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitive ticketing and fining schemes
- advocating for Postal banking
- Presenting debt-related topics at forums and workshops
- Bring your own debt-related project!
If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early and meet one or two of us before the formal meeting starts, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
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 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. 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 four years! 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
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Liberated Lens Collective is a community media project based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We believe that story telling belongs to everyone. We do not depend on mainstream media or an expensive film school: we empower ourselves to make our own images!
We learn by doing. We teach eachother. We work horizontally, and operate by consensus. We make films in a spirit of collaboration, inclusivity and solidarity, maintain a film equipment library for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops, and host film screenings. In May 2015 we organized the Films 2 The People Short Film Festival.
To be updated about what we do, join our announce mailing list: Liberated_Lens.announce@lists.riseup.net
To get involved, come to our meetings! We’re open and happy to welcome you, no matter your experience level. Sometimes, the meetings turn into creative workshops!
Monthly APTP meeting, held on every 3rd Wednesday of the month.
The Anti Police-Terror Project is a project of the ONYX ORGANIZING COMMITTEE that in coalition with other organizations like Idriss Stelley Foundation, Community READY Corps and Workers World is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
Help stop new jail construction in Alameda County!
The Oakland Police Department’s future use of a cell-site simulator, known as Stingray, hinges on the policy’s approval by the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission and the Oakland City Council. The Stingray, and its upgraded version, the Hailstorm, poses as a cellular tower and tricks cell phones into giving up data like unique ID numbers and location. The police use it to locate a suspect or victim in an investigation, but critics have long voiced concerns about privacy and potential abuse of the powerful tool.
The commission and OPD representatives will reconvene on Thursday, Oct 20th in a special session to discuss and likely vote on an updated policy.
Video of the previous OPAC meeting.
Recent article about the Stingray, the policy, OPAC, etc.
Come by our open Delegates Meetings every First and Third Thursday of the month at 7pm! We’ll give space to brief announcements, updates from working groups, proposals up for consensus, and discussion around important issues. The schedule is created weekly at the following url: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
Are you outraged by recent attacks by police upon unarmed Black men and women in Baltimore, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, and Charlotte, NC? Are you angry that as brutal as the attacks have been, almost no officers have been charged or held accountable for their actions? Join SURJ – Bay Area for an initial coordination meeting to discuss bringing our support for the Movement 4 Black Lives to neighborhoods across the East Bay.
As non-Black allies, we witness these injustices and know that it is critical to make our empathy and support for Black people visible and public now more than ever! Throughout the East Bay and nationally, folks have been holding weekly gatherings on prominent street corners and freeway overpasses, holding signs and making visible our support for Black communities in these critical times. These gatherings, or “human billboards,” have been a simple yet effective way of calling attention to injustice and demonstrating solidarity.
Meeting objectives:
1) To listen to and Q&A with folks who have established regular vigils/billboards in their neighborhoods.
2) To provide interested folks the tools and skills necessary to organize their own committee.
3) To establish a new network of neighborhood-based committees that will organize human-billboards in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives
Join us for an in-depth look at rent control measures on the ballot in Richmond and Oakland — two of the key Bay Area cities where rising costs are pushing working- and middle-class people out of their communities. Plus updates on our campaigns. We need your participation and your voice!
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 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. 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 four years! 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
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Liberated Lens Collective is a community media project based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We believe that story telling belongs to everyone. We do not depend on mainstream media or an expensive film school: we empower ourselves to make our own images!
We learn by doing. We teach eachother. We work horizontally, and operate by consensus. We make films in a spirit of collaboration, inclusivity and solidarity, maintain a film equipment library for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops, and host film screenings. In May 2015 we organized the Films 2 The People Short Film Festival.
To be updated about what we do, join our announce mailing list: Liberated_Lens.announce@lists.riseup.net
To get involved, come to our meetings! We’re open and happy to welcome you, no matter your experience level. Sometimes, the meetings turn into creative workshops!
Join us to fight for a livable wage for all Bay Area workers! We collaborate in principled reflection and action on what the Bay Area livable wage would be and where we are at on the right to a livable wage.
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds Community and Power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
Our work together encompasses:
(1) The concerns of precarious, care and contingent workers,
(2) Campaigns to improve wages for low wage workers, and
(3) Efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.
We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
Oakland Livable Wage Assembly meets every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, 6:30-8:00 PM at the SEIU Local 1000 Union Hall, 436 14th Street #200, Oakland, CA
Please love and support one another ~ We have a duty to fight ~ We have a duty to win!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568668586707336/
Defend Anti-Fascist Teacher Yvette Felarca!
Community Organizing Meeting
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
5pm
North Branch – Berkeley Public Library
1170 The Alameda, Berkeley, CA
Protest and Speak-Out at School Board Meeting
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
6:30pm Rally outside
2020 Bonar Street (at University), Berkeley California
7:30pm Speak out inside (fill out speakers cards before)
1231 Addison Street (around the corner from 2020 Bonar)
Berkeley School Board Persecutes Teacher For Helping Stop Neo-Nazis: Stop the Witch Hunt Against Yvette Felarca and Interrogation of Her Students!
Anti-fascist activist and teacher Yvette Felarca has been removed from her classroom at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School in Berkeley, California, for helping stop a neo-Nazi recruitment rally on the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento this summer.
After Ms. Felarca was stabbed and beaten by the fascists, terror threats were made against her and the school if she’s not fired. Instead of defending the entire community, including Ms. Felarca, the school district is capitulating to the neo-Nazis’ demands by taking disciplinary measures against her and removing her from her job.
Prior to being put on administrative leave on September 21 the school district reached back into her bank account after depositing her wages, and took them back out, suddenly challenging previously approved sick days and leaves already taken.
Since then, both current and former students have been pulled out of class and interrogated about her, without their parents’ informed consent, targeting immigrant and limited english speaking families in particular.
Ms. Felarca has been teaching ELD (English as a Second Language) and Humanities at King Middle School for a decade. She is a member of the Executive Board of her union, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT), and is a founding member of the Equal Opportunity Now/By Any Means Necessary (EON/BAMN) Caucus, an organization working on civil rights issues.
The actions against Ms. Felarca are directly counter to the Berkeley school district’s historic embrace of the fight against racism and fascism. Three district schools are named after civil rights leaders – Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X, and Berkeley was one of the very first school districts to voluntarily desegregate.
Students from all grade levels – elementary, middle, and high school, as well as parents, fellow teachers from Berkeley and Oakland, and a diverse range of community members have been rallying in defense of Ms. Felarca. Please join us in speaking out:
Come to the school board on November 2, write to the board members, and encourage your unions, collectives, and congregations to speak out and write letters and resolutions in solidarity with Yvette Felarca.
Demand that she be reinstated immediately, repaid her full wages, and the harassment of her and her students be stopped!
Write to: boardofed@berkeley.net, Superintendent@berkeley.net,
CC: yvette.felarca@ueaa.net
Defend Yvette Felarca! Non-sectarian defense of all anti-fascists!
An injury to one is an injury to all!
More Details and Background:
Grievance of Yvette Felarca: https://occupyoakland.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Grievance-of-Yvette-Felarca1.pdf
Press conference with Yvette Felarca and her lawyer, September 28: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHhVxvNt3vY
September 21 school board meeting, public comments by Yvette Felarca, her students who demonstrated how she helped empower them, parents who praised her teaching style and expressed concern about recent racist activities in the schools, fellow workers who wondered about the implications of the district’s actions for other teachers, and community members who told personal stories about fascism in their own lives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2giLt6Fu4
October 5 rally outside the school board meeting, and public comments inside by more students, parents, teachers, and community members speaking in defense of Ms. Felarca. When board members refused to disclose their personal positions on whether she should continue to teach, and instead scurried off into a second, unagendized “closed session”, the community held its own meeting in the board room, with many more speaking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdwuri1LFYI
October 19 school board meeting, more public comments in defense of Ms. Felarca, including a description of an interrogation by a student, remote participation from a former student who called in from Mexico City, and a standing ovation from one of the student representatives on the board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az4GFkzEfSo
Report of what happened in Sacramento, and the neo-Nazis involved: http://antifasac.weebly.com/home/blood-in-the-valley-why-people-put-their-lives-on-the-line-to-run-nazis-out-of-sacramento
More about the fascist organizers of the Sacramento rally: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/06/27/violent-clashes-erupt-sacramento-between-white-nationalists-and-antifascists
Details about neo-Nazis converging in Berkeley prior to their attempted rally in Sacramento: https://itsgoingdown.org/big-nazis-on-campus/
Article about racist events at Berkeley High School over the last couple of years, including racist pages in the yearbook which had to be recalled, a noose hanging from a tree, and a terror threat citing the KKK on a school computer, which resulted in a walkout by the majority of students: http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/11/04/racist-threats-posted-on-berkeley-high-library-computer/
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Come to our monthly member meeting for a discussion of our 2016 voter guide, updates on our local campaigns, and opportunities for plugging in to our work!
Organize with us to win jobs not jails, books not bars, and healthcare not handcuffs.
Every member meeting is a little bit different, with topics and agendas that range from campaign planning, outreach, and political education. Since it’s election season, tonight we will be discussing state and local ballot initiatives. We’ll also give a campaign update for our fight against the expansion of Santa Rita and ways members can help us build campaign pressure.
Help stop new jail construction in Alameda County!