We document current events, make films together, steward an editing suite and share a film equipment library. We also host film screenings, often with local directors, and put on an annual short film festival for independent Bay Area filmmakers. Our goal is to make the digital filmmaking accessible – no overpriced college degree or certificate program required!

We are also a good group to reach out to if you’d like to screen a film at the Omni. We can be reached at [ liberatedlens@lists.riseup.net ].

We usually meet in the basement, unless otherwise noted.

Join the Center for Biological Diversity to kick off our #Earth2TrumpRoadshow of Resistance — a cross-country tour headed for Inauguration Day in Washington D.C., building a network of resistance along the way. We’d love to have your there! This a movement-building event — the kind of pump-you-up gathering you’ve been hungry for.

Take a moment and RSVP for this FREE event on this page and right here:http://ow.ly/FYIh30786it

The kick-off will include powerful speakers, badass music, and a night to share with others in the growing movement of resistance to Trump’s agenda.

To help us kick off this roadshow in style we’ll feature the work of spoken-word artist/musician AshEL Eldridge, and the musical stylings of folk rocker Casey Neill as well as Afrobrazilian band Namorados da Lua.

Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the show fires off at 6:00. Be sure to arrive early to sign-in and get a great seat. This is a FREE event.

Speakers include Julio Madrigal from Planting Justice, Valerie Love from the Center for the Biological Diversity, Sandhya Jha from the Oakland Peace Center, and Eva Lin from the Alliance for Climate Education.

ACCESSIBILITY: ASL and Spanish Language interpretation available upon request. Venue is accessible by a ramp. Main floor bathrooms are wheelchair accessible. Seating available at event. Contact Ash at alauth@biologicaldiversity.org if you need this information or to request language interpretation ASAP.

Rad Local Cosponsors: 350 Bay Area; 350 East Bay; 350 San Francisco; 350 Silicon Valley; 350 South East Bay; Alameda Progessives; Alliance for Climate Education; Alliance for Democracy; Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments; Alliance of South Asians Taking Action; Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice; California Student Sustainabilityy Coalition; Center for Environmental Health; Center for Political Education; Communication Workers of America – District 9; Earthworks; Environmental Health Network; Families Against Fossil Fuels; Food and Water Watch; Food Empowerment Project; Global Exchange; Great Old Broads for Wilderness; Greenpeace; Local Clean Energy Alliance; Network of Spiritual Progressives; Oakland Peace Center; OccupySF Environmental Justice Working Group; Planned Parenthood Mar Monte; Planting Justice; Rainforest Action Network; Rooted In Resilience; San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, Physicians for Social Responsibility; Sierra Club SF Bay Chapter; Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter; Sunflower Alliance; Sustainable Economies Law Center; System Change not Climate Change — Bay Area Chapter; The Oakland Institute; Transition Sonoma Valley; United Native Americans; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Earth Democracy Group; World Beyond War.

The roadshow is rallying and empowering defenders of civil rights and the environment across the country to resist Trump’s dangerous plans. Stopping in 16 cities on its way to Washington, D.C., it will bring thousands of people to protest at the presidential inauguration.

At each show, you can:
• Sign the national Pledge of Resistance to Trump’s dangerous agenda.
• Write a personalized #Earth2Trump message that will be carried to D.C. in a massive globe and delivered to Trump.
• Create a huge, viral social media #Earth2Trump messaging campaign.
• Connect with people in your community resisting oppression and find out how to join the million people who will protest in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day.

Join us to send a powerful, unwavering #Earth2Trump message that oppression and environmental destruction will not be tolerated.

Please RSVP (http://ow.ly/FYIh30786it) to let us know you’ll be at this FREE event in Oakland and share this page with your family, friends and social networks. We’ll see you on January, 2.

The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.

Note: At our November meeting we changed our meeting date from the first Tuesday of the month to the first Monday, starting December 5th

This year, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project is calling on our Bay Area community to up the resistance level, as we reclaim the radical legacy of Martin Luther King and resist the fascist Trump agenda. This year the Reclaiming King’s Radical Legacy March on Monday (1/16) will launch 120 hours of direct action, culminating on #HellNawGuration Day (1/20). This year we are focused on immigrant rights, protection of our Muslim brothers and sisters, womens reproductive rights, loving our LGBTQ sisters, brothers and siblings, and the defense of Black life.

As is our custom, we will host a Spokescouncil meeting to plan and coordinate actions in the SF Bay Area. PLEASE SAVE THE FOLLOWING DATES in your calendar.

Tues Jan 3 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Sat Jan 7 – 2-5pm – First AME Church
Tues Jan 10 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Sat Jan 14 – 2-5pm – First AME Church
Tues Jan 17 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Thurs Jan 19 – 6-9pm – 955 7th St.

* If it”s your first meeting, please make sure to show up early to attend the orientation!
** The OMNI Commons meeting space is wheelchair accessible, and has a wheelchair accessible bathroom however the bathroom is not fully ADA compliant.

What is a spokescouncil?

A spokescouncil is a collective framework for direct action mobilizations, where large masses of people organize themselves into smaller teams called “affinity groups”. Affinity groups plan their actions independently with the intention of advancing the larger goal of the spokescouncil. Affinity groups are represented by at least one person (“a spoke”) at the meetings, where they are able to share resources and coordinate their actions with other groups.

Why a spokescouncil?

We propose the spokescouncil as a solution to many of the shortcomings of unstructured mass assemblies. We intend to provide a highly structured organizing space with clear tactical and messaging guidelines, that empowers participants to organize independently and in parallel. We intend to inspire a multitude of diverse actions and awaken the massive potential we have as a community engaging in direct action.

** for questions or more information about the spokescouncil please contact aptpspokescouncil@gmail.com

Community Assembly Call Out in Response to Oakland Fire and Housing Crisis

The Post Salon Community Assembly, community organizations and individuals throughout the city will come together after the first of the year to build a unified response to the displacement that is occurring in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire, homelessness, eviction of non-profits from downtown Oakland and the crisis of affordable housing that the city is facing.

The assembly will take place in City Hall chambers at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 4. Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan has agreed to host the meeting for the community.

Organizations and individuals are being contacted to participate in and co-sponsor this community forum.  For information call (510) 287-8200.

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 and San Francisco County Boards 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 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

Check out our website.

For more information on the DAC check out

• DAC FAQ
• Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page
• Oakland Privacy WordPress

The Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission will be conducting a public hearing on the draft Surveillance Technology Ordinance. Here is the draft which has been recently modified and approved to form for submission.

Oakland-Ordinance-12-16-16

Please share this information widely to encourage public comment as the Commission prepares to submit this draft to the Oakland City Council.

Comments can be submitted ahead of time  directly to jdevries@oaklandnet.com. For more information about the Commission, visit the website: http://www2.oaklandnet.com/OAK057463

Schedule:

5:10pm: Presentation on Surveillance Equipment Ordinance by Nuala O’Connor, President and CEO
of Center for Democracy and Technology; Question and Answer session.
5:20pm: Presentation on Surveillance Equipment Ordinance by Professor Catherine Crump, Co-
Director Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Question and Answer session.
5:30pm: Discuss and take possible action on a Surveillance Equipment Ordinance.

Please note that the disco room at the Omni is upstairs and is not accessible for folks with physical disabilities who cannot get up a flight of stairs.

All Out for Oscar! 

Oscar has been imprisoned for almost 36 years for the charge of seditious conspiracy. The only legal remedy left is a presidential pardon
or commutation.
All sectors of Puerto Rican society, Nobel laureates, Latin American leaders, Former President Carter and Senator Bernie Sanders
have all called for his release. Let’s celebrate Oscar’s 74th birthday on January 6 by joining the hundred thousand who petitioned the White House and demand: FREE OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA NOW!
You can also CONTACT The White House on JAN 6 and 13
For more info, go to: http://boricuahumanrights.org/

11 Years Ago, in the city of Oakland…

A collective of art gallery owners now known as Art Murmur, created a free once-a-month art gallery walk. The event became so successful, that galleries became overwhelmed with the amount of attendees who began overflowing into city streets.

To protect pedestrians and provide greater accessibility to the non-gallery community, participating collective Rock Paper Scissors (RPS), filed for a monthly permit to block the streets from auto-traffic under an event dubbed “The 23rd St. Fair.”  This event turned into what is now Oakland First Fridays: the most renowned art, music, food and cultural community event in the Bay Area.

Oakland First Fridays’ 11th Anniversary Event Dedicated in Tribute to the Ghostship Collective

Our hearts go out to Oakland’s creative community and those who have been heavily impacted by the Oakland Fire. The collective loss of life, shelter, and livelihood is an unimaginable tragedy.

In light of this very challenging time, we would like to pay tribute to Oakland’s Creative Community, by dedicating our 11th Anniversary Event to celebrating the life and art of the vibrant creatives, survivors and victims of the Ghostship tragedy.

On Luis’s 9th month commemoration, SAT. JANUARY 7th 10am-1pm, we will celebrate the Mexican tradition of sharing Rosca de Reyes by breaking bread and drinking hot chocolate, and expressing generosity towards our homeless encampment neighbors by bringing a few basic material gifts for them (e.g. socks.)

For our Coalition, this is also the critical start to the next three months of organizing leading up to the 1 year anniversary of Luis’s killing. Let’s get there together with his family in San Francisco and Yucatán! We’ll announce the first court date in the civil case on Jan 7th too.

For this event we are teaming up with individuals and associations who already work on anti-police brutality, indigenous rights, immigrant rights and unhoused/homeless outreach to collaborate with us.

If you would like to help out, please write to justice4luis@gmail.com

Come out to the first ARC General Meeting of the new year! At this meeting, members will:

– Hear from and vote on a new President for ARC!
– Preview a draft of the organization’s new bylaws
– Meet the new tenant organizers who are starting in January
– Discuss and vote on top policy changes for Ordinance 3148

Let’s organize and fight back to get the protections we need. See you on January 7! Location TBA — stay tuned.

This year, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project is calling on our Bay Area community to up the resistance level, as we reclaim the radical legacy of Martin Luther King and resist the fascist Trump agenda. This year the Reclaiming King’s Radical Legacy March on Monday (1/16) will launch 120 hours of direct action, culminating on #HellNawGuration Day (1/20). This year we are focused on immigrant rights, protection of our Muslim brothers and sisters, womens reproductive rights, loving our LGBTQ sisters, brothers and siblings, and the defense of Black life.

As is our custom, we will host a Spokescouncil meeting to plan and coordinate actions in the SF Bay Area. PLEASE SAVE THE FOLLOWING DATES in your calendar.

Tues Jan 3 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Sat Jan 7 – 2-5pm – First AME Church
Tues Jan 10 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Sat Jan 14 – 2-5pm – First AME Church
Tues Jan 17 – 6-9pm – Omni Commons**
Thurs Jan 19 – 6-9pm – 955 7th St.

* If it”s your first meeting, please make sure to show up early to attend the orientation!
** The OMNI Commons meeting space is wheelchair accessible, and has a wheelchair accessible bathroom however the bathroom is not fully ADA compliant.

What is a spokescouncil?

A spokescouncil is a collective framework for direct action mobilizations, where large masses of people organize themselves into smaller teams called “affinity groups”. Affinity groups plan their actions independently with the intention of advancing the larger goal of the spokescouncil. Affinity groups are represented by at least one person (“a spoke”) at the meetings, where they are able to share resources and coordinate their actions with other groups.

Why a spokescouncil?

We propose the spokescouncil as a solution to many of the shortcomings of unstructured mass assemblies. We intend to provide a highly structured organizing space with clear tactical and messaging guidelines, that empowers participants to organize independently and in parallel. We intend to inspire a multitude of diverse actions and awaken the massive potential we have as a community engaging in direct action.

** for questions or more information about the spokescouncil please contact aptpspokescouncil@gmail.com

Starline is hosting a benefit gig for the Immediate Oakland Fire Relief Fund, featuring Rituals of Mine, Wax Idols, Anticon artist JEL, Kool A.D. with Cult Days, and more.

More info: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/rituals-of-mine-ghost-ship-benefit/Content?oid=5072561