Calendar
1. Call to Order, determination of quorum
2. Open Forum/Public Comment on Non-Agenda matters
3. Review and approval of the draft November 20, February 6 and March 3 meeting minutes
4. Review and Possible Action on Federal Task Force Ordinance – OPD – Annual Reports: a. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) b. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) c. Secret Service d. United States Marshall Service (USMS) e. Federal Bureau of Investigation Violent Crimes – Safe Streets (FBI) f. Federal Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation (FBI)
5. Review and Possible Action on Unmanned Aerial System (UAS or Drone) 2024 Annual Report
6. Review and Possible Action on ATF Bodyworn Cameras – MOU Addendum
7. Review and Possible Action on the Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) 2024 Annual Report
8. Review and Possible Action on Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance – Presentation of Annual Report
Members of the public can view the meeting live on KTOP or on the City’s website at https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/ktop-tv-10. Comment in advance. To send your comment directly to the Privacy Commission and staff BEFORE the meeting starts, please send your comment, along with your full name and agenda item number you are commenting on, to Felicia Verdin at fverdin@oaklandca.gov. Please note that eComment submissions close one (1) hour before posted meeting time. All submitted public comment will be provided to the Privacy Commission prior to the meeting.
To observe and participate in the meeting via Zoom, go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85817209915 Or One tap mobile: 1 669 444 9171 To participate in the meeting virtually, you must log on via Zoom.
If you have a question, please raise your hand in Zoom during open forum and public comment. For those attending in person, you can complete a speaker card and submit to staff.
Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are gutting Social Security, slashing Medicaid, and looting our government to bankroll their latest tax scam—unless we stop them. We’re taking to thee streets to say Hands Off. Join us!
This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country.
A core principle behind all Hands Off! events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.
Weaponizing Antisemitism by Project Esther
Speaker: Seth Morrison
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Project Esther is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap to destroy the pro-Palestine movement in the US. This McCarthy era-like project falsely conflates anti-zionism with antisemitism and then deceptively accuses pro-Palestine activists of antisemitism.
Our speaker, Seth Morrison, is a leader in the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an articulate advocate to peace in West Asia, and a campaigner against the criminalization of pro- Palestinian speech. He has been active in Jewish organizations throughout his life. He was formerly a leader in J Street and other Jewish organizations, before joining JVP and becoming a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist and an anti-zionist. He is on the national board of JVP Action and a leader in the Bay Area chapter of JVP. Professionally he is retired from a career in marketing and product development in the cable television industry.
An interview with our speaker on this subject was recently published in Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/
On a related issues, he and a colleague recently published “Can Palestinians and Israelis coexist in a single democratic state? (https://www.
“Tracking and Documenting Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
This panel will discuss the massive increase in domestic surveillance throughout the border region. EFF’s Hannah Zhao and Saira Hussain will be joined by journalist Lauren Markham, Senior Staff Attorney at Just Futures Law Daniel Werner, and migrant justice organizer Alex Mensing as they explore digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border.
I hope you are able to participate in the Q&A that will follow the discussion. You can also reply to this message now with a question for the panelists. We encourage you to join us live for this discussion, however it will be recorded and available following the event on YouTube and the Internet Archive!
The Friday, 4/18 show is at 4:00 PM.
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from the US and Israeli weapons companies. THE ENCAMPMENTS follows the central organizers of the encampment as they are thrust into the spotlight, face violent police repression and suspension, congressional pressure, and a media firestorm, all while fighting to attain their goal of divestment at any cost.
Also Saturday, 4/12 @ 5:10 PM, Sat 4/19 @ 12:00 Noon, Sun 4/20 at 3:15, etc.
From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, “Mickey 17.” The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living…
A disposable employee is sent on a human expedition to colonize an ice world. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. A deeply heartfelt and funny musing on capitalism, colonization, and corruption.
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite. All are welcome!
For our March, 2025 meeting we will be reading the first four chapters of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis (Penguin Random House, Amazon). For our April meeting, we will be finishing the book.
Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism. The perfect Christmas gift for the political visionaries in your life.
In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world’s feudal overlords – replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.
But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.
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, Breaking Together
and Making Sense of Chaos.
Speaker: Eleonora de Lucena and Rodolfo Lucena
To Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 851 7586 0127
Passcode: 580909
The victory of President Lula in 2022 put a brake on the fascist crescendo in Brazil. But the government faces enormous challenges to keep up to its campaign promises. There are combined pressures from the financial market and the business elites, which are intertwined with and dependent on international financial capital. The increased size and strength of agribusiness, with fascist ideas and the power of local landlords, is also linked to extremist factions of the military. In the cities, the alt-right recruits followers from the ranks of precarious labor.
Despite all that, there have been some victories. For the first time in history, four-star generals were brought to justice because of their role in the defeated coup d`etat of January 8, 2023. Ex-president Bolsonaro, the head of the coup, faces charges for the attempt to violently destroy democracy. Lula continues to stand up for a multipolar world, defending peace, and being a voice against the genocide in Palestine. As the current president of the BRICS, he is committed to strengthen Latin America unity. Yet, it is uncertain how Brazil will react to Trump’s actions against the country.
Eleonora de Lucena and Rodolfo Lucena, journalists for almost 50 years, both worked in the underground and popular press against the dictatorship in Brazil as well as in the mainstream media. From 2000 to 2010, Eleonora was the head of the newsroom of Folha de São Paulo � at the time, the largest circulation and most influence newspaperr in the country. Rodolfo was the information technology editor at Folha for more than 15 years.
Today, they both run Tutaméia, a news web channel based on live interviews that has almost 80,000 followers. Presidents Lula and Dilma, Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad, Juan Carlos Monedero, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel are some of the people interviewed by Tutaméia, as well as Palestinian writer Atef Abu Saif, ex-guerrilla Peruvian leader Héctor Béjar, Aleida Guevara, and Filipino thinker Walden Bello, not to mention political leaders, intellectuals, and artists from Brazil.
Rodolfo, a marathon runner, and Eleonora have taken running as a political, educational, and agit-prop tool, creating projects like Marathoning with the MST, working with the landless movement, and a series of runs called Corrida fora Temer, done during the period that Dilma was illegally ousted from the presidency in a lawfare coup d´etat. They have been married for 46 years and have two daughters.
The indigenous Mapuche people have been mobilizing to take back their ancestral lands in Wallmapu (Chile) from vast industrial eucalyptus and pine plantations developed under the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1970s.Recovering their land is part of the larger effort of Mapuche people to reclaim their culture, spirituality and language, as well as food sovereignty for their communities.
A new “Usurpation” law makes Mapuche land recovery efforts illegal, and people who try to claim land or grow crops risk arrest or imprisonment.
Biofuelwatch co-Director Gary Hughes will address the unique connection between California and Chile, especially with regard to false climate solutions like biomass burning.This event is also the West Coast Book Launch for Portraits of Struggle by longtime movement photojournalist Orin Langelle.
Langelle’s captivating images document interconnected global struggles for environmental, social, and economic justice across six continents and five decades.Langelle will sign books during the event reception.
The Friday, 4/18 show is at 4:00 PM.
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from the US and Israeli weapons companies. THE ENCAMPMENTS follows the central organizers of the encampment as they are thrust into the spotlight, face violent police repression and suspension, congressional pressure, and a media firestorm, all while fighting to attain their goal of divestment at any cost.
Also Saturday, 4/12 @ 5:10 PM, Sat 4/19 @ 12:00 Noon, Sun 4/20 at 3:15, etc.
RECONNECT RESIST
As we enter this era of crackdowns and suspensions of civil liberties, we must unite to defend our rights and our communities. We need to share knowledge and skills so that we can break barriers to holding cops accountable and create alternatives to police.This conference brings together local and national police accountability organizations to support communities and collectives facing police repression in its many forms. There will be a keynote speaker, panels on a range of topics related to police accountability and the state of our movement, and opportunities for community building.
Let’s work together to protect people not property, compassion not force, and rights not repression!
Register for the conference now.Schedule:
8:30: Registration and Breakfast
9:00: Welcome & Plenary Keynote
10:15: Breakout Session #1
11:45: Breakout Session #2
1:00: Lunch
2:30: Breakout Session 3
4:00: Closing Panel
7:00 – 8:30: Evening ActivityLearn more about our keynote speaker and panels.
Register HereRegistration for this conference is free.
You are welcome to register online in advance or day-of in person.
Please donate to Berkeley Copwatch to support the costs of this conference. Suggested donation of $25 per attendee.
No one is turned away for lack of funds.
Donate to Support the ConferenceIf you need accommodations for communication during the conference or information about mobility access features at Berkeley City College, please contact copwatch.conference@proton.me with as much advance notice as possible and at least 10-12 days in advance of the event.
Want to support the work of Berkeley Copwatch? We need volunteers and committed organizing members!Reach out to berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com to find out when the next New Volunteer Orientation is. Follow us on insta to stay up to date.
Do you want to get involved in Berkeley Copwatch? Learn more or contact us directly at berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com
Donate
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Hosted by Green Eco-Socialist Network Join a participatory webinar with Ashley Brown, Gabe Medina, Gloria Mattera, and Sean Dougherty for an engaging session that will introduce the Green Eco-Socialist Network and discuss key topics surrounding the Hands Off Rally and its broader implications.
We look forward to your participation in this discussion! |
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STOP THE TRUMP ATTACKS
ON THE PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
RALLY & MARCH
SATURDAY, APRIL 19th, 2025
1:00 PM
CONCORD BART PLAZA
Speaker: Elicha Gastelumendi & Rick Sterling
Elicha Gastelumendi and Rick Sterling will talk and show photos from their October 2024 visit to China. They were on their own in Shanghai and will describe what they saw in a regular community far from the booming downtown. Following that, they joined a delegation to Xinjiang organized by retired San Francisco Judge Julie Tang. Xinjiang is a large “autonomous region” thousands of miles west of Shanghai. This was a central gateway in the times of the Silk Road and in the developing Belt & Road Initiative today. It is also the area where the U.S. has accused China of committing “genocide” against the Uyghur minority community. Rick and Elicha will describe what they saw and experienced in travels from desert below sea level to high mountains as well as agricultural fields and an elementary school.
Bay Area activist Elicha Gastelumendi is originally from Peru. Rick Sterling, originally from Canada, is president of the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center and with the Syria Support Movement and Task Force on the Americas.
To Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 851 7586 0127
Passcode: 580909
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We love the Tesla Takedown protests and the impact they have been having on Elon Musk’s wallet. Join us next Saturday, April 26 outside the Tesla dealership on 4th Street in Berkeley. In addition to the usual protest, our Absurdist street theater group will perform!
New Video
Our street theater Absurdists have come up with a new skit in support of the Make Polluters Pay Superfund bill, currently before the California legislature. Watch it now and please share to Make Polluters PAY:
Workers in the Crosshairs: The U.S. Trade War,
Tariffs, and Globalization
Speaker: Allan Miller
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Meeting ID: 851 7586 0127
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This Sunday, the Marxist Forum will analyze and discuss the U.S. trade war, tariffs, and globalization from a working class perspective.
Allan Miller is a political activist and member of the ICSS Program Committee. He has a PhD in economics from UC Riverside, and has taught data analysis and statistical programming at UC Berkeley Extension.