Broadway & 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
USA
After a strong community presence from the Lighthouse Mosque, and local technology
activists, the City of Oakland put the breaks on the approval of the”Domain Awareness
Center” (DAC) an $11 Million dollar Department of Homeland center that would
set an unprecedented standard for spying on a city wide level.
Two weeks ago a local Yemini-American leader, Mokhtar Alkhansali, really moved the council
with his speech stating:
“You don’t see that many Muslims here today, even though this
is one of the greatest civil rights issues of our generation. What happens today will be
echoed throughout the legacy of this city and throughout the country. I don’t want
drones to be in my neighborhood here or in my neighborhood back in Yemen. I don’t
want people to be able to record my conversations with my wife, we have
curtains in our living room for a reason. We have the right to privacy, it is sacred, and if
you vote tonight to take away that basic right you will take away our freedoms, our
liberty and our essential existence as dignified humans. So I urge you today on
behalf of my family, my community, and the human community as a whole to get away
from these practices. We urge you to vote against this because our community, we
want to be here, we want to be present and voice our concerns but we can’t when we
know that voicing our concerns will lead to our mass incarceration and the targeting of
our community.”
Full Video: http://tinyurl.com/laaenxu
Stop the DAC at City Council after this press conference.