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https://occupyoakland.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Ad-Hoc-Committee-Recs-1.pdf The Urban Shield/UASI Alameda County Task Force charged by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors with creating recommendations to “end Urban Shield as it is currently constituted.” has finished its work. The full set of recommendations can be found at the link above. Here are a few of the recommendations: Eliminate the vendor show from the UASI-funded exercise. Eliminate the competition aspect of UASI-funded exercises while retaining standards-based evaluation of participants. All law enforcement scenarios shall include in the assessment criteria the participants’ capacity for de-escalation of risk of … Continued

Six years of protest, public comment and politicking have finally created a light at the end of the Stop Urban Shield tunnel. On January 14th, 2019, after five months of hearings, leg work and votes, the Alameda County Urban Shield Task Force finished its assigned task. The Task Force was voted into being by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors back in March of 2018 when the Board voted to “end Urban Shield as it is currently constituted.” It began work in September, 2018 and at its last meeting approved … Continued

by Tracy Rosenberg and JP Massar Closing the circle begun many years ago, the City of Oakland ended the Domain Awareness Center saga, quietly and on the consent calendar of the Oakland City Council, by passing the strongest community control of surveillance ordinance in the nation on May 1st, 2018. Beaten on the calendar for a surveillance regulation and transparency ordinance by Santa Clara County in June of 2016, and then Berkeley and Davis in April of 2018, Oakland was nonetheless ground zero of the battle against the Surveillance State … Continued

Join the 2018 revival campaign, fifty years in coming after Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts were cut down back in 1968.  Come one, come all to an organizational meeting to gear for forty days of action. “There will be mass actions including planned mass civil disobedience in the Bay in this New Poor People’s Campaign that is starting up 40 days of action from Mother’s Day this year. “ Join the Poor People’s Campaign, a National Call for Moral Revival, for our East Bay Mass Meeting! All are welcome. Together, … Continued

  In recent weeks Oakland Privacy (Motto: “I’ve been watching you watch me…”), nee Occupy Oakland Privacy Working Group, formed in the summer of 2013, has had, in conjunction with other privacy and civil liberties advocates, some notable successes and catastrophe prevention interventions. – In early February the City of Alameda halted its police department’s plan to buy Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) equipment from Vigilant, a company which had come under fire for providing its data to ICE. – In early March Oakland Privacy revealed that ICE agents participated … Continued

It’s the sixth anniversary of Move-In Day, January 28th, 2012, the ill-fated attempt to take over the Kaiser Center as a community center.  Thousands of people marched through Oakland all day and into the evening, ultimately resulting in the infamous ‘kettle’ and mass arrest outside the YMCA on Broadway in Uptown. This photo is almost certainly from the battle of Oak Street, where the marchers, retreating from the Kaiser Center, found themselves inexplicably blocked by OPD attempting to down Oak toward the Lake Merritt BART from 12th St. Tear gas … Continued

On the day Homeland Security announced planning for a major immigration raid in the Bay Area in response to sanctuary city laws… U.S. immigration officials have begun preparing for a major sweep in San Francisco and other Northern California cities in which federal officers would look to arrest more than 1,500 undocumented people while sending a message that immigration policy will be enforced in the sanctuary state, according to a source familiar with the operation… …and the Department of Justice confirmed that it was looking for ways to arrest Sanctuary … Continued

Via the Oakland Privacy website: Oakland’s Public Safety Committee voted unanimously on January 9th to end all cooperation between the Oakland Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations/ICE; six months after cancelling a memorandum of understanding and five months after OPD assisted in a West Oakland immigration raid. Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission led an investigation into the raid that uncovered what really happened after IndyBay and this website asked some questions, an internal affairs complaint was filed and then city residents besieged the City Council in repeated charged public hearings on … Continued

Strike Debt Bay Area (SDBA) wrote and participated in the airing of an hour long KPFA radio show on financial inequality – causes, reprecussions and what we can do about it. Darlene Pagano, a member of SDBA and KPFA intern, hosted the show, called “Full Circle” which aired on Friday evening, December 15th, 2017 at 7:00 PM. You can listen to the show here, on KPFA’s apprentice web page, along with other Full Circle productions including “Trumping Democracy” and “Puerto Rico and Disaster Capitalism”. Here’s some “best of” excerpts from … Continued

Oakland may claim to be a sanctuary city, but on August 16th, 2017 its police engaged with Homeland Security Investigations Agents to raid an immigrant residence in West Oakland, resulting not in any findings of criminality (in particular, child sex trafficking) as initially claimed by OPD and HSI, but only in deportation proceedings against one individual – the very thing Oakland is supposed to taking a stand against. But that’s not good enough for City officials and some electeds, who are now engaged in a massive coverup, refusing to appear … Continued