Oakland

Four Days: Israeli Ship Blocked From Unloading In Oakland

August 20, 2014 Charlotte Silver, www.electronicintifada.net Resist! Activism, Israel, Oakland, Palestine

San Francisco Bay Area activists have not allowed a vessel from Israel’s largest shipping company to unload in the Oakland Port for four consecutive mornings. On Tuesday, 19 August, at 6:45am, activists declared yet another victory against the Zim Line, which has been trying to make its way into Oakland since Saturday, 16 August. Lara Kiswani, the executive director of the local Arab Resource and Organizing Center, told The Electronic Intifada that they are now waiting to hear if the Zim Line will leave the Port of Oakland today with the cargo it brought. “If not,” Kiswani wrote in an email, “we will continue to mobilize until it does.” Organizers had initially planned a one-day action for 16 August, delaying the weekly, Saturday-scheduled offloading of the Zim ship by just one full work day. Saturday’s success was seamless: the Zim Pireaus avoided the Oakland Port completely, preferring to remain at sea south of Oakland rather than meet the thousands of protesters who had descended onto the docks. But, fueled off the initial triumph, activists returned to Berth 57 at the Oakland Port the next evening, on Sunday, 17 August. At 5pm Sunday, activists released an urgent call for supporters to convene at the port. Within thirty minutes of the call, hundreds of people returned to the docks. Workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) - Local 10 honored the picket line, and refused to unload the ship.

Oakland Police Officer Fired Over Occupy Incident Is Reinstated

August 1, 2014 Matthew Artz, www.mercurynews.com Educate! Oakland, Occupy, Police

A police officer fired for throwing a tear gas grenade into a crowd of Occupy Oakland protesters who were tending to a wounded comrade is getting his job back. An arbitrator on Wednesday overturned the Police Department's termination of Officer Robert Roche and ordered him reinstated with back pay. Roche became the lightning rod over police handling of the 2011 Occupy protests when he was caught on camera tossing the grenade into a crowd of protesters trying to assist Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen. The grenade incident came less than a minute after a police officer who has never been identified struck Olsen in the head with a lead-filled beanbag, fracturing Olsen's skull and causing him permanent brain damage. Olsen received a $4.5 million settlement from the city earlier this year. The incident, which made international headlines, turned many citizens against the Police Department and turned many officers against their commanders, who they felt had left them far too understaffed to deal with a major protest. "Roche is a phenomenal police officer, and he was scapegoated like all the other officers from the Occupy experience," said Sgt. Barry Donelan, who heads the police union.

Oakland Dials Down Mass Surveillance Plans

June 3, 2014 Matthew Heller, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Oakland, Organizing, Privacy, Surveillance

Less than a year ago, the city of Oakland, Calif., took what privacy activists considered to be a major step toward a surveillance state. In July 2013, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved the implementation of the Domain Awareness Center, a surveillance hub that would combine public and private cameras and sensors from all over California’s eighth-largest city into one $11 million mass surveillance system. The components of the program would include integration of closed-circuit feeds from 700 cameras at Oakland public schools and 135 cameras at the Oakland Coliseum complex, which is home to the NFL’s Raiders and Major League Baseball’s Athletics. The video and data flowing into the system would be analyzed with license plate recognition software, thermal imaging and body movement recognition software, possibly even with facial recognition software.

Oakland Activists Unite To Protect Privacy

March 22, 2014 Thomas Hintze www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Oakland

That night, some 149 people had signed up to speak. Throughout the eight-hour meeting, the air was electric and expectant as more than one hundred people voiced their unanimous resolve to keep mass surveillance out of Oakland. The most recent chapter of the fight began on July 30, 2013, when the Oakland City Council unanimously approved a $2 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to begin the second phase of construction for a domain awareness center in Oakland. The vote occurred despite outspoken community opposition, the dissenting testimonies of nearly 50 speakers and the urging of organizations like the ACLU. The plan called for the domain awareness center to integrate cameras and data from across the city into one mass surveillance system. According to the domain awareness center wiki, a clearinghouse of information kept by activists, the plan also called for the implementation of new technologies such as license-plate-reading devices, biometrics, thermal imaging and possibly facial-recognition technology. Prior to vehement protests, the plan also called for the purchase of drones and a network of cameras for the Oakland city public schools.

Privacy Advocates Plan To Sue Oakland Over City ‘Spy’ Center

February 6, 2014 Katie Rucke, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Oakland, Occupy, Police abuse, Surveillance

The Oakland Privacy Working Group, a coalition of civil liberties advocates, announced on Monday it would file a taxpayer lawsuit against the city of Oakland, Calif., if city officials continued to construct the Department of Homeland Security-funded Domain Awareness Center, which it says violates the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Oakland residents. Scheduled to go live in July 2014 and funded almost exclusively by a $10.9 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the DAC will link cameras around the city with ShotSpotter gunshot detectors, license plate readers, Geographic Information Systems mapping, social media feeds and more. “We have access to a large group of internal documents obtained through a Public Records Act request,” Hofer said, adding that thousands of internal emails from City of Oakland staff show that the true intent of the DAC is monitoring political demonstrations.

Oakland Approves $1.17M Settlement for Occupy Protesters

July 9, 2013 www.ktvu.com Resist! Oakland, Occupy

The Oakland City Council has given preliminary approval to a proposed $1.17 million settlement with 12 people who were injured during Occupy Oakland protests in 2011, according to the plaintiffs' lawyers and the city attorney's office. City attorney spokesman Alex Katz said Chief Assistant City Attorney Doryanna Moreno announced during an open session of the council Tuesday night that the council preliminarily approved the agreement during a closed meeting on June 21. The council still had to vote to give final approval as of Wednesday, and the vote was scheduled for a meeting on July 16, Katz said.

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