The city council’s decision to limit the DAC was a victory for Oakland Privacy and Hofer, who has since been elected chair of the city’s first Privacy Advisory Commission, which has been given the task of scrutinising every new piece of equipment the police department wants to buy.
Read the whole article: Police surveillance: The US city that beat Big Brother
Today, ACLU National announced its campaign to #TakeCTRL, by empowering local communities to take back control over their police department’s use of surveillance equipment. You can read about it here.
Locally, our success has helped inspire the national campaign. You can read about successes in the City of Oakland that began with the Domain Awareness Center debate, and Santa Clara County, the first entity in the nation to adopt the model surveillance equipment ordinance created by the ACLU.
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Oakland Privacy strongly supports the National Prison Strike, which begins Sept. 9, and issues this statement in support.
While Oakland Privacy is primarily committed to ensuring that people’s privacy is not invaded by the state, our commitment extends to the protection of the full gamut of civil rights and liberties – all of which are violated by prisons, jails, and correctional facilities.
We deplore the conditions in this country’s prisons, especially but not exclusively those which violate the 6th Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishment, and the use of what amounts to the slave labor of prisoners by the State.
Oakland Privacy is a citizens coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.
British author Timandra Harkness took note of our success in the Bay Area, fe
aturing the work of Oakland Privacy as Chapter 8 of her new book Big Data: Does Size Matter? An updated and truncated online version of our work is here.
Our friends over at Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending Dissent Foundaton noticed, and gave us a shout out. The feelings are mutual, as we rely frequently on the help and resources of BORDC/DDF. We’re very blessed to have a large coalition of groups willing to help fight against state abuse of power, here in the Bay Area.
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