All posts by Midnightschildren

Surveillance

Ending Secret Surveillance in California

 

Update: 8/18: Sadly, Senate Bill 1186 did not advance beyond Assembly Appropriations this year. Too much law enforcement resistance. But rather than accept bad amendments, local advocates will continue to reach out to cities and counties to craft meaningful surveillance oversight on the local level – as we have been doing since 2013. Local is where it matters and real change always starts at the bottom and filters upwards, not the reverse. Visit www.oaklandprivacy.org for updates and tools and resources to bring surveillance transparency to your town.

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Privacy is the news story of the year.

Intersections between growing aggression from Homeland Security towards undocumented people, so-called “black identity extremists”, journalists, anti-fascism protestors, and pretty much anyone resisting the Trumpian agenda, are melding with the privatization of information  with new industries spouting up to to share and disseminate data collected by high-tech mass surveillance.

It’s a scary time. We need the power to keep ourselves safe.  Continue reading Ending Secret Surveillance in California →

Accountability and Representation, Surveillance

Civil Rights Advocates Urge Ethical Review of Axon’s Police Technologies

Today, Media Alliance joined The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Upturn, Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology and 37 leading civil rights, racial justice and community organizations sharing a series of recommendations with the “artificial intelligence (AI) ethics board” launched this morning by Axon, a major U.S. police technology vendor. Continue reading Civil Rights Advocates Urge Ethical Review of Axon’s Police Technologies →

Uncategorized

Culture: The Gangster of Love

Every once in a while, we take a break from the grind of policy and politics to make a comment on art. This is that time, thanks to a generous invitation from the Magic Theatre. The lengendary incubator of some of the most incendiary plays of the 20th century thought we should stop what we were doing and come see Jessica Hagedorn’s Gangster of Love. They were right.  Continue reading Culture: The Gangster of Love →

Press Room

Victory Over Military Cop Convention

 

by Ann Garrison. Originally published in Black Agenda Report

“The best-selling t-shirt at the previous year’s expo: a picture of an assault weapon with the caption ‘Black Rifles Matter.’”

On March 27, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Stop Urban Shield Coalition claimed victory in its four-year battle to stop Urban Shield, a war games and weapons convention for cops held in Alameda County every year since 2007. Critical Resistance , one of the most active members of the coalition, wrote on its website:

Urban Shield represents everything our movements are fighting against — from collaborating and training with ICE, hosting the white supremacist militia the Oath Keepers, training with and sending officers to apartheid Israel, glorifying policing and militarization, exploiting tragedies and natural disasters and public health needs, and continuing to align with Alameda County Sheriff Ahern’s support of the Trump Administration — Urban Shield has no place in the Bay Area or anywhere.



I spoke to Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Media Alliance and co-facilitator of Oa kland Privacy , a citizen’s coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. She has worked with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition since 2014.

Continue reading Victory Over Military Cop Convention →

Press Room

Alameda County Sheriff Hosted ICE at Urban Shield

Originally published in the East Bay Express by Caron Creighton and Susie O’Neill

Last September, officers from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) — the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — participated in Urban Shield, a controversial weekend-long SWAT training exercise and military equipment exposition organized and hosted by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

Recently released photographs show HSI officers taking part in the counterterrorism simulations. They depict uniformed officers standing over fake gore-spattered actors and dummies, carrying off volunteers dressed as victims or combatants and approaching an unseen combatant with weapons raised.

Continue reading Alameda County Sheriff Hosted ICE at Urban Shield →