EFF: Oakland Privacy and the Fight for Community Control
Oakland Privacy and the Fight for Community Control Many groups in the Electronic Frontier Alliance work to ensure that their neighbors have the tools they need to maintain control of their information. Others devote their efforts to community organizing or advocacy, assuring that authorities respect the civil and privacy rights of people in their community. For over four years, Oakland Privacy has been a notable example of the latter. Initially organizing as the Occupy Oakland Privacy Working Group, Oakland Privacy began meeting in July of 2013, with a mission to stop Oakland’s Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The DAC, first approved by the City of Oakland City Council as a port security monitoring system, was moving toward approval of a second phase by the Summer of 2013. Phase II would have expanded the DAC into a city-wide surveillance apparatus that would have combined feeds from cameras, microphones, and other electronic monitoring assets throughout the city. Local authorit...