

Eddan sez, "The Oakland City Council is in the final stretch of approving the funding of the Domain Awareness Center to be built in Oakland. Though there has been a great deal of public outcry at the City Council itself, it just keeps going forward especially because they're now trying to pitch this as a crime-fighting law enforcement tool. Which is especially important to be on the right side of in Oakland during a City Council/Mayor election year. The Public Safety Committee to meet Jan. 28 is made up of most of the City Council members that are most skeptical and least supportive of the way this Department of Homeland Security new gadget funding is dangled before a resource-poor and embattled police department."

This DAC will gather information about everyone in Oakland in real time (using license plate readers, facial and body recognition software, Shotspotter microphones and more). It will be capable of collating who you are, where you are, what you are doing on social media, and what you are spending money on. In conjunction with other "Fusion Centers" built by the NSA, state and local governments around the country, it will track everyone and everything in Oakland from kids in school to politicians visiting their lovers.

Claiming that they have to "do something" about crime and that "if we turn down the money we can't use it elsewhere," City Council members have voted at least three times to authorize spending (including City matching funds) on the DAC. But there is no good evidence that massive surveillence is effective in stopping violent crime, or cost-effective in terms of use of existing police resources. It's a sop to citizens who are (rightly so!) complaining about Oakland's high crime rate but which in fact does nothing to solve the problem.