Oakland surveillance center protest riles chambers

Oakland residents opposed to the planned Domain Awareness Center gather outside City Hall before a City Council meeting. Oakland residents opposed to the planned Domain Awareness Center gather outside City Hall before a City Council meeting. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Oakland surveillance center protest riles chambers 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

Oakland's City Council voted to move ahead with controversial city surveillance center during a raucous council meeting Tuesday morning that only ended when the police cleared out the chambers.

The council voted 6-1 to approve an incremental resolution allowing the city to hire a new contractor to assemble the Domain Awareness Center, a surveillance hub that would allow police and city officials to continuously monitor video cameras, gunshot detectors and license-plate readers across the city.

Dozens of Oakland residents, deeply worried the center would allow the city to spy on people's everyday lives, tried to turn the resolution into a referendum on surveillance and persuade council members to stall, or scrap, the process.

"Nobody in Oakland wants to be monitored 24/7," said Oakland permaculture designer Ryan Rising, 25. "I see it as a pilot program for other cities to build their own surveillance centers."

But the effort didn't seem to change many minds, even as members of the council struggled to discuss the issue over deafening chants of protesters demanding the council delay a decision: "Table it! Table it! Table it!"

"I call to question," Council President Pat Kernighan yelled at her colleagues over the din, indicating it was time to vote. "Can you guys hear me? I call to question!"

Six members of the council approved the resolution in a voice vote. Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney voted against the resolution, saying later that she had too many unanswered questions about the process of completing the center. Councilman Larry Reid was absent. As forceful chants of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" broke out after the vote, Kernighan asked police to empty the chamber.

At issue is the domain center, a proposed city and port project to link dozens of traffic and surveillance cameras with police and fire dispatch systems, Twitter feeds, crime maps, gunshot-detecting microphones and alarm programs.

City officials say the center, which will eventually cost $10.9 million in federal grants, would allow authorities to improve their response to crime, terrorism, earthquakes, fires or hazardous materials incidents.

Once it is operational in July 2014, the center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way will be monitored 24 hours a day by a police officer, a police analyst and a person from the Port of Oakland.

City officials insisted the center would mostly be used during emergencies like earthquakes, fires, protests and tsunamis, but many residents were skeptical.

"I don't want to live in a city that is testing this giant surveillance system, because I believe it is going to be used to criminalize normal existence," said Magdalena Kazmierczak, 24, who lives in West Oakland.

The council was asked to approve a resolution to hire a new contractor to design and assemble the center after the current contractor, Science Applications International Corp., was found to be connected to nuclear weapons. A 1988 city law restricts Oakland from doing business with companies considered to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Oakland officials will now examine bids from four other companies to see if they can finish programming the surveillance center.

But Gibson McElhaney said she worried none of the other companies, Motorola Solutions, G4S, GTSI Inc., and Schneider Electric, would be eligible.

"I think tonight I was probably more concerned about the nature of these vendors," she said after the meeting.