Oakland Privacy Activists Threaten To Sue The City To Stop Surveillance Project

Captain Darren Allison addressed the League of Women Voters forum last week on the DAC.

Captain Darren Allison addressed the League of Women Voters forum last week on the DAC. A coalition of activists opposed to the construction of Oakland’s Domain Awareness Center say they’re ready to take the city to court to stop the controversial surveillance project.

Brian Hofer, a lawyer working with the Oakland Privacy Working Group, is delivering a letter to Mayor Jean Quan, the city council, the city administrator, and the city attorney. The letter states that the group will "seek judicial relief" to halt the project. Hofer and his clients claim that the planned contractor to carry out work on Phase 2 of the DAC, Schneider Electric, is also a nuclear weapons contractor, and that hiring the company would violate Oakland’s Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Ordinance.

The Express reported on November 19, 2013 that all of the contractors under consideration for the contract to build the DAC were linked to nuclear weapons work, but that Schneider Electric seemed to have only indirect contracts, providing security cameras to a Navy nuclear weapons facility.

Since then the Oakland Privacy Working Group uncovered detailed evidence of what they say is Schneider Electric’s close work with military and US Energy Department agencies that design, build, and deploy nuclear weapons systems. The letter delivered to the city includes a photocopy of Schneider Electric marketing materials in which the company describes itself as a "global specialist" in "weapon launching control system for nuclear submarines," and "nuclear weapons handling systems." […]

Source: eastbayexpress.com
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