You are being watched. The machine is real.

[djzombie]

http://cironline.org/reports/oakland...ollection-4978

OAKLAND, Calif. – With this city repeatedly roiled by civil protests and the public’s attention sharply focused on government surveillance, local officials are pushing forward with a federally funded project to link surveillance cameras, license-plate readers, gunshot detectors, Twitter feeds, alarm notifications and other data into a unified “situational awareness” tool for law enforcement.

The Domain Awareness Center, a joint project between the Port of Oakland and city, started as a nationwide initiative to secure ports by networking sensors and cameras in and around the facilities. The busy port is one of seven U.S. maritime facilities that the Department of Homeland Security considers at highest risk of a terrorist attack.

Since its inception in 2009, the project has ballooned into a surveillance program for the entire city. Some officials already have proposed linking the center to a regional Department of Homeland Security intelligence-gathering operation or adding feeds from surveillance cameras around the Oakland stadium and arena complex.

On Tuesday evening, the Oakland City Council was expected to approve an additional $2 million in federal grants to fund the build-out of the surveillance center at Oakland's Emergency Operations Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. But following an outcry from public speakers about the center’s lack of privacy guidelines or data retention limits, the council pulled the item from the consent calendar and postponed a vote until July 30.

Approval of the $2 million grant would fund the incorporation into the Domain Awareness Center of sensors and cameras from outside agencies such as the state Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Oakland Unified School District, the O.co Coliseum and Oracle Arena, as well as regional law enforcement intelligence centers.

The Oakland Domain Awareness Center currently does not have privacy guidelines or limits for retaining the data it collects, raising concerns from civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Eighteen license-plate readers mounted on Oakland police vehicles and city infrastructure already collect and retain millions of license-plate records.

Linda Lye, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California who led protests against the Alameda County sheriff’s proposed purchase of an aerial drone this year, called the Oakland surveillance center “a classic illustration of mission creep.”

“What are the limits on dissemination?” Lye asked. “And what are the privacy and safety protocols for handling this information internally and through outside agencies?”

Ahsan Baig, Oakland's information technology manager, said guidelines on privacy and data retention would be developed during the next year. Because the surveillance center will draw on different types of sensors and cameras, Baig said drafting such policies would be a complex process.

Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the level of unrest Oakland has experienced in recent years made the issue an easy sell to city. But Tien said he is concerned that the center lacks guidelines about data use or retention.

“There's no indication they've considered any privacy or civil liberties issue in the first place,” Tien said. He noted Oakland's center is explicitly oriented toward the city, unlike the center at the Port of Long Beach in Southern California, which he said has a maritime focus.

As planned, the center would integrate computer dispatch systems for the Oakland police and fire departments, gunshot detection microphones and license-plate readers. It includes use of crime mapping software and stationary video cameras, private alarm detection programs, Twitter feeds, news feeds and other alerts for increased “situational awareness” and “more effective incident response,” according to Baig, who briefed the City Council’s Public Safety Committee this month.

Key to the operation is a geographic information system map with overlaid points that represent cameras, license-plate readers, sensors and other infrastructure that feeds into the central network. Multiple camera feeds, sensor indicators and maps can be viewed simultaneously on-screen alongside alerts from other government agencies. Alarms, crime reports and trends in offenses are accessible through a “Crime View” portal.

Long Beach is the site of the only other Domain Awareness Center in California, where a $21 million surveillance center monitors port facilities, surrounding waterways and rail and road infrastructure. Los Angeles and Seattle are building their own domain awareness centers for local ports with federal funding. New York and Chicago also have networked surveillance centers led by local police departments.

[Melena]

Meh, our sheriff's office already has a few cars equipped with license plate readers which are connected to a national stolen car database.

[Abandon]

this isn't really news

[Abandon]

plus, your title sucks

[archibaldcrane]

Just think, face-scanners will be a proliferated thing in 10 years. This NSA shit is going to be peanuts compared to the government databases of citizen movements that will be collected soon.

[quannum]

Just think, face-scanners will be a proliferated thing in 10 years. This NSA shit is going to be peanuts compared to the government databases of citizen movements that will be collected soon.

and apparently we'll just say "meh, we already know we're being watched"

[BaneTheBrawler]

soon? all they have to do is friend you on facebook

[Salodin]

soon? all they have to do is friend you on facebook

Lol, he thinks they even have to friend us .

[Nephlite]

There's a couple of cities who've started this trend and it's gaining momentum. A buddy of mine who works with DHS makes security contingency plans for cities that obtain federal funding for police/fire operations and this is one of the new age city-wide security measures that will be the norm, if not already for mid to upper level metropolitan areas.

The biggest concern (and rightfully so) is the lack of oversight and it takes just one disgruntled employee to get all that compiled information and use it for the wrong purposes. Take for example all the stuff happening up in the NYPD where officers are using terminals to log in to NCIC. That database holds something along the lines of 130 million Americans and it's linked to DMV records, local/federal/state databases and supplies up-to-date information on warrants, inquiries, investigations, and watchdog programs similar to the NSA's program that compiles data on targets that are risks just because of a combination of words or whatever. The cop gets paid off by the wrong people to do checks to see who's snooping and alerts the badguys to let them know when the heat is on so they lay low or avoid exposure till the query is deleted or shifted in the datastream.

The one thing you can't take away from these types of programs is the human aspect of it all. One big reason why the FCC mandated police radio's to become encrypted by 2014 was to stop the dataflow at the Law Enforcement level. A lot of jurisdictions are teeming with reports of sudden and overwhelming spikes in high-risk warrant serves, sting operations going smoother, and less ambush-style killings because the badguys aren't listening in on our usual channels. This opens up the human aspect of the corruption to become more perilous as more and more organizations are reaching deep in to their pockets to plant their own agenda in to already wavering morale and taking advantage of the economic status of the local foot beat officer to turn them in to the perfect lookouts.

[Tajin]

Lol, he thinks they even have to friend us .

On point.

[SamanosukeShiva]

plus, your title sucks