From COINTELPRO to the Domain Awareness Center POSTER (PDF)

Surveillance Won’t Make Us Safe. Police Won’t Make Us Free.

Across the US and the world, the FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, and local police are monitoring and recording private emails, social media, and phone calls. Since 9/11, thousands have been harassed, deported, and arrested, while fusion centers coordinate between local cops and federal agents while logging data on millions. Those that speak out like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden face years in prison and worse. As the economic and ecological crisis deepens, surveillance continues to be a tool of governments to control their populations by preventing and containing dissent.

Fearing open rebellion in the wake of the Oscar Grant, Occupy, and Trayvon revolts, those in power in Oakland have pushed for the Domain Awareness Center (DAC) to become a central hub for the surveillance of activists, social movements, and the general poor and working-class population. License plates will be recorded and people will be tracked throughout the city with facial recognition technology. This shows government to be exactly what it is: a system of domination based on coercion and violence. It is up to us to take out the eyes of the pigs in the sky. The DAC won’t make us safer - it is the makings of a police state.