Democracy Ateneo Announcement 3-15-14

Compañer@s,

We will convene the Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo, Saturday, March 15, from 2 - 5 p.m. at Casa de Vicky (792 E. Julian St., San Jose <http://www.casavicky.com/>) to resume our regularly scheduled reflection and action space and to explore some of the questions and struggles mentioned below.

On March 19, 2014 California-based Hewlett-Packard (HP) will hold its annual shareholder meeting in Santa Clara. While primarily identified publicly with the production of computers and printers, at present over 50% of HP contracts are defense contracts specializing in “technologies to control and monitor large populations” in the form of data systems <www.stophp.org>. These data systems are designed and sold to prisons, immigration centers, and other militarized institutions towards the construction and maintenance of new racial regimes in service of capital. As forms of surveillance and discipline, the HP data systems operate across a continuity of strategies. The databases are, for example, the mechanism through which the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) feeds its Solitary Housing Units (SHUs) “validating” gang members and those considered as belonging to a special Security Threat Group (STG). Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also depends on HP systems to speed up immigration checks through post 9-11 fusion centers that enable information about civilians to be shared across federal, state, and local agencies. The biometric systems of the 1980s installed and enforced by Israel at checkpoints against Palestinians  have since been taken over by HP, currently building a factory in Israel to employ 1000 workers producing magnetized identification cards to classify people by ethnicity. Nearby, the integration of networked information supported by HP technology and maintenance has been instrumental in monitoring Syrian and Iranian political dissidents as terrorists.  These systems rely on identification procedures that feed large data systems designed and expanded to manage and control whole populations. HP biometrics advances the new racecraft and its circuits run deep through Silicon Valley. (For a discussion of Racecraft, see K. Fields & B. Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life <http://www.versobooks.com/books/1645-racecraft>)

A tactical cartography of Silicon Valley would reveal continuities across mass incarceration, militarized policing, and surveillance technologies. While older, significant defense companies like Lockheed-Martin  feature prominently in the defense landscape of Silicon Valley with offices in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Palo Alto, there are other less recognizably defense-oriented companies that fuel the recent Silicon Valley accords with Israel and other militarized regions, from Oakland to Los Angeles. Earlier in March, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with California Governor Brown in Silicon Valley to sign a memorandum of understanding between the two regions with a focus on water scarcity, cyber-security, and climate change.  Trade between Silicon Valley and Israel-Palestine in 2013 totaled over $4 billion. Much of this is based on technology developed in highly militarized regions like Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq and follows the trends associated with “predictive policing” based on military assessments of insurgent activity in Iraq and civilian casualties in Afghanistan <See Bond-Graham and Winston, "Forget the NSA, the LAPD Spies on Millions of Innocent Folks"
http://www.laweekly.com/los-angeles/forget-the-nsa-la-cops-spy-on-millions-of-innocent-folks/Content?oid=4473467&mode=print>. In the US, William Bratton introduced the concept into “domestic” policing.  In the agencies he led, advised, and consulted with across the US and Latin America, Bratton is known for forms of policing that are increasingly militarized, essentially cutting out the civil aspect of the policing function. (See, for example, Masunaga and Griffin, "Meet William Bratton"<http://oaklandnorth.net/2013/02/20/meet-william-bratton-former-top-cop-in-la-and-new-york-now-oaklands-security-advisor/>) These new forms of zero-tolerance, intelligence-led policing are interconnected through technology across Silicon Valley.
Nice Systems in Redwood City is an Israeli company that collects information daily generated through surveillance of the public and synchronized to assess threats. Through Nice Systems people are monitored accordingly to provide a “situational awareness” designed to “alert of any potential events.” Systems like Nice encourage city infrastructures to rely on predictive policing models that identify potential threats before any crime actually takes place. Nice Systems also integrates the databases of the Israeli Defense Forces, in particular, its elite, top secret agency linking surveillance and national security, the IDF 8200 Unit.

Motorola Mobility in Sunnyvale contracted with the LAPD, installing surveillance cameras to monitor public housing projects in Los Angeles, such as Jordan Downs in 2010. These surveillance cameras supported William Bratton’s introduction of predictive policing to LA by pairing with facial recognition technologies to enforce gang injunctions in place across Black and Brown communities. Cameras with facial recognition software were also installed across the San Fernando Valley. These cameras were programmed to coincide with “hot lists” in order to identify through facial recognition programs people documented as active gang members. This also included people with open warrants. Images are available for real time analysis in  “digital war rooms” that support predictive policing practices. The Department of Defense contracted for over $13 billion with Raytheon, also in Sunnyvale last year. Raytheon is responsible for selling the LAPD the video cameras to outfit their patrol cars.

It is critical that we read the ongoing and recent hunger strikes in this context: Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp; Prisons in Israel and Palestine; across California including Pelican Bay; Youngstown, Ohio; Tacoma Detention Center; and Menard, Illinois. Locally, here in the Bay Area, it manifests as the Domain Awareness Center  <http://oaklandwiki.org/Domain_Awareness_Center> and through "Urban Shield" training exercises, trade show, and weapons transfer <www.urbanshield.org> (part of the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative <http://www.bayareauasi.com/>) to name two. Local resistance against the DAC, for example, is responsible for significant modification to the proposed DAC intrusion, including restricting the DAC's implementation to the Port of Oakland and the Oakland International Airport, the dismantling of over forty cameras, and the opprobrium on integrating the police gunshot detector.  The resistance to mass incarceration, militarized policing, and everyday surveillance continues and articulates in a number of sites and through a variety of strategies --it must continue.

South Bay Crew

NB: If you are not already signed-up and would like to stay connected with the emerging Universidad de la Tierra Califas community please feel free to subscribe to the Universidad de la Tierra Califas listserve at the following url <https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unitierracalifas>. Also, if you would like to review previous Democracy Ateneo announcements and summaries <http://ccra.mitotedigital.org/democracy_ateneo> and more information on the ateneo in general, please see <http://ccra.mitotedigital.org/ateneo>.