[sudo-announce] FW: Come to Inside Urban Shield Forum - Friday 10/10/14

-----Original Message----- From: "Gerald Smith" <gsmith1917(a)gmail.com> Sent: ‎10/‎9/‎2014 9:34 PM To: "ecoeconomist11(a)gmail.com" <ecoeconomist11(a)gmail.com> Subject: Fwd: Come to Inside Urban Shield Forum - Friday 10/10/14 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gerald Smith <gsmith1917(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 8:15 PM Subject: Come to Inside Urban Shield Forum - Friday 10/10/14 To: Gerald Smith <gsmith1917(a)gmail.com> Urban Shield Background. The eighth annual Urban Shield, a special weapons and tactics exposition showcasing the latest in law enforcement equipment, took place at the Marriott in downtown Oakland on September 4-8, 2014. The annual event brings together law enforcement agencies from around the world - including Israel, Bahrain, Qatar, Brazil, Guam, South Korea and Singapore, in addition to police forces from around the U.S. They share militarized intimidation tactics, training exercises and a military hardware sale convention for agencies seeking weapons to suppress their local populations with S.W.A.T. Teams, neighborhood lock-downs and Martial Law. Urban Shield is hosted by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, but was organized by the for profit corporation known as Cytel Group Inc. which was founded by former assistant sheriff of Alameda County, James Lester Baker. Mr. Baker founded the company as a way to promote the anti-terrorism Urban Shield program around the world. The Cytel Group also organizes Urban Shield conferences in Austin, Texas, Boston, New Orleans and abroad. For years local activists and community members have vehemently opposed an event of this kind taking place in a city with such a strong history of police repression, violence and murder. In 2011, Urban Shield took place just days before the tear-gassing, beatings and shootings of Occupiers that took place on October 25th. In 2013, an all-day speakout and demonstration was held at the Marriott. This year, five hundred people blocked Broadway outside the Marriot for hours in protest of the events inside. With political, economic and people pressure being thus brought to bear, and the specter of Ferguson looming, the Mayor of Oakland announced that Urban Shield would not be held in Oakland in 2015. Guest Speakers. Several members of the local community took bold steps to get inside Urban Shield as volunteers, journalists and analysts to be able to testify to the public on all they observed. Shane Bauer was kidnapped by Iranian forces while hiking near the Iraq/Iran border. Along with Sarah Shourd and Josh Battel, he was held in solitary confinement in Iran for months. When released he turned his attention to investigative reporting, concentrating on California’s solitary confinement prison system and, most recently, Urban Shield. Julia Carrie Wong is a freelance investigative reporter who has written pieces for Vice, Al Jazeera, Salon, The Nation, In These Times and 48 Hills. Her recent piece on Urban Shield in Vice, Militarized Cops Pretend to Fight Terrorists in Oakland, was highly acclaimed. Joshua Smith is an Oakland activist, and an investigator for the Oakland Privacy Working Group. His work for OPWG helped curtail the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s own version of an NSA spy center. Josh was able to attend some of the Urban Shield seminars. Susan Harman is an Oakland activist, member of Code Pink, the Oakland Privacy Working Group and Strike Debt Bay Area. She “volunteered” for one of Urban Shield’s training exercises. Attend Inside Urban Shield to hear reports by these speakers “from the inside,” ask questions and help build community opposition to future events not only happening in Oakland but all over the country.