Not sure how to append or collate this with Daniel's section, but included below is a draft of suggested comments I tried piecing together. I think that if we are to have a statement, that we should merge our various contributions to represent one voice. I'm not sure what platform is best to do this kind of thing on, but have had some positive experience with http://www.co-ment.com/.

sent from eddan.com

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To our community – 

It is in good conscience that we, the members of Sudo Room, host the Lock-Picking session at the Workshop Weekend taking place at 2141 Broadway [and Tech Liminal] today. As even a quick glance at the rest of the program would make clear, we are a diverse community of technologists, artists, and activists joined together by the ambition of figuring things out for ourselves and teaching other people how to do it.

A further step back would reveal a context of free and open to the public educational opportunities covering everything from sewing recycled fabric into sustainable clothing; making vanilla extract to experiment with new flavors of ice cream; creating a transparent and democratic corporate governance; and indeed yes – taking locks apart and reverse engineering software.

Regarding the option of calling a locksmith, an Oakland resident locked out of their house or car should be advised to read through the peer review websites carefully for reputable services before calling their number. It is our general belief that public safety is better served when the skills necessary to be hired as a locksmith, for example, are taught in classrooms rather than by picking it up in the actual commission of crimes.

We share in our city’s mourning of the death of Kiante Campbell at the Art Murmur last month. Collectively and as individuals, we are also aware of and concerned about the alarming levels of crime in our neighborhoods. It is in fact those concerns that have made for the greatest challenges in offering an openly accessible entrance to our building. Being a horizontally-governed organization, the compromised option of only several people having the keys is problematic. We are now experimenting in our own space with ways that can increase security while preserving the privacy of the general public. We intend to share our results publicly on our website and wiki, as with all of our other projects, so that public safety in Oakland can be more effectively enforced.

We regret that Mayor Quan stepped back from her support of the event, though we appreciate her support for our innovative programs that are bringing about an emergent start-up technology culture in downtown Oakland. We can certainly sympathize with the overwhelming task of responsibly editing a large amount of information such as what is in the Mayors’ newsletter. We intend for this unfortunate series of misunderstandings to be yet another incentive for us to work on some of the projects we’ve already started – those aimed towards more efficiently sorting through large volumes of information to allow for making editorial judgment calls more fairly.

We would like to take this unsolicited opportunity to make our intentions clear with Police Chief Jordan and Mayor Quan. We have among us people who can contribute a great deal to solving our law enforcement technology problems and addressing the cyber-security concerns of critical infrastructure such as the Port of Oakland. We hope to get a chance to work together with our city’s leaders in bringing cutting-edge capacity building to the people of Oakland with sustainable and equitable economic structures. We are trying to be very conscientious about it – we welcome you to drop by one of our many events or visit our website for information about our initiatives.