The Peoples Underground

The event was called fuck the police and at 6pm on the corners of broadway and 14th in Oakland a crowd started to gather. The protesters were preparing to march against police brutality that took place a week earlier when Missouri police brutally shot and murdered an unarmed 18 year old black male named Michael Brown. Oakland is no stranger to outrageous police corruption and extremely brutal racial discrimination by authorities. A large banner showing faces of youth who had been slain in their own community were carried through the streets. The police quickly lost all control of the mob which brought traffic to a standstill. Protesters breaking through police line after police line spilled onto the busy downtown streets. Police stood and watched as graffiti was sprayed on buildings by masked activists right in front of them. At one point the police attempted to arrest a muslim women breaking their line but were unsuccessful as the crowd swarmed and rescued her. Oakland is ahotspot for political movements and the protesters were very well organized and knowledgeable about police pacification tactics. Oakland police have responded in recent years to political unrest by militarizing their force and testing a variety of new futuristic weapons including sound canons and invisible rays that make the protester feel agitated and highly uncomfortable. The new weapons seem only to invigorate the protesters and foster a feeling of a growing brutality toward citizens by police.

NSA Phone Recordings makes people feel uneasy, as if self censorship is necessary. Not only does it fester feeling of distrust toward our central governing bodies and agencies. It creates a fear that our private phone calls, skype discussion, or internet searches might be obtained and made public. As we saw with the recent Victoria Nuland leaked phone conversation, we are all susceptible to this type of public humiliation. If it can happen to the assistant secretary of state it can happen to you! While the identity of the the leaker remains unknown, as Edward Snowden pointed out, it is very easy for low level government officials or in his case contractors to gain vast amounts of information on relatively any individual. He also pointed out that a child born today will never know what its like to have privacy.

Having to self censor conversations with loved ones and trusted friends because we know that the government is keeping copies that may one day fall into god knows who’s hands is a type of future that the architects of our constitution would find unsettling.

#Justdontrecordthatshit

#stoprecordingme

Victoria Nuland’s Leak Phone Conversation can be heard below.