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On February 16, a US District Court in California, responding to an FBI request, ordered Apple to write an entirely new operating system for its iPhone, one that would give Federal authorities full access to encrypted private information on those phones. Protesters in the Bay Area cities of San Francisco and Palo Alto organized demonstrations saying the FBI demand would set a dangerous precedent and threaten the safety and security of millions of iPhone users worldwide.
Elsewhere in the US, demonstrators in more than 40 cities across the US rallied in front of Apple stores to protest the Department of Justice demand that Apple help hack an iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino shooters. One of the major rallies held on the February 23 national day of action was in front of FBI headquarters in Washington, DC.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has said it will be filing an amicus brief in support of Apple with the courts. Shahid Buttar of EFF wrote: "The FBI’s demands reflect a familiar pattern of security agencies leveraging the most seemingly compelling situations—usually the aftermath of terror attacks—to create powers that are later used more widely and eventually abused. The government programs monitoring the telephone system and Internet, for example, were created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Those programs came to undermine the rights of billions of people, doing more damage to our security than the tragic events that prompted their creation."
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don'tbreakourphones.org |
Electronic Frontier Foundation
On February 18, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the reclassification of the Santa Cruz cypress from “endangered” to “threatened” status under the Endangered Species Act. The tree was protected in 1987 due to threats to its habitat, but now the habitat for all five populations is secure.
A state-convened working group is recommending a series of initial steps toward reducing whale entanglements in crab gear in California, including more monitoring and retrieval of lost fishing gear. The Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group was convened in September after the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups found that whale entanglements in 2014 and 2015 had reached historic highs.
The Raging Grannies called out the high-tech industry at a rally held next to the Googleplex on October 14th. They said any talk of Silicon Valley corporations being green is suspect, especially since both Google and Facebook joined with climate change deniers when they became members of the lobbying group ALEC. Both firms declined to renew membership in the right wing group after public pressure in 2014.
Student leader Kian Martin from Lincoln High School in San Jose spoke from the stage saying that corporate entities must hold themselves accountable by ensuring affordable housing and seeing that local Bay Area residents are not displaced from their own communities. Braulia Flores Delgado from the Service Employees International Union said that unionization is essential and that high-tech companies must respect the unions. Corporate speakers included Mike Mielke of Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Bill Weihl of Facebook who gave their views.
The Google bus is a symbol of Bay Area rent prices and escalating number of evictions triggered by the high pay and perks enjoyed by Silicon Valley tech employees. Busses swarmed the streets pulling in and out of the Google campus as the rally, organized by the Sierra Club, came to an end.
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Inspired by the recent success of the East Bay city of Richmond, members and allies of the Mountain View Tenants Coalition marched on three Fridays in August calling for rent stabilization in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Each Friday around 100 people snaked through the downtown area to the corner of El Camino Real to display placards to rush hour motorists. The Mountain View City Council will meet on September 8; the Friday rallies are the lead-up to a large demonstration planned in front of City Hall before protesters take placards calling for tenant protections into the public meeting that evening.
The rallies included members of working families in dire straits. Children as well as adults took to megaphones chanting "La renta sube, sube ....el pueblo sufre, sufre!" and "The rents go up, the people suffer!"
Third March for Rent Control in Mountain View |
Mountain View Tenants Call for Rent Increase Moratorium
Related Indybay Feature:
Richmond Residents Report Petition to Repeal Rent Control Being Billed as Supporting It
The Sisters for Perpetual Indulgence rallied in front of Facebook's headquarters on June 1 to demand that the social media company remove the fake-name reporting option and stop asking users for government IDs. They stood with representatives of the African-American and Native American communities to say that it's not fair that anybody can claim someone is using a fake name and report that person to Facebook for scrutiny.
Victims of domestic violence also called for a change to Facebook's policy requiring that members use only birth names. They said that using their real name exposes them to their abusers.
People should be able to remain anonymous, the protesters said. Many Native Americans have two-word last names that were sometimes handed down in tribal ceremonies. White separatists have been able to disable Native American Facebook accounts by reporting tribal names as "fake" to Facebook. Sam White Swan-Perkins quoted Native legal activist Chase Iron Eyes as having said, "we are just the messengers, our warriors haven’t even shown up, and that’s when Facebook is going to pay attention."
 Read More with Photos and Video
On the grassy lawn in front of Hewlett Packard headquarters, demonstrators held a "virtual" meeting dubbed "The People's Shareholders Meeting" on March 18. Board members in silk-screened HP insignia ties joined a Meg Whitman character in blonde wig. CEO Whitman fielded questions about the company's complicity in Israel's oppression of Palestine from a group on lawn chairs portraying shareholders. Testifiers, including two Israeli citizens, spoke to the shareholders from a mock podium.
Following Hewlett-Packard’s February 4 announcement that it would replace its in-person annual shareholder meeting with an online meeting, a coalition of organizations for Palestinian rights decided to take their protest directly to HP in Palo Alto, California. Last year shareholders who objected to Hewlett Packard's aid to Israel spoke at the annual meeting held at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
HP facilitates both the illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine/Israel. Its technology and equipment aid oppression through the development of its biometric system used for population and territorial control. HP's Basel system is installed at the Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank... checkpoints that deprive Palestinians of freedom of movement in violation of international law.
Read More with Photos
Previous Coverage: Protest Inside and Outside Hewlett-Packard Shareholders' Meeting
Members of Youth Alliance for Justice rallied in front of Mountain View City Hall on January 28th with the faces of victims on placards, asking that they not be forgotten. All the images were of people who were killed, seriously injured, or "disappeared" due to racism or human rights violations.
Student speakers asked, "Why should the US government be above the law?" They said the US government should join 122 other countries and belong to the UN's International Criminal Court. In addition they called for an end to police violence against people of color.
Akubundu Lott, an organizer for the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, addressed the crowd. He said the US displays its imperialist role when it sends aid in the form of troops to countries requesting humanitarian aid. In addition, Lott said, the US has helped Israel set up an apartheid state in the Middle East.
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In Oakland, hundreds of people from more than two dozen groupings organized in response to the Anti Police-Terror Project’s call to come together for ninety-six hours of direct action over the Martin Luther King Day weekend. The first action announced was a protest inside Montgomery BART station in San Francisco at 7am on Friday. The weekend’s events culminated in a Jobs and Economy March for the People on Monday, January 19. Other groups organized more MLK-related events in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, and throughout Northern California.
On December 22, with the full support of marine conservation organizations, a group of California legislators called on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service to transition away from deadly California drift gillnets. “California drift gillnets are deadly curtains of death for marine wildlife like whales and sea turtles,” said Doug Karpa of Turtle Island Restoration Network.
UPDATE 11/14: New CA Ebola Mandate Inspired by NNU Appeal to Gov. Brown, Sets National Model
On November 11, two-day strikes started that effect nearly 20,000 registered nurses at 86 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics, a Sutter hospital in Tracy, and Watsonville Community Hospital kicking off a wave of protests in 15 states and the District of Columbia over eroding patient care conditions symbolized by inadequate Ebola safeguards at most U.S. hospitals. Large noon rallies were held at Kaiser Oakland and Kaiser South Sacramento.
Conservation groups notified the National Marine Fisheries Service of their intent to sue the agency for delaying Endangered Species Act protection for the pinto abalone, an approximately six-inch snail with an iridescent inner shell that was once common in rocky, intertidal coasts from Alaska to Baja California.
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