Police would be able to punch in a location and watch it in real time or wind back the clock. Its official name was the “Domain Awareness Center”-but everyone called it “the DAC.” Design specs called for linking real-time video feeds from thousands of cameras across the city and funneling them into a unified control hub. The commotion was tied to the main agenda item of the night: the city council was scheduled to vote on an ambitious $11 million project to create a citywide police surveillance hub. It was an angry crowd, and police officers flanked the sides of the room, ready to push everyone out if things got out of hand. Several hundred people packed Oakland’s ornate high-domed city council chamber. A large group of people milled near the entrance, a few of them setting up what looked like a giant papier-mâché rat, presumably intended as a symbol for snitching.
A line of parked police cars ran down the block, and news anchors and TV camera crews scampered about, jockeying for position. Even from a distance, I could see that something unusual was going on. I approached Oakland’s city hall on foot. Two police cruisers raced through a red light, sirens blaring. The streets were deserted, save for a couple of homeless men slumped in a heap against a closed storefront. It was February 18, 2014, and already dark when I crossed the Bay Bridge from San Francisco and parked my car in downtown Oakland.
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