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Oakland’s Vendor Pool to Complete the “DAC” Is Filled With Nuclear Weapons Contractors

by Darwin BondGraham (repost)
Darwin BondGraham's research into the contractor pool for Oakland's Domain Awareness Center.

In March of 2013 the city of Oakland signed a contract with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) for design and construction of the first of two phases of a city-wide surveillance system called the Domain Awareness Center, or DAC. The basic infrastructure to link up cameras and sensors with servers running powerful software, hosted in several command rooms at the Port and in the city’s Emergency Operations Center, is now mostly complete. Oakland’s DAC surveillance system is not yet fully up and running, however, until Phase 2 work is completed. In July of 2013, against an outpouring of public protest against building the surveillance system, the Oakland city council approved a contract modification for SAIC to complete Phase 2.

Recently, however, the Oakland city council learned that its prime contractor for the project is involved in the U.S. nuclear weapons program, a fact that violates Measure T, a city voter proposition that makes Oakland a nuclear free zone. Measure T and Ordinance No. 11062 C.M.S. bar any contractor that is involved in nuclear weapons work from doing business with Oakland, and SAIC’s contributions to nuclear weapons are well-documented.

Oakland paused work on the project, and in October the city council authorized its administration to drop SAIC and return to the original pool of vendors who responded to the city’s first request for proposals (RFP) issued one year ago. The original pool of vendors who expressed interest in bidding on the surveillance project included 25 corporations, so surely another with a clean record could be found?

It appears, however, that SAIC’s ties to nuclear weapons aren’t unusual inside the industry that sells mass surveillance systems. Many of the contractors that specialize in building giant surveillance systems like the DAC also have nuclear weapons and other arms manufacturing contracts with the Pentagon. Mass surveillance and nuclear weapons appear to go hand in hand in the thinking of the executives who run these companies.

For example, engineers with URS Corp responded to Oakland’s original RFP for the DAC. URS Corp is a prime contractor for the U.S.nuclear weapons research, design and testing laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico and Livermore, California. URS is part of two for-profit limited liability corporations that manage the U.S.nuclear weapons labs for the National Nuclear Security Administration. URS also operates the salt mines in southern New Mexico where deadly radioactive waste from the U.S.nuclear weapons programs is buried.

Schneider Electric also responded to the original RFP and appears to be in the running to get the DAC Phase 2 contract. But again, like URS and SAIC, Schneider Electric has ties to nuclear weapons. In marketing materials Schneider lists Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nuclear weapons facility managed by URS, as one of its clients. Schneider Electric also lists the Pentagon, Lockheed Martin, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base as clients. Lockheed Martin has long been one of the prime nuclear weapons contractors for the United States government. Wright Patterson Air Force Base hosts several units that research and deploy nuclear weapons. Schneider Electric’s Pelco subsidiary has installed surveillance systems at the Navy’s Kings Bay Strategic Weapons Facility, a port that harbors nuclear armed submarines.

Another company in Oakland’s vendor pool that is being considered for Phase 2 of the DAC is Kratos Defense. Very much like SAIC, Kratos is another San Diego-headquartered arms merchant that thrives on Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contracts. In their most recent report to shareholders, Kratos’ executives straightforwardly describe their company as “a specialized security technology business,” whose “principal products and services are related to Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (“C5ISR”).” Kratos’ major business segments include “Electronic Warfare/Attack,” drones, known in industry-speak as “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” and “Missile Range Operations.”

And Kratos has direct links to nuclear weapons too. Kratos designed, built, and manages a security system for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s use at the Nevada Test Site, a testing ground for nuclear weapons that in recent years has been considered as the site of a possible radioactive waste dump. Last year Kratos won a multi-million dollar contract from the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to provide “worldwide Radio Frequency (RF) interference geolocation services” for the Pentagon’s use. Among other things, STRATCOM commands the nuclear weapons forces deployed by the Air Force and Navy, and Kratos’ contract relates to this nuclear mission.

The list of potential Oakland DAC contractors includes still more companies deeply involved in weapons manufacturing, including nuclear weapons.

Two representatives from Unicom Global attended the Port of Oakland’s October 22, 2013 pre-proposal meeting for the DAC. Unicom Global is owned by Beverly Hills entrepreneur Corry Hong, formerly a lead guitarist in a South Korean rock band who became a software designer after immigrating to the US. Unicom is a holding company that owns several major federal technology contractors including GTSI. GTSI was suspended from doing business with the federal government in 2010 due to accusations the company was scamming the Department of Homeland Security. Hong and Unicom bought GTSI last year, and since then GTSI and Unicom have regained considerable business with the military and DHS.

Unicom’s GTSI has even contracted with the National Nuclear Security Administration. A 2009 brochure from GTSI that is available on Unicom’s web site discusses one such contract in which GTSI provided the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories with “classified removable electronic media,” or CREMs. CREMs are storage devices which have been used to save nuclear weapons design information and testing data.

Oakland’s list of potential DAC Phase 2 contractors just keeps turning up companies with links to nuclear weapons. G4S Technology, part of the security company G4S, also responded to Oakland’s DAC RFP and attended to the mandatory pre-proposal contractor meetings. G4S Government Solutions has the prime contracts to guard most of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex across four states. G4S mercenaries are stationed at the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Nevada Test Site, the Sandia National laboratory Tonopah Test Range, also in Nevada, and the Hanford Site in Washington state.

So can Oakland actually pick a contractor to complete its mass surveillance system who doesn’t violate the city’s anti-nuclear ordinance? Perhaps a more important question is the one being asked by a growing coalition of residents opposed to the project: should Oakland even build the DAC?

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Register Peace & Freedom or Green
While the Oakland city council is a non-partisan entity, the fact remains that in Oakland, as in San Francisco and many Bay Area cities, you cannot get elected or appointed to any position if you are a Republican. Thus, we can be sure that everyone who voted for this obvious police state terrorism, the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), is a Democrat. Interestingly, the one who voted no, Linda McElhaney, proudly announces on the website below that she comes from a union family. The others do not make such a proud announcement. See:
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityCouncil/

It is also clear from the Oakland City Council website cited above that it is not color or gender but class that makes the difference. Since the vote was 6 to 1, perhaps Ms. Kaplan, the at-large Democrat, did not vote. In any event, we can be sure all who voted are Democrats.

Spending a fortune on a police state spy outfit is clearly reactionary. This $2 million project is more fully described at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/07/27/18740498.php

We can be sure it will cost many millions more of our tax dollars if this project is ever completed. These kinds of projects are not only reactionary, they are till-tapping, palm-greasing opportunities which is the most likely motive for these Democrats supporting this huge spy project. Lots of contractors will be feeding at the public trough and the Democrats are the same as the Republicans when it comes to handing out contracts at taxpayer expense to private profit businesses, and they are the same as the Republicans when it comes to promoting the police state.

It is of course a lot cheaper to feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide top quality free education to all from age 3 through university for decent paying jobs, provide free childcare for all, provide free and adequate public transportation and provide free medical care for all from cradle to grave. Providing for people's needs is the only way to prevent crime. There is NO other way. There are of course far less profits to private contractors and less palm-greasing that accompanies these profits when people's needs are served.

If you are disgusted with both the Democrats and Republicans who are only concerned with profits and not with people, please change your voter registration to either of the two parties that need you now to stay on the ballot, Peace & Freedom and the Green Party, both of which are far more concerned with people than profits and oppose the police state.

You can register online at:
http://registertovote.ca.gov/

For more information, see:
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/about-us/platform/full-platform

http://acgreens.wordpress.com/ (Alameda County)
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.cagreens.org/platform
http://www.gp.org/index.php
http://www.gp.org/index.php/what-we-believe.html



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