I haven't been deeply absorbed in the various controversies surrounding Uber and its ride sharing venture. Traditional taxi companies see them as a threat and they are fending off competition from Lyft. For all of their techie libertarianism they seem to not be above trying to leverage the forces of government control to the support of their cause. Their latest effort at lobbying sounds seriously over the top.
Uber Is Now Sponsoring a Police Militarization Conference
As citizens continue to criticize America's increasingly-militarized civilian police forces, cops across the country are descending upon Oakland for the controversial Urban Shield war games conference. Mother Jones' Shane Bauer has been roaming the conference's showroom floor, where drones that "drop stuff 'like the Hunger Games'" and "keep calm and return fire" shirts are sold. He also found that Silicon Valley's hottest startup is footing part of the bill.
It's true. "Everyone's private driver" is listed as a platinum vendor sponsor amongst weapons and armored vehicle manufacturers.
Uber sponsoring a police conference itself wouldn't be particularly unexpected—as the "$18.2 billion" startup has come under fire by regulators across the globe, currying favor from local cops could help build needed support within local governments. And a company executive recently joined the Department of Defense's Defense Business Board. However, as Urban Shield's 2012 retrospective video shows, it's not simply a police conference, but also a training program:
Urban Shield is a conference being funded by the US Dept. of Homeland Security. Holding it in Oakland might have been inspired in hopes of having a riot to practice on. However, I suspect that it might have something to do with the fact that former secretary Janet Nepolitano now has her offices there as president of UC. The folks at Homeland Security don't seem to have gotten Obama's memo about scaling back the trend to police militarization.