The City of Oakland is both wonderful and problematic, as Ars editor Joe Mullin and I can attest, given that we're both denizens of this fine city. It has incredible natural beauty and vibrant culture, but also a notoriously mismanaged police department and a climbing crime rate.
It’s understandable, then, that some Oakland residents would be slightly annoyed at an upcoming workshop entitled “Introduction to Lockpicking,” which was mentioned in Mayor Jean Quan’s weekly newsletter (PDF) this week. The class is one of a larger "Workshop Weekend," to be held at Tech Liminal, an Oakland co-working space, and Sudoroom, a relatively new hackerspace in downtown Oakland. (Disclosure: I am a paying member at Sudoroom.)
According to the Oakland Tribune, some Oaklanders are miffed that the city would seem to endorse such a practice—the mayor has subsequently apologized.
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