Max learning how to pick a lock at Workshop Weekend March, 2013 dinner.Lockpickgate is a Feb. 2013 tempest in a teapot relating to the outrage generated when Oakland Mayor Jean Quan highlighted the event Workshop Weekend in her newsletter. One of the workshops is "Introduction to Lockpicking". A class that will teach people about their security, and how to improve it in their everyday lives. For example, the standard door lock, is a design patented in 1861 (see History of the Yale Lock).
After local news outlets began to raise concerns about whether it was unseemly for Quan to highlight a class that can teach people how to do potentially illegal activities, Jean Quan apologized (check out her newsletter for the full text of the apology). In a new development, Head of the Oakland Police Department Howard Jordan called the class "unconscionable": ""I'm in shock that people would provide a class to teach people a skill to violate the law," Jordan said. "It's unconscionable.""[San Francisco Chronicle]. However Chief Jordan failed to mention what laws the class violates, or the growing industry of scam locksmiths.
To see what the day was like, please check out this video on Youtube posted by The Open Organisation of Lockpickers from the Workshop Weekend event.
