Verizon wants to bring a drone testing facility to North Portland, near Cathedral Park. They don’t think there is any problem with testing drones up and down the Willamette because, as they told neighbors, “no one uses the river anyway.”

After a summer when racial justice protesters were surveilled by military drones, a coalition of community groups has come together to resist this plan—which would include testing of technology that could be used by the Department of Defense in their surveillance drone program. We showed up to tell Verizon, the Port of Portland, and Verizon’s lobbyists at Strategies360 that this misuse of land, threat to wildlife, and impact on North Portland neighborhoods is absolutely unacceptable. The potential for this drone technology to negatively impact human rights both at home and internationally is another major reason to oppose this facility.

On Sunday, November 1 at 12 pm we gathered for a rally and kayak flotilla at the Cathedral Park Boat Launch to show that we use the river, and Verizon’s creepy drones aren’t welcome in Portland!