RTCC

Updates on the U.S. surveillance state

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Local News:

I wrote a piece about Seattle’s efforts to pull together a coordinated gun violence prevention strategy, which took some doing given the focus on Chief Barnes’s resignation during the time I was trying to research and write it. 

I also wrote about new Seattle legislation to ban algorithmic price discrimination, or surveillance pricing based on personal information, for Seattleites buying groceries. The committee vote on amendments to the ordinance will be on September 18. 

Speaking of Seattle’s police chief saga, here are a couple of interviews with interim Chief Andre Sayles. PubliCola reported on how much time Barnes spent out of the office (almost 40% of the time this year) and on how much his payout will be. And two of SPD’s command staff brought in by Barnes are leaving SPD.

Meanwhile, councilmembers are still angry that the press conference after the Bite of Seattle shooting was delayed for five hours, and the Mayor’s Office has asked the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to conduct an independent after-action review about communications. The review won’t be completed until mid-December.

In other news, there’s another hunger strike at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, and the conditions there continue to be terrible and shocking. ICE will be spending up to $20 million on torture gloves that deliver a painful shock at the press of a button. 

In better news, the Washington State Department of Revenue has performed a new analysis on the millionaires tax and thinks it will bring in more revenue than expected. The new estimate expects $3.1 billion in its first year (instead of $2.7 billion originally predicted) and $8.3 billion in the 2029-2031 biennium (instead of $6.9 billion).

Surveillance news:

The Community Not Cameras coalition toured SPD’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) this week, and it didn’t go so well. Coalition members left with many concerns in spite of a Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce poll that shows strong support for cameras. Reading the questions asked in the poll is instructive as to how seriously to take it.

Flock Safety’s PR disaster continues, with 404 Media reporting that they pitched a plan to put their license plate readers in the vehicles of Uber and Lyft drivers. In fact, the press around Flock has gotten so bad they’ve announced some changes, including shortening their standard data retention window from 30 days to 7 days. Their efforts at damage control aren’t stopping many cities from switching from Flock license plate readers to Axon license plate readers, which doesn’t permanently address the concerns many residents have about these cameras and the expanding surveillance state. 

Today Wired published a new story reporting that Flock has built an AI system/tool that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone, facilitated by the large network of Flock cameras across the country. It appears that the tool is currently in the testing phase. As Wired wrote:

“Privacy and legal experts say Flock’s tools already raise serious constitutional concerns by giving police broad, often warrantless access to a vast record of people’s movement. But the prompts WIRED examined go further, turning a tool for finding a known vehicle into one that casts suspicion on drivers based on where and how often they drive, regardless of whether they are wanted for a crime.”

Meanwhile, the federal government has gotten in on the act by monitoring viral anti-Flock social media posts and surveilling protest gatherings and meetings. And DHS has been using Clearview AI facial recognition to help infiltrate activist groups.

Google’s AI Overview, while gutting newsrooms left and right, is spreading false information about the amount of valuable gold and copper that are inside Flock cameras, thereby accidentally encouraging users to vandalize the cameras for profit.

And people are going around cutting down and destroying Flock cameras, acts of civil disobedience that appear to be receiving significant public support.

Andrea Pitzer, who wrote a book about the global history of concentration camps, wrote an analysis that looks at what the new electric-shock gloves being obtained by ICE and the proliferation of Flock license plate reader cameras tells us about how the concentration camp regime/institutionalization of the police state in the US is going

Housekeeping:

I’m going to be taking some time off starting next week, so you won’t be hearing from me for a little while. But never fear, I’ll be back on the beat in time to cover Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposed budget. 

Recent Headlines:

Updates on the U.S. surveillance state Read More »

Surveillance cameras don’t prevent violence, or why I feel like a broken record

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Seattle News:

Yesterday several elected officials – Mayor Katie Wilson, Council President Joy Hollingsworth, Councilmembers Debora Juarez, Bob Kettle, Maritza Rivera, and Dan Strauss, and Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans – along with SPD Chief Shon Barnes, held a press conference about the gun violence along Aurora Ave N. 

Mostly those named above talked about solving the problem with police and prosecutions, as well as by the strategic blocking of certain streets. Kettle touted the importance of the real time crime center and license plate readers, although there is no evidence that shows these technologies prevent violence. Interestingly, Aurora Ave N is one of the zones where CCTV cameras have been installed and operational in Seattle, and yet somehow there is still gun violence happening there. Hmm. 

Kettle also spoke of the importance of hiring more police officers. 

Evans said her office has asked for funding for a dedicated Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) prosecutor, which she says would help get guns off the streets. Her office is also aggressively pursuing businesses and properties that break chronic nuisance laws. 

Lastly, her office is working to have a dedicated, dually-deputized prosecutor in their office that will work on felony trafficking cases on Aurora in partnership with the King County Prosecutor’s office. I’m not really sure why having this prosecutor work in the Seattle City Attorney’s office (CAO) versus the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office (KCPAO) makes a difference. Traditionally CAO only prosecutes misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, while the KCPAO handles all felonies. It could be that this might improve collaboration between the offices or it might be solely an issue of money (who’s going to pay for this prosecutor’s salary). 

Evans stated unequivocally that SOAP and SODA orders do not work and that she will be pursuing other strategies. 

Not mentioned were the environmental changes made to Aurora Ave in Shoreline that seem to have helped deter violence there. Solutions such as increased social supports, a coordinated gun violence prevention strategy, and legalized sex work were also not emphasized. 

That being said (see below), Wilson is reportedly working on a gun violence prevention strategy, but unfortunately the details still haven’t been announced. 

Meanwhile, The Seattle Medium reported that Black girls represent between 44% and 52% of child sex trafficking victims in King County. 

Earlier this week, the Seattle City Council passed the one-year data center moratorium and related resolution, after which Washington AI resistance (WA-AIR) held a press conference announcing a new campaign for their People’s AI Bill of Rights, which will be a package of bills regulating AI introduced during the 2027 state legislative session. The campaign will begin with a state-wide listening tour. 

Wilson announced that the City would be turning on the CCTV cameras located in the Stadium District due to “general but credible threats to security during the games” provided to her during briefings with SPD and the FBI. Two days before the announcement, she publicly defined a credible threat in more narrow terms, that being the standard she had originally announced she was planning to use to inform her decision as to whether to turn on the cameras. To read more about it, check out the op-ed by Phil Mocek published by PubliCola.

The Seattle Auditor’s Office released a status report on implementation of their recommendations covering the time period through December 2025. Of note:

  • Re their 2024 Annual Surveillance Technology Usage Review (released in September 2025), SDOT has implemented two out of eight recommendations.
  • Re their Four Recommendations to Better Understand and Address Current Gun Violence Patterns in Seattle (released in March 2025), all four recommendations remain pending: “The Mayor’s Office reported that they have begun development of a comprehensive gun violence reduction strategy that will build on work begun by the Human Services Department and be led by the Mayor. Specifically, the Mayor’s Office has begun to assess existing gun violence reduction programs, identify gaps, and build a comprehensive strategy sponsored by the Mayor.”
  • Re their Addressing Places in Seattle Where Overdoses and Crime are Concentrated: An Evidence-Based Approach (released in July 2024), two out of eight recommendations have been completed: “The Mayor’s Office reported that components of the Downtown Activation Team’s (DAT) work, including its place-based problem-solving methodology, are moving forward under the Stabilize, Activate, and Invest (SAIL) Subcabinet. The Mayor’s Office indicated they will tailor crime and overdose strategies, and the corresponding deployment of resources, to more specifically defined and localized problems, beginning with implementation of the Phố Đẹp safety plan in Little Saigon and the expansion of the Seattle Police Department’s Neighborhood Resource Officer program to 12th & Jackson and 3rd & Pine. The Mayor’s Office also indicated that the current administration does not intend to evaluate the preceding administration’s work of the DAT and Seattle Restoration Framework, but will instead collaborate with public health, public safety, and community partners to establish agreed upon metrics for success for each location and reporting expectations.”

A quick update on an earlier item regarding the possibility of a special fire district tax: PubliCola has reported that the firefighters’ union is opposed to the idea so the Mayor’s Office isn’t pursuing it this year. This means one fewer tool to address the $175 million deficit for 2027.

In SPD lawsuit news, two gay SPD officers are suing the department alleging discrimination and being passed over for promotion. The City of Seattle is paying a $2.6 million settlement in the lawsuit of four female SPD officers alleging sexual harassment from former Chief Adrian Diaz. The Seattle Times reports that three of the four women remain employed at SPD. 

For more uplifting news, I wrote about the soil-turning and future plans for a new health center in Rainier Beach. If you want to read about community members coming together to make a difference, this is the article for you. 

Other news: 

I wrote about an inmate who died of an overdose last year while in custody at SCORE jail. I really encourage you to check this one out because the ongoing issues at SCORE are for the most part not being covered by mainstream media like The Seattle Times or the local news networks. I dove deeper into the quality of healthcare being offered by jails and prisons in general, and it’s an ugly story that has parallels to how people detained by ICE are being treated. 

I also dove into last year’s King County DCHS audit with an update on what’s been found and what measures are being taken to ensure accountability and transparency as DCHS goes about their work. 

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay gave his State of the County address this week and committed to investing “nearly $5 million” in the Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention. I’m not clear on how much of this is additive, but as an important office that is perennially under-funded, this is good news. 

The City of Edmonds unanimously voted to cancel the City’s contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate readers.

Finally, Jeff Asher wrote that large police departments are beginning to grow their ranks again, after a contraction after the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020. 

Asher wrote, “The hiring environment still isn’t great for police officers, but it is far improved from where it was three or four years ago. Most medium and large police departments will likely be stuck at considerably smaller levels than they were pre-COVID, but the evidence suggests they might see slow and steady growth over the next few years.”

Recent Headlines:

Surveillance cameras don’t prevent violence, or why I feel like a broken record Read More »

State millionaires income tax: a big swing among budget cuts

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Seattle News:

Last week I chatted with Hannah Sabio-Howell, who is challenging Washington State Senator Jamie Pedersen for his seat in the 43rd LD. I expect this to shape up to be an interesting race!

I also recently covered the current backlog over at the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, and how City Attorney Erika Evans is planning to adjust workflow to try to deal with it. Evans also said the office needs more money, which could be difficult given Mayor Katie Wilson recently asked all city departments to prepare a list of potential cuts for this year’s budget season. 

And I reported on SPD’s committee report in response to a budget SLI passed last November on their federal immigration enforcement policies. I used quotes liberally in this article because it was one of those meetings where I felt it was important for people to know what had been said. 

I’ll have an article out very soon about the detention facilities moratoriums in Seattle, King County, and elsewhere, as well as some more news out of the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. 

SPD has claimed that its real time crime center has tripled “the odds that a victim receives justice.” PubliCola wrote about what this means, pointing out that SPD is defining “receiving justice” as arrests made (with no details about prosecution, jail time, or how the RTCC was involved), which can also result in overpolicing.

Almost a month ago, CARE Chief Amy Barden attended a Public Safety committee meeting to reiterate what she’s been saying all along: that the new SPOG contract approved in December is preventing Seattle’s CARE team from doing their jobs. I was on vacation at the time, but Erica Barnett wrote a great article on the topic, which also links to her live reporting on Bluesky. 

Memorably, Barden was chided by Councilmember Martiza Rivera for being honest about the impacts of the new SPOG contract on the CARE team. 

“I agree there’s plenty of work to go around, and we need to work together,” Rivera said. “And so what I would like to see is working together, less accusatory language, and how can you be, you know, a person of change, to really work together to make things happen. So rather than constantly pointing out maybe the negative and what is not going well, let’s hear about what is going well and how you can help make things better.”

From her words, it sounds like Rivera doesn’t want to hear about the negative consequences of her vote on the SPOG contract, nor does she appear to want to grapple with the reality that the police are blocking the effective deployment of alternative response in Seattle.

WA State News:

The big news has been the passage of the millionaires’ income tax after over 24 hours of debate in the House. It even looks like Governor Bob Ferguson might agree to sign it! In return, lawmakers have rolled back last year’s increase on the estate tax, bringing down the top rate from 35% to 20%.

Included in the millionaires tax is a rollback of a sales tax on services passed last year, set to take effect in 2029. Because cities and counties collect sales tax (not just the state), this repeal will have an effect on local municipalities’ bottom lines, as well as Sound Transit’s finances.

The legislature also passed the state’s operating budget. There is already an $878 million budget hole expected for 2027, which will have to be dealt with next session. Legislators used the rainy day fund and a few discontinued tax breaks to try to close this year’s budget gap, which was worsened by the state having to pay large amounts on lawsuit payouts for government misconduct. The budget includes cuts to child care, Transition to Kindergarten, and local effort assistance money for public school students.  

The ALPR bill also made it through concurrence and is on its way for the governor’s signature. I’ll be writing in detail about what’s actually in the final bill and what it means for surveillance in the state.

On Flock license plate readers specifically: Flock updated its terms and conditions on February 16, 2026, making several changes. Of particular note, Flock now has a perpetual license to use Customer Data (meaning even after a specific contract ends or is canceled) and Flock is now allowed to use all Customer Data for its own product development. The terms for privacy commitments around training data have been removed from the new contract, including the commitment to never sell or share the training data with third parties. 

Other changes have been made, including making the agreement governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, after mandatory mediation and arbitration. You can read about all the changes here.

Recent Headlines:

State millionaires income tax: a big swing among budget cuts Read More »

Will Katie Wilson be a Sea Change for Seattle?

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Election News:

It feels like for the last week, it’s been all Seattle mayoral election, all the time! But it looks like Katie Wilson squeaked out the win in what is likely to be a sea change for Seattle. 

In other Seattle election results, Alexis Mercedes Rinck handily won reelection as a councilmember, and Dionne Foster beat incumbent Sara Nelson as the other city-wide councilmember. Eddie Lin beat Adonis Ducksworth for the D2 council seat. 

For Seattle City Attorney, Erika Evans beat Republican incumbent Ann Davison. I chatted with Evans on the phone a few days after the election, and we discussed her vision for the office. 

The new (and much larger) Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy passed, as did the B&O tax restructure championed by Rinck. The spending plan for the FEPP dollars will be decided next year, including whether any of those dollars will go to police in schools, so that will be something that bears watching.

In King County, Girmay Zahilay will take over as King County Executive, beating out Claudia Balducci, who will remain on the King County Council. Zahilay is vacating a seat on the council, so look for a replacement to be appointed soon. Otherwise, on the King County Council, it was an election for the incumbents, with the open seat in District 5 going to Steffanie Fain. 

I also want to give a shout-out to Burien! Their progressive slate of councilmember candidates all won their races.

You might also want to check out my colleague Ryan Packer’s article about 6 election bellweathers, which include a city council race in Bellevue in which incumbent Conrad Lee has finally been unseated after… 32 years.  

Seattle News:

I wrote an article about Mayor Bruce Harrell’s response to the threat of escalating ICE enforcement and the possibility of President Donald Trump sending the National Guard to Seattle. I discuss Harrell’s proposed law enforcement mask ban and Rinck’s proposed Statement of Legislative Intent that will require the Seattle Police Department to report on their implementation plan for the two executive orders. 

This is a tough one because looking around the country, it looks like the most impactful/successful resistance to ICE is coming directly from the streets. So far, responses from city and state governments have been less productive. 

Budget Chair Dan Strauss announced his 2026 budget balancing package. There was enough money for him to provide funding for each councilmember to address at least some of their priorities. The councilmembers will be voting on amendments to the balancing package this Friday, November 14. The amendments have not been released to the public as of publication of this newsletter, giving very little time for review.

The final budget vote is expected to be on Friday, November 21. 

There’s been a shakeup at SPD, with Chief Shon Barnes firing two of his top civilian command staff members: Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey and General Counsel Rebecca Boatright. It is unclear if the Mayor’s Office was involved in this decision in any way. This might mark a preference to move away from civilianization at SPD, a position that would certainly make the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) happy. 

Barnes also named Captain Jim Britt as the new commander of the East Precinct. Britt was formerly in charge of SPD’s real time crime center, and I haven’t yet heard who will be taking his place in such a highly technical role. 

It looks like it might not be just SPD that has a problem mistreating their women employees. The Seattle Fire Department’s (SFD) former head of human resources, Sarah Lee, has filed a $2.5 million claim against the department. Lee, who was fired in September, says she was let go in retaliation for standing up to workplace misconduct and discrimination against women in the department. Her claim contains details of 14 different allegations.

The Seattle Times wrote, “Lee’s filing speaks of a department that broadly mistreats women.”

Lastly, this afternoon, city council voted to confirm Bonnie Glenn as the new director of the Office of Police Accountability OPA). This is a bit surprising as in the past, the public has been able to hear from finalist candidates for the OPA director position and submit their questions to potentially be answered. This time there’s been no public engagement that I’m aware of and the appointment is simply being rushed through. 

However, the appointment of Glenn is only for a one-year term (until the end of 2026) to complete the term of former director Gino Betts. Wilson will be able to select her own candidate if she so chooses for a term beginning in 2027. 

My journalist colleague Glen Stellmacher has some direct and concerning experience with Glenn in her role as the interim OPA director. He says he had to file a bar complaint against Glenn before she would begin an investigation about an SPD intelligence officer who “knowingly lied to investigators about SPD’s use of informants during the 2020 protests.”

King County and WA State News:

King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has a few interesting addendums to the 2026-2027 county budget that made it into the budget striker. One proviso will require the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) to provide data on reoffending rates for youth subject to traditional prosecution. This data will allow a more meaningful analysis of the recidivism rates for youth participating in diversion programs. 

Mosqueda has a second proviso that will require the creation of a master list of surveillance technology being used by any King County department. She is interested in such a list as her office works to develop a surveillance technology ordinance for the county. 

On the state level, the Senate Democratic Caucus is discussing the idea of a “millionaires tax.” The proposal being discussed would levy a 9.9% tax on adjusted gross income over $1 million. The Democrats would have to pass this new tax during an election year, however, and Governor Bob Ferguson has proven to be resistant thus far to passing progressive taxes, having quashed the much-discussed wealth tax earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Senator June Robinson, the Democrat’s chief budget writer, has told her colleagues not to put in any new requests for funding for 2026. Since Ferguson approved the state’s budget in the spring, revenue forecasts have been grim and there is likely to be a large shortfall to deal with in the short legislative session this winter. 

Ferguson will submit his budget proposal in December in advance of the legislative session in January.

I do have an article coming out very soon (maybe tomorrow morning?) with more about license plate surveillance being used for immigration enforcement across Washington state, a recent Public Records Act lawsuit, and more, so keep an eye out for that. 

Recent Headlines:

 

Will Katie Wilson be a Sea Change for Seattle? Read More »

The City of Seattle is watching you

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Surveillance News:

First off, I’ll share my piece on Seattle’s surveillance expansion. City Council passed the legislation to implement this expansion on a 7-2 vote on Tuesday. Yesterday I heard about a website that some concerned citizens put up with a good round-up of media coverage of the vote.

Lavender Rights Project, Seattle Pride, and the Seattle DSA have made social media posts against the expansion. Lavender Rights Project wrote, “Lavender Rights Project is located directly within the zone of this projected surveillance expansion. Yet no impact analysis was conducted, nor was robust effort made to engage with our staff, or the communities we represent–those who will be most affected by these decisions. This disregard highlights exactly whose safety is prioritized, and whose lives are put at risk.”

This flier was also spotted in Capitol Hill:

In other surveillance news, DivestSPD found that state and federal law enforcement officers are sharing license plate data on obscure Seattle police email lists. 

The Intercept reported on how the company Fusus connected City of Seattle officials, including Claudia Gross-Shader from the Auditor’s Office, to a man, Marshall Freeman, who they introduced as the deputy chief administrative officer of the Atlanta Police Department. What Fusus neglected to tell the City was that Freeman is a member of their board and owns a small share of the company. The City didn’t find out until recently; in the meantime, Seattle bought Fusus’s real-time crime center software for an estimated price of $1.8 million. 

The kicker? “Gross-Shader also noted that the city had not seen research demonstrating the ability of Fusus’s technology to play a significant role in reducing retail theft, the issue that originally brought her to look into the company.”

Flock Safety, known for its extensive nationwide network of license plate readers, has rolled out a new feature that analyzes driving patterns to determine “suspicious” behavior and flag people as potential participants in organized crime. The ACLU writes about several reasons why this is concerning.

Forest Park, a city in Illinois, gave U.S. Customs and Border Patrol access to their license plate data. This example is noteworthy because Forest Park doesn’t use Flock Safety license plate readers, which have been garnering a lot of press recently. Their license plate readers are provided by Motorola Solutions, showing the dangers of this technology aren’t a matter of a single problematic vendor. 

Finally, Waymo self-driving cars are now being tested in the Seattle area. I know self-driving cars are a controversial issue and there are many big fans of the technology out there, but I would be remiss not to point out the surveillance capabilities of these vehicles, with LAPD and other police departments obtaining surveillance footage from these cars and using it as evidence. You can read 404 Media’s reporting about that here.  

Seattle News:

Earlier this month, I wrote about the opening of the new post-overdose stabilization ORCA center across from the King County courthouse. DESC, the organization that runs the new center, is also pioneering a different medicine treatment protocol for opioid addiction that thus far seems to be easier for people to tolerate. 

Last week, Seattle’s long-lasting consent decree finally came to an end. Mayor Bruce Harrell also announced he expects to finish negotiating a new contract with SPOG by the end of the year, about which he is very optimistic. We’ll see what he trades away to keep the CARE responders in existence. 

Harrell announced that as of the first day of school, the City has now hired more than 40 additional mental and behavioral health professionals across Seattle Public Schools (SPS) middle and high schools, for a total of over 60 mental health staff. You can read the press release about safety measures at SPS here.

Speaking of SPS, there will be a key board meeting on Wednesday, September 17 at 4:15pm where school board members are expected to vote on a pilot bringing a police officer back into Garfield High School.

Today Harrell announced $1.7 million in awards to expand services for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Organizations that received awards are the Organization for Prostitution Survivors, the Seattle Indian Health Board, Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST), and Consejo Counseling and Referral Service. Notably absent from the list is one of former Councilmember Cathy Moore’s favorite providers, The More We Love.

King County and Washington State news:

This week, the King County Council voted in favor of moving forward the process of buying and opening a crisis care center in Capitol Hill. 

Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu announced her retirement at the end of the year. Governor Bob Ferguson will appoint a replacement to serve until an election next year, where candidates will run to finish Yu’s term, which goes until the end of 2028. 

Washington Supreme Court justices are required to retire the year they turn 75 years old. Associate Chief Justice Charles Johnson will be turning 75 in 2026, and Justice Barbara Madsen will be turning 75 in 2027. With three Supreme Court seats up for grabs in the next few years, these upcoming judicial elections will shape the future of Washington state. 

Recent Headlines:

The City of Seattle is watching you Read More »

SPOG President says DC is a “blueprint” of Trump’s future public safety actions across the nation

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Surveillance News:

Seattle’s public safety committee passed its surveillance expansion proposal out of committee before the council’s summer recess. We are expecting a final vote on the proposal on Tuesday, September 9 at 2pm. As usual, public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. 

I went onto Hacks & Wonks to discuss this surveillance expansion further, as well as how it ties into the greater federal surveillance expansion, so keep an eye out for that episode later this week. 

For now, I’ll give you a little preview. President Donald Trump announced the federal takeover of the Washington DC police department the day before the Seattle committee vote on the surveillance expansion was taken. Reporting shows that there is now most likely federal control over DC’s real time crime center. Right now that surveillance can help the feds with their immigration crackdown in DC, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this surveillance data can be used to accomplish, particularly for a federal government that is rapidly moving into authoritarianism. That Seattle might somehow be uniquely immune to this attempt is wishful thinking at best.

Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Mike Solan recently had the D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton on his podcast to discuss the situation in DC. Pemberton said the police in DC welcome the intervention by the feds, and Solan clearly supported Trump’s actions in this regard as well. 

Solan said, “Pay attention to what’s happening in the District of Columbia because it is the blueprint of what you’re going to see nationwide when it comes to the Trump administration’s public safety actions.”

Solan is elected by a majority of SPD’s rank and file to represent them.

In Seattle, CCTV security footage (private cameras in this case, as opposed to the cameras owned by SPD) led to the incorrect arrest of an innocent man for an arson in Wallingford. He was held in jail for a month before his case was resolved. His defense attorneys called the SPD’s actions in this case a “rushed and racist misidentification.”

In other surveillance news, it turns out US Customs and Border Patrol has had direct access to Flock Safety’s license plate reader database through a “federal pilot program.” Flock says it has now paused all federal pilots. 

Over at Cascade PBS, Nate Sanford is doing a deep dive on local governments’ usage of ChatGPT. The two stories focus on Bellingham and Everett, as they responded more quickly to public record requests than other cities such as Seattle.

Seattle News:

A new pilot bringing a police officer back to Garfield High School might be beginning soon. The school board is expected to vote on the issue at their September 17 meeting. 

Mayor Bruce Harrell provided the necessary letter of support that allows the crisis care center in Capitol Hill to move forward. 

SPOG has donated $350 to Ann Davison’s reelection campaign for Seattle City Attorney. New reporting at PubliCola says that Davison has failed to live up to her campaign promises made when she first ran back in 2021. 

Real Change reported that SPD spent almost twice as much on legal settlements as had been budgeted between 2014 and 2024. The amount SPD has gone over budget has increased a great deal since 2020. 

DivestSPD reported that almost 400 SPD officers made more than $200,000 in 2024. 76 officers made more than $300,000. 

King County News:

King County is significantly expanding its youth mobile crisis teams from two teams up to nine. 

Candidate for King County Executive (and current Councilmember) Claudia Balducci said she’s planning to introduce a measure to use part of the county’s recently passed 0.1% public safety sales tax bump in order to create a retail crimes task force. Kroger recently decided to shut down a Fred Meyer in Kent (and also one in Lake City), a decision that some people are attributing to shoplifting. Balducci’s opponent Girmay Zahilay, along with UFCW 3000 (the grocery workers union), question whether this is really the primary reason for the store closures.

The King County council passed the county’s public safety sales tax, which is a regressive tax that hits poorer people harder, in order to deal with the county’s upcoming budget deficit. However, there might be a bit of money left over from the tax, and a big question during the county’s budget season will be how this extra money will be spent. King County’s public health programs and clinics, as well as its behavioral health services, are expected to be hard hit financially by federal policy changes. One possible use of any extra dollars could be bridging some of these new and expected funding gaps.

Recent Headlines: 

SPOG President says DC is a “blueprint” of Trump’s future public safety actions across the nation Read More »

Seattle budget season is oh so political

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Seattle News:

It’s been a busy week, and I have three new stories to talk about. 

First off, I wrote about Seattle’s proposed surveillance expansion for The Urbanist, which would give SPD access to 365 SDOT cameras as well as permission to purchase many more cameras to place in three more areas of the city. That the City is trying to push forward with this plan right now, given what’s happening at the federal level, is particularly concerning. 

The public safety committee will be discussing this expansion again (and voting on it)  on Tuesday, August 12 at 9:30am. There will be the opportunity to give public comment at the beginning of this meeting. 

Next up, as I reported at The Urbanist, the Seattle Shield Initiative passed this week, which means Seattleites will be voting on the B&O tax restructure in November. While the council watered the proposal down, it passed with an unanimous vote, which is something I wouldn’t have expected as recently as a month ago. The fact that Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck was able to get this passed in time to be put on the ballot in spite of not having any strong allies on the council is notable. It seems like having Mayor Bruce Harrell on board helped to smooth the way. 

The city received another revenue forecast this week, which was a bit less bad than the one in April. However, the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts’ interim director Jan Duras said it’s likely the next revenue forecast, due in October, will be worse.  

This is interesting maneuvering on the part of Harrell, who now gets to base his proposed budget, due at the end of September, on a better forecast than is likely to be true by the time the council actually has to pass the budget. Since his budget team is assuming the Seattle Shield Initiative will pass in their formation of the budget, it’s possible he won’t have to make many unpopular cuts in his proposed budget before the election at the beginning of the November. 

This also means the council will be left with the football when it comes time to grapple with any necessary budget cuts later in October, should the revenue forecast worsen. 

It seems like Harrell might not be overly eager to introduce the public safety sales tax hike after all. If the City doesn’t need the revenue to bridge a deficit gap, he can play it safe with public opinion and postpone implementing such a regressive tax. Even if a councilmember decides to go for it, it will leave Harrell with clean hands.

Councilmember Rinck was also able to add $300,000 to the city’s supplementary budget this week to pay for legal defense for unaccompanied children facing detention and deportation. This money was taken from underspend from Seattle’s much criticized SCORE jail contract. Councilmembers Rob Saka and Martiza Rivera were the sole “no” votes.

My third piece, at Bolts Magazine, covers the renewal of Seattle’s democracy voucher program this week. The City is supposed to convene a workgroup in early 2026 to look into possible improvements to the program, including strategies to better deal with independent expenditures in local races. This will be an opportunity for stakeholders to participate in figuring out what’s next for the program. I’ll also be very interested to see how the combination of democracy vouchers and ranked choice voting in 2027 pans out. 

More Seattle news:

We had a primary! Progressives in Seattle did very well. There is a ton of analysis available to read, none of which I am going to link to. My observation, for what it’s worth, is that many more people appear to pay attention to national news than to local news, so I tend to think the Trump effect is one of the main factors at play here. 

As I was writing this, the news dropped that Katie Wilson, who is running against Harrell for mayor, has broken 50% of the primary vote. Wilson is more than 15,000 votes ahead of Harrell at this time. 

The next consent decree hearing has been set for Wednesday, September 3. This could be the last hearing of Seattle’s consent decree. 

Seattle is paying $3 million to settle the lawsuit brought by SPD’s Deanne Nolette, who alleged wage, job and gender discrimination. She also alleged that former Chief Adrian Diaz had retaliated against her since she had also been up for the Chief job, and that he “has a history of misogyny.” 

Housekeeping:

I’ll be out on vacation the next few weeks, but never fear, I’ll be back at it before the end of the month. Close followers of local news know that the fall tends to be a particularly busy time, and this year should be no exception. 

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle budget season is oh so political Read More »

Seattle Mayor’s Race Remains a Dead Heat in Polling

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Seattle and King County News:

First off, I took a closer look at the upcoming Seattle City Attorney election, with a particular focus on incumbent Ann Davison’s signature policies, for Bolts Magazine.

For The Urbanist, I wrote about the nuisance property and graffiti legislation recently passed by the Seattle City Council, as well as Council President Sara Nelson’s proposal to allocate some of a not-yet-proposed sales tax bump to pay for addiction treatment. I also gave an update on how Donald Trump’s recently passed budget reconciliation package, which includes large cuts to Medicaid (Apple Care) and SNAP, will impact Washingtonians, and how Seattle and King County are responding to the current national funding and policy threats.

We have a primary election coming up next Tuesday, August 5, which means it’s time for some new polls. The two frontrunners for Seattle Mayor, Bruce Harrell and Katie Wilson, are still statistically tied. In the Seattle City Attorney’s race, incumbent Davison is ahead, closely followed by Erika Evans. 

And a recent poll on Washington Governor Bob Ferguson’s job performance found that only 32% of voters think he’s been doing an “excellent” or “good” job during his first six months. 

We also have a new Seattle councilmember, the returning Debora Juarez, who has been appointed to fill Cathy Moore’s empty D5 seat. That seat will not be up for election until November of 2026. 

Coming up this week, we have a select budget committee meeting tomorrow morning with a possible vote on the Seattle Shield Initiative, which has picked up a whopping 17 proposed amendments. Then on Thursday morning, there will be a special public safety committee meeting to discuss the proposed expansion of CCTV cameras to three new locations, which will cost over $1 million. The updates would also allow SPD to view and record footage from SDOT traffic management cameras.

Guy Oron recently published a great piece about the ballooning settlements the City of Seattle has had to pay related to SPD actions. He includes some illustrative graphs as well, and I recommend taking a look. Overall, the City spent nearly twice the amount it had budgeted over the last ten years (2014-2024) on SPD settlements etc. The most recent figure: in 2024 the City spent $15.1 million on police litigation. 

The Urbanist has a piece from Carolyn Bick documenting the poor public record practices of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). 

The Seattle City Attorney’s Office is still refusing to allow Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) Judge Pooja Vaddadi to hear domestic violence and DUI cases. SMC Judge Damon Shadid vigorously criticized this decision in open court earlier this month.

The King County Prosecutor’s Office has paused youth felony diversion due to a limited analysis that showed a recidivism rate of 53% for youth being referred to Restorative Community Pathways for felonies. Some of these cases will instead be referred to court-supervised diversion programs, but these programs are currently lacking in capacity and also lack other benefits provided by community-based programs. An audit of Restorative Community Pathways is due later this summer. 

Last week, a meeting of Seattle’s housing and human services committee was unable to convene due to a lack of quorum after both Nelson and Councilmember Rob Saka didn’t show up. Nelson apparently gave a day’s notice about her absence, and Saka was reportedly in his office at City Hall at the time of the meeting. 

As a result, the committee was unable to vote on many appointments that would finally fill the City’s renters commission, which former committee chair Cathy Moore appears to have deliberately let languish as she pursued the idea of including landlords in a body meant to advocate for renter rights. The committee was also supposed to report on accepting $16 million in federal HUD grants. 

Neither Nelson or Saka has given much explanation for what happened. If they deliberately skipped the meeting in order to thwart the renters commission appointments, doing so would be an undemocratic act, the seriousness of which is only magnified by the active erosion of democracy right now at the federal level.

The committee’s business is now supposed to be heard at the full City Council meeting later today, when the renters commission vacancies will hopefully finally be filled. 

Recent Headlines:

Seattle Mayor’s Race Remains a Dead Heat in Polling Read More »

Local surveillance is ramping up in tandem with federal surveillance

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Seattle News:

First up, I wrote about the new proposed crisis care center site in Capitol Hill. 

One detail I hadn’t remembered is that the King County crisis care levy doesn’t provide any funding for involuntary treatment. Now, there is an important distinction here, because the first crisis care center, Kirkland Connections, does have involuntary beds, and when I interviewed them earlier this year, that involuntary capacity was mostly full. So it’s not impossible for crisis care centers to have involuntary treatment space, but none of that is funded by the crisis care levy dollars. 

New SPD Chief Shon Barnes was sworn in last week. PubliCola reported that Barnes was out of town most weekends during his first four months as SPD Chief. A side note from that reporting is that Barnes met with Sound Thinking Technologies on March 17, when he’d been chief for less than two months. Sound Thinking is known for their Shotspotter gun shot detection technology that Harrell has proposed a couple of times, only to have community reject it. 

Mayor Bruce Harrell and Chief Barnes are celebrating SPD’s real time crime center (RTCC) so I finally got to enter the room where it happens. It did not, in fact, feel like I’d entered the control center of a science fiction movie. The RTCC is staffed by two analysts 19 hours a day, seven days a week. 

The cameras SPD are installing include five cameras in each deployment: a 360 camera with a pan tilt zoom camera mounted below. So each camera actually gives out five feeds, four of which are static and facing all four directions, the last of which is a pan tilt zoom that can move and focus. The cameras record for five days at a time. They don’t use facial recognition or gait analysis, but they do have an AI overlay within the camera systems that allows the police to look for things such as “blue shirts, black pants,” to use SPD Captain James Britt’s example. 

57 cameras have been installed so far in the three zones: Aurora North, the downtown core, and the CID. 

Britt said, “​​We’re looking to add a couple of new locations in coming legislation, which will include the Capitol Hill nightlife area, the area around the stadiums, and the area around Garfield High School. We’re working with council right now to work on that legislation. The ability for the real time crime center has also to pull in private video from businesses and other places that are willing to give their video. We’re working on getting that rolled out, but we’re not quite ready to go there just yet. We’re also working, as part of the legislation, to be able to pull in other government-owned cameras, which would include DOT cameras and cameras from other city facilities around the area.”

By DOT cameras, Britt is referring to traffic cameras operated by SDOT. 

Britt assured me that the RTCC doesn’t connect with any federal agencies with its data or equipment. SPD is also planning to have random audits of their analysts to make sure they’re following policy. Britt said it would be illegal to use RTCC data to assist ICE. However, in recent months we have been seeing many of these protective laws being bent or broken across the country, including close to home in Pierce County.

You can read articles about the RTCC center from The Seattle Times and PubliCola. The Times article in particular does a good job covering some of the civil rights concerns related to the use of these cameras and the RTCC.

At the same press conference, Harrell announced that SPD has hired almost 100 new officers as of July 1. 

Seattle is also asking to leave its federal consent decree after more than 13 years. My guess is that Judge James Robart will schedule a hearing in the fall, possibly in September.

This week the city council passed new graffiti and nuisance property legislation, which I will be writing more about in the near future. 

The applicants for Cathy Moore’s council seat have been made public, and rumor has it that former Councilmember Debra Juarez might be a shoo-in for the position. The final vote on the councilmember appointment will be on July 28. 

Surveillance news

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and reading about surveillance since President Donald Trump signed his big budget bill on July 4. The bill gives ICE a whole lot of money, and as a result, we can expect to see large investments in building out surveillance systems. These will be nominally for the purpose of helping to deport illegal immigrants, but there is always the potential for an existing surveillance system to be used for other purposes. 

Right now, here’s some of the data we know is being shared with ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP):

I’d recommend caution when thinking about laws such as Washington’s Shield Law that are designed to protect immigrants or California’s law regulating the sharing of ALPR data. While it is good to have these legal protections, we are currently seeing the limit of these laws in action, including in California, Illinois, and here in Washington. Assurances that a surveillance behavior and/or data sharing would be illegal are not sufficient to ensure safety at this time. 

Recent Headlines:

 

Local surveillance is ramping up in tandem with federal surveillance Read More »

SPD wants to stop calling its surveillance program a “pilot” 3 weeks after implementation

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We have more news than usual in this edition because I took a vacation, and then it’s taken a long time to catch up from being on vacation. So let’s get to it!

Surveillance News:

First off, I have a new story out this week about the expansion of Flock license plate readers (ALPRs) in WA state…and how the data is being used to assist ICE/DHS and search for people who have received abortions. I received a tip last week about an audit of the King County Housing Authority’s Flock data that shows it’s likely been accessed for both purposes. I know this is a somewhat technical story, but in my opinion it’s also one of the bigger stories I’ve reported on. 

In important and actionable news, SPD has proposed material updates to its SIRs on CCTV cameras and its real time crime center. You might remember that these cameras and the crime center went live on May 20th of this year. SPD asked for permission to stop calling this program a “pilot” three weeks after everything went live. I don’t know about you, but when I think pilot, I don’t think three weeks of testing is sufficient. 

SPD is asking to add more CCTV cameras to the network in three NEW locations:

  1. Areas around Lumen and T-Mobile Field, including parts of the southern portions of Pioneer Square. 
  2. Areas surrounding Garfield High School between S Jackson St. to the South, E Cherry St. to the North, 20th Ave. S to the West, and MLK Jr. Way to the East.
  3. The Capitol Hill Nightlife District – E Union St. to the South, E Pine St. to the North, Broadway to the West, and 12th Ave. to the East. In addition, Neagle Pl. between E Pine and E Denny Way.

SPD is also asking to integrate SDOT’s traffic-monitoring cameras into its real time crime center, expanding its surveillance scope yet again.

Comments on the two surveillance impact reports (SIRs) for these changes are due on Monday, June 23. To comment on the addition of more CCTV cameras and making the surveillance program permanent after 21 days, click here. To comment on the addition of SDOT traffic cameras to the real time crime center, click here. 

In other surveillance news, the Seattle City Council approved Starchase for SPD use. Washington State Patrol has started using cell phone data to predict where people will practice unsafe driving habits, such as speeding and texting while driving, to increase patrols in those areas. Florida Highway Patrol appears to be taking advantage of Flock’s database to hunt immigrants, and law enforcement agencies in southern California have been breaking the law and sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state and federal agencies.

And when it comes to data privacy, I’d be remiss not to highlight reporting that federal Medicare and Medicaid data, including immigration status of patients, has been shared with the Department of Homeland Security. As the Seattle Times wrote, “The shared information includes protected health data from every Apple Health enrollee in Washington, state officials said, totaling about 1.7 million people. Among them are tens of thousands of immigrants, including undocumented immigrants and lawful permanent residents, who receive state-covered health services.”

Seattle News:

The big news as I was leaving on vacation at the beginning of the month was that Cathy Moore is resigning from Seattle City Council. Her last day will be July 7, and the council will be appointing a replacement to serve until the November 2026 election. Applications for the appointment will be open July 2 through July 9, with a public forum scheduled for July 21 and a final council vote scheduled for July 28. 

The tentative budget season calendar has been released, with Harrell’s budget proposal expected on Tuesday, September 23 and a final vote expected on November 21. That final vote is scheduled a little earlier than usual because the general election results are expected to be certified on November 25, meaning Councilmember Mark Solomon will be replaced by whoever wins the D2 general election. 

There are two public hearings for the budget, one on October 7 and one on November 6. The one on November 6 seems a bit tenuous, since the public will only have 48 hours (at most) to review Budget Chair Dan Strauss’s balancing package, and then councilmember amendments are due at noon the very next day. Such a tight turnaround makes it seem unlikely that anything new councilmembers hear during the second public hearing could make it into a proposed amendment unless something similar were already in the works. 

Interim Budget Director Dan Eder also presented to council, saying there is currently a $150 million budget deficit for 2026. That could well get worse, depending on the economy and actions of the federal government. Departments supported by General Fund and JumpStart dollars have been asked to suggest 8% departmental cuts for 2026, except for homelessness and public safety-related departments, which have been asked to suggest 2% cuts. Interestingly the Seattle City Attorney’s Office has been asked to suggest 8% worth of cuts, about which Council President Sara Nelson wasn’t happy. 

One topic of interest that came up was Councilmember Bob Kettle asking if the City is looking into using AI in order to improve city operations. Eder replied that the city budget office and Central Staff started working on this at the end of last year, considering using AI as a tool to compare and contrast some of the support departments as a pilot project to see how efficient the City’s staffing and budgets are for various duties that are common among peer cities. Eder couldn’t share more about a potential timeframe for this effort. 

Interim SPD Chief Shon Barnes is in the process of receiving his council confirmation. You can read his council confirmation packet and his answers to councilmember questions. There’s some interesting stuff in there! He presented before the public safety committee on June 10, making headlines when he said he expected to be jailed under the Trump administration. 

However, later that same day SPD used pepper spray on protesters at the downtown federal building when protesters were trying to prevent ICE from removing immigrants from the building. 

Against the backdrop of the $150 million 2026 Seattle budget deficit discussed above, Barnes has decided to spend $1.38 million annually to hire five new SPD high level staffers from outside the department, including a second deputy chief, another assistant chief, a chief of staff, a chief communications officer, and executive director of crime and community harm reduction. Whew! Thanks to PubliCola for their reporting on this pricey decision.

SPD will also be spending $30,000 for a department-wide training on stratified policing, about which I’ve written here. 

Former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz is suing the City and Mayor Harrell, alleging wrongful termination, retaliation, and wage theft, among other charges. PubliCola and KUOW also received new records about the investigation that led to Diaz’s termination, showing that involved officers feared retaliation (this was also included in the original write-up of the investigation). 

Finally, I interviewed Jeanie Chunn, who is running for the D2 city council seat. 

King County and WA State News:

I wrote a piece last week giving a rundown of the newly released 2024 data for King County’s Health through Housing initiative, which provides permanent supportive and emergency housing. 

The Washington state Supreme Court finally weighed in on caseload standards for public defenders. The new caseload limits take effect on January 1, 2026 and should be implemented as soon as possible, within 10 years. I can’t overstate what a big deal this decision is, and I hope I’ll have time to write a full piece about it sooner rather than later. 

Over at The Stranger, Marcus Harrison Green sat down with state attorney general Nick Brown in an interview that is well worth the read. 

Finally, Jeff Asher ponders why the US murder rate might be falling so much this year, and I want to share his conclusions: “With all of those caveats in mind, when I think about the main factors behind declining murder, a strong investment in communities from private and public sources after the shock of the pandemic stands out as a major cause. There is a wide array of types of support that I would put into the “community investment” basket, including jobs, infrastructure, and programming, but it could be summed up as “we spent a lot of money everywhere on stuff.””

Recent Headlines:

 

SPD wants to stop calling its surveillance program a “pilot” 3 weeks after implementation Read More »