surveillance

Updates on the U.S. surveillance state

/

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 »

SPD police chief loses his cool

/

Seattle News:

I’ve been closely covering the debate around universal school meals for students in Seattle, which you can read about here and here. Right now it looks like Seattle might get both universal school meals starting this fall and a voucher-based food program for weekends and school breaks. Today, Mayor Katie Wilson and the Seattle City Council released a joint statement indicating both branches of government are on board with the plan.

The City Council will be voting on a proposal to fund the universal school meals through the general fund on August 4 as part of their mid-year supplemental budget deliberations. 

I’ve seen a lot of speculation that one or more Seattle city councilmembers might have purposefully blocked Mayor Katie Wilson’s universal school meals proposal in order to tank her political capital and have a more successful mayoral run against her in 2029. I cannot say what lies in the hearts of the councilmembers, but something else to consider is the fact that the council isn’t particularly politically aligned with the mayor and might not be worried about crossing her in the same way they might have feared crossing Mayor Bruce Harrell, who helped many of them get elected. 

In the last few weeks, I also wrote about both the D5 Seattle City Council seat race and the 46th LD state representative race.

I’m sure you’re all aware of the tragic shooting at the Seattle Center during the Bite of Seattle food festival on Sunday. PubliCola reported that SPD Chief Shon Barnes was out of town at the time of the shooting, and indeed, was scheduled to be out of town until mid-August, in spite of summer tending to be a time of increased violence overall, and gun violence in particular. 

At a press conference about the shooting on Monday, Barnes snapped at a reporter from The South Seattle Emerald who was asking about his traveling habits, and his chief of staff Alex Ricketts had to step between Barnes and the reporter and escort Barnes away. You can watch the video clip here.

At another press conference today, Barnes was asked about the incident with the reporter and said it merely illustrated his passion for being a police officer. Someone has filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) about the incident. Barnes was also asked again about his travel schedule, a question he tried to dismiss as quickly as possible.

Other News:

ICE is still getting Washington state data to assist in their immigration enforcement efforts, according to KUOW, meaning the state’s sanctuary law isn’t being fully enforced. This is in spite of the state denying tens of thousands of requests from ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and Customs & Border Patrol. According to KUOW’s article:

““The records we’re getting show that the rejection doesn’t stop them from getting the data,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the UW Center for Human Rights. “They get rejected using one [Originating Agency Identifier] and then just submit their request under another one. There are thousands of still-open [Originating Agency Identifiers] they can use.””

Leaked video from the San Francisco Police Department’s drone program has shown one of the privacy risks of this surveillance technology. Ben Werdmuller, the senior director of technology at ProPublica, wrote an essay on his personal site about the more inherent problems with such ubiquitous surveillance. Furthermore, Werdmuller wrote that the police drones in San Francisco have had no impact on crime. 

Meanwhile, LAPD announced they will be letting their contract with Flock Safety expire. As 404 Media reported, “Notably, the decision came after an audit of ALPR technology found that, in a two-month period, the LAPD had improperly “investigated” 161 people whose cars were flagged as stolen in the LAPD’s ALPR system but were not actually stolen.” Here is that audit. 

Last week, the Renton City Council voted to continue to pause their use of Flock Safety stationary license plate readers in the city. However, they voted to resume use of in-vehicle license plate readers (these readers are from Axon, not Flock). It became clear during the councilmember discussion that in practice, the in-vehicle license plate readers will also not be used at present since they are not compliant with the new state law regulating the use of license plate readers (the same issue faced by the City of Seattle). While a technical fix might be possible to resume use of the Axon in-vehicle license plate readers, it is unclear if and when that will happen. 

Recent Headlines:

SPD police chief loses his cool Read More »

SPD’s overtime spending has more than doubled in four years due to SPOG contract

/

Local News:

I wrote a piece last week about new data out of King County’s DCHS showing that permanent supportive housing in the area is reducing jail bookings…and I attended the opening of DESC’s newest permanent supportive housing building, Birch Grove, located in Lake City. DESC isn’t moving forward on future building projects due to federal funding uncertainties. 

Lime is going to equip their scooters in Seattle with cameras. About half of their scooters have been fitted out with cameras so far, and all of them are planned to have cameras by the end of the year. The idea is it will make scooter riders behave better, but it also ups the surveillance on Seattle streets. 

HardPressed News reported that SPD was waiting for the mayoral election results last year with the belief that if Bruce Harrell won, he’d greenlight a police drone program. 

For more than two years, the Seattle Fire Department has been using an artificial intelligence program to listen to 911 calls and decide which callers won’t receive a rapid response and instead be routed to a nurse line located in Texas. What’s really amazing about this story, broken by The Seattle Times, is that the program has had no public review, wasn’t disclosed to any 911 callers, and has no apparent mechanisms for measuring how well it’s working. It also didn’t go through a surveillance impact review process.

“SFD will be open from now on about its AI use, said Lombard, the assistant chief.” This sentence in the article carries a lot of weight. It implies SFD will be open about their AI use in the future because they got caught. Not exactly the sort of thing that builds public trust. 

DivestSPD reported that SPD Chief Shon Barnes has received 47 OPA complaints since he began his job as Chief early last year, which is a very large number. Most of the complaints appear to be nothing burgers. They sometimes have interesting timing, suggesting a possible SPOG-coordinated attack against the Chief. 

Barnes is on track to receive more OPA complaints than his predecessor, Adrian Diaz.

Seattle City Council’s public safety committee received their SPD 2026 Q1 sworn staffing, overtime, and call time report on Tuesday. SPD’s Q1 2026 actual deployable number of officers is 939, only 13 officers more than in Q1 of 2025. 

The rate of hiring, along with the slow-down of officer separations, means SPD might be on track to overspend their salary budget by $1.7 million this year. Chair Bob Kettle said he and Councilmember Dan Strauss had told SPD not to slow down their hiring to account for this potential overspend. I reached out to Strauss’s office, and he said he has no plans to introduce an item in the mid-year supplemental budget to account for the $1.7 million. 

We also got to see how expensive SPD overtime has become due to the new SPOG contract. In 2022, SPD spent $26.3 million in overtime. In 2026? Their overtime budget stands at a whopping $55.8 million. 

King County’s new Point in Time Count for 2026 came out this week, showing that the region’s homelessness numbers continue to grow, albeit not as rapidly as they did between 2022 and 2024. While the overall number of homeless people grew by 9% in the last two years, the unsheltered population of homeless people grew by 21%, highlighting the urgent need for more shelter spaces. 

Finally, The Economist, that bastion of progressive thought, published an article this week entitled “American police killings are rising, even as murder rates fall.”

From the article: “Killings by police have yet to reignite the broad outrage that followed Mr Floyd’s death, but each day, unfortunately, brings the chance of a grisly event that might. Shootings by sheriffs, who operate mostly in rural areas, have risen especially fast in recent years, countering improvements in some big cities.”

Recent Headlines:

SPD’s overtime spending has more than doubled in four years due to SPOG contract Read More »

What’s going on with the SPD CCTV camera near Planned Parenthood

/

Discerning readers may have noticed it’s been a bit longer than usual between updates. Unfortunately, I suffered from a lacerated finger earlier in March, and the healing has been a process. In the meantime, I was taking as much of a break as possible from typing. But I’m now on the mend, so here we are!

Seattle and King County News:

First off, we have Mayor Katie Wilson’s big announcement about her surveillance plans a couple weeks ago. I wrote about it here, as did many other outlets adding other details about NYU’s Policing Project and Axon’s contracts with ICE, among other issues. 

Wilson met with volunteers from her campaign who are against surveillance on Tuesday evening. Looking at Erica Barnett’s live posts of the event, it doesn’t appear that Wilson’s stance has changed since the town hall she did on March 27, when all but one commenter spoke against surveillance in Seattle. 

Local group Stop Surveillance City received footage from a public record request for the CCTV camera that films a Planned Parenthood in North Seattle. This is the camera Wilson said would be turned off. 

I reached out to the Mayor’s Office, and spokesperson Sage Wilson said the following:

“The cameras the mayor announced would be turned off have in fact been turned off as of March 19th, the day the mayor made the announcement. We have confirmed they are still turned off.

The point of confusion is that the PDR release contained video footage from three other cameras that are fixed, cannot be moved, and do not capture any activity at the sensitive location.”

Basically, each of the Seattle Police Department’s CCTV “cameras” is actually a cluster of five cameras: four that are fixed in a certain direction and one that can pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ). The Mayor’s Office had the PTZ camera and the camera facing in the direction of the Planned Parenthood turned off, but not the other three fixed cameras. 

A possible problem with this approach is that the remaining cameras are still filming people and vehicles who might be going to or leaving from this Planned Parenthood location. There wouldn’t be footage of folks actually entering the building, but footage could still place them in its vicinity.

I also wrote about some public record request results I received pertaining to the siting of the new crisis care center in the old Polyclinic building in Capitol Hill. It appears that a few property and business owners located in Capitol Hill lobbied hard against the new location. One of them was developer Liz Dunn, who Capitol Hill Seattle reported sparked the new safety plan at Pike and Pine last fall. Several of the involved parties were also involved in trying to remove the bus lane in Capitol Hill last year.  

King County Assessor John Wilson is awaiting trial on two charges of violating a no-contact order obtained by his ex-fiancee. In the meantime, he has to wear an ankle monitor. Wilson has thus far refused to resign from his elected position of assessor even though the King County Council demanded his resignation last year. If nothing changes, he’ll stay in office through the end of the year. Meanwhile, all the County employees who work under him continue being forced to have him as their boss if they want to keep their jobs. 

Immigration and Other Surveillance News:

I’d like to share three recent headlines about federal immigration enforcement in Washington State:

What’s going on here and how can all three of these headlines be true? 

The answer is the time frame of the data being discussed is quite important! In my piece, I was writing about the University of Washington Center for Human Rights’s data from October through December of 2025, when detentions in the state were definitely increasing. The Washington State Standard was writing about data from October 2025 through March 2026. And The Seattle Times was specifically calling out data from January and February 2026, when the national number of detentions fell. 

The Washington State Standard noted that detentions here in Washington State appeared to drop after Alex Pretti’s murder in late January. 

The Seattle Times also reported on a new data point provided by Rep. Suzan DelBene, that the Tacoma detention facility’s population has dropped and is at 919 as of Friday, April 3. This is in spite of a new contract between the GEO Group, who operates the facility, and the federal government. The contract began in late March and runs until October 27 and increased the total number of detainees the facility can house from 1,575 to 1,635. Given how bad conditions were at the old maximum, I don’t like to think how an additional 60 detainees could further deteriorate things. 

Meanwhile, the GEO Group is still doing its utmost to prevent Washington state health inspectors from getting inside the facility and conducting an inspection. 

In surveillance news, Seattle isn’t the only jurisdiction that had to shut off its license plate readers due to the new state law regulating their use. Renton had to do the same.

The UW campus is getting more security cameras installed, according to the Daily UW: “Wilson confirmed that UWPD plans to install more cameras in public areas throughout campus, but that the Montlake Cut is not planned to see new surveillance footage.” 

(Note: The Wilson in the above excerpt refers to the UWPD Chief Craig Wilson, not Seattle’s Mayor.)

The Newcastle City Council voted to terminate their contract with Flock this week due to concern over potential liability from the state’s new license plate reader bill. Newcastle is one of the King County Sheriff’s Office’s (KCSO’s) contract cities, and there is worry the City would hold liability instead of the County. This is a legal issue that would probably only impact cities who are contract cities, meaning they outsource their law enforcement services. 

WA State News:

The millionaires tax passed the state legislature and was signed by Governor Bob Ferguson, and of course I wrote all about it. 

Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court granted Brian Heywood’s request to review his case in trying to file a referendum against the millionaires tax. The Court is expected to consider the question on April 30. 

A lawsuit against the tax was filed yesterday.

Last week, Ferguson signed the new state budget, which relies on a heavy withdrawal from the rainy day fund and includes cuts, cuts, cuts. There will be another $878 million deficit to deal with during the next legislative session for 2028. Proceeds from the millionaires tax are not expected to be collected until 2029, assuming it survives all the challenges against it. 

The Stranger had a write-up this week about the importance of the Washington State Supreme Court races this year. I did include a short discussion of this race in my millionaires tax piece above, but I really can’t emphasize enough what a big deal it is that the court will have five seats (out of nine) on the ballot this year. I hope to write more about this sooner rather than later, and I encourage you to watch these races closely. 

Recent Headlines:

 

What’s going on with the SPD CCTV camera near Planned Parenthood Read More »

Seattle, Washington State brace for potential ICE impact

/

AI, ICE, Surveillance:

During the last two weeks, I’ve written two in-depth articles. 

The first takes a look at Washington state legislators’ attempts to regulate AI this year. 

The second takes a look at state and local leaders’ response to ICE actions in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said we’re now experiencing a constitutional crisis. 

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson released some responses to prepare for ICE’s possible invasion of Seattle. Notably missing from the list was anything having to do with surveillance. 

404 Media reports that a Houston-area police intelligence center has instructed police to “be as vague as permissible” about why they’re using Flock license plate reader surveillance data. These kinds of instructions will make the audits available via public record request less useful for determining if and when surveillance data is being shared for purposes such as immigration enforcement or seeking out people trying to get reproductive care.

WA State News:

Wednesday marks the policy committee cut-off for this short legislative session. Any bills that haven’t been passed out of their respective policy committees by the end of the day Wednesday will be officially dead for the session. The fiscal committee cut-off is Monday, February 9. 

The Washington State Democrats have finally dropped the bill containing their much touted “millionaires” tax. The bulk of the new tax, which wouldn’t be collected until April 2029 and is expected to generate more than $3 billion a year, would go straight to the state’s general fund, with a few tax breaks and 5% dedicated to a new fund to help counties pay for public defense costs.

Meanwhile, Governor Bob Ferguson, who used his support for this tax to paper over the budget cuts he was proposing, has come out and said he actually cannot support it after all–at least, not without changes. He wants more tax breaks and less investment in services.

Other proponents of the tax would like to see more of the new tax allocated for specific uses such as education, rather than all go into the general fund where it could be used for a mishmash of priorities.

Meanwhile, state Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen says there’s no path forward for a state-wide payroll expense (a la JumpStart) tax. Pedersen implies that big business’s dislike for this tax has played a role in his lack of support for it. 

The Washington State Supreme Court is having a big election in November, with four justice seats (out of nine) up for grabs. These races will shape the future of the court for potentially years to come.

Seattle News:

A King County jury found the City of Seattle negligent in responding to the fatal shooting of teenager Antonio Mays Jr. in the CHOP in 2020. 11 out of the 12 jurors agreed on the verdict, which is sufficient for a civil trial in Washington state. The city will be paying out $30.5 million. 

Last week, Mike Solan, who is still president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG)–although he is expected to step down later this month– responded to Mayor Wilson’s announcement of actions to prepare for ICE’s eventual descent onto Seattle. Solan wrote the following message on X: “Toothless virtue signaling rhetoric like this has already cost two people their lives. The concept of pitting two armed law enforcement agencies against each other is ludicrous, and will not happen. I will not allow SPOG members to be used as political pawns.”

PubliCola reported that CARE Chief Amy Barden has not had a single one-on-one meeting with SPD Chief Shon Barnes since he began in the position a year ago. 

Barden told PubliCola that “the sergeants who decide whether to dispatch CARE are increasingly sending out community service officers (CSOs)—civilian SPD employees without formal training in mental health care or social work—to calls that Barden says should go to CARE.”

Recent Headlines:

Seattle, Washington State brace for potential ICE impact Read More »

Two weeks after UW report, WA’s driver data is still accessible for immigration enforcement

/

WA State News:

I’ve written two big stories about surveillance, personal data, and the state over the past two weeks. 

One of them covers a recent University of Washington (UW) Center of Human Rights report that found that the Washington State Department of Licensing is almost certainly still sharing personal driver data with ICE. 

Yesterday, I received an update from the UW Center of Human Rights saying they’ve been able to identify an additional six cases in which ICE or the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) queried data from the Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL) prior to conducting immigration arrests. At least two of these six cases are confirmed to have been civil immigration arrests. The center expects to continue discovering more such cases in the future. 

In addition, the center confirmed that the state has not taken any action to cut off CBP from accessing Washington state’s driver information from the DOL, even though the majority of relevant queries are performed by CBP. ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) also retains the ability to query the DOL’s data. 

It has been two weeks since the UW Center of Human Rights’ report was released showing the DOL’s data is still being used for civil immigration enforcement in the state of Washington. 

Angelina Godoy, founding director of the UW Center for Human Rights, was the guest on an episode of the podcast In the Meanwhile, released today. During the podcast, Godoy said, “We need to demand more of our state governments to hold them accountable to promises that they have already made. I think many state governments, and I believe Washington is one of them, are scrambling to figure out ways to keep folks safe, but this is a way they can do that. It’s a vulnerability they have known about, and it’s a decision on their part not to have taken action to date. So that’s why this is alarming.” 

My other story covers an automated license plate reader (ALPR) bill currently working its way through the legislature. It just had its first hearing on Tuesday. It’s important to note that while regulating the use of these cameras is an improvement over the complete lack of regulation that is the current status quo, privacy advocates told me it would be much safer if ALPRs were banned altogether. 

During an executive session of this bill on Thursday, a substitute bill was approved that raises the retention time of the ALPR data from 72 hours (which advocates already said was too long) to 21 days. Negotiations are ongoing, and some local privacy groups have set up an action to take.

Unsurprisingly, some people are unhappy with all the cuts proposed in Governor Bob Ferguson’s 2026 supplemental budget. Rep. Shaun Scott’s bill to impose a payroll expense tax similar to the JumpStart tax across the state received a hearing on Thursday, but we already know Ferguson is “not a big fan.” 

In other tax news, the legislature is revisiting the idea of a tax on short-term rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo, to be used by local municipalities for affordable housing and rental assistance. In favor are the aforementioned cities and counties; opposed are Airbnb operators. 

Rep. Julia Reed’s bill, HB 2098, would close a tax loophole for big tech companies and use the money to provide a fully funded higher education for Washington families earning 100% of median family income or below. It had a hearing on Wednesday, and both the University of Washington and Washington State University Pullman testified against the bill in spite of the cuts to higher education in Ferguson’s budget proposal. 

Reed noted on social media that both of those universities receive donations from Amazon and Microsoft, who are current beneficiaries of the tax loophole. 

Fewer people are buying Obamacare coverage for 2026 due to the failure of Congress to renew the enhanced federal subsidies that made such coverage more affordable. In Washington State, 277,255 people enrolled for Obamacare in 2026, compared to 291,493 in 2025–a difference of 14,238. I’ll take this opportunity to remind us all that studies show that expanding Medicaid eligibility decreases violence. Assumedly, kicking people off their insurance (or making it unaffordable) could have the opposite effect. 

PubliCola reported on a few bills that would help codify the rights of unhoused people in the state. HB 2266 would prohibit shelter and temporary housing bans and make it easier to site these housing resources, while HB 2489 would prohibit cities from passing bans on sleeping and other survival activities unless they can show they have enough available “adequate” shelter, which means shelter that wouldn’t involuntarily separate a person from their partner or their pet, for example.

PubliCola also reported on HB 1125, which would allow people to apply for resentencing. (Washington State doesn’t have parole, making this bill especially salient.) 

Seattle News:

During her first week in office, my Urbanist editor Doug Trumm and I were able to go to City Hall to interview new Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson. 

Last week I also sat down and spoke to Nilu Jenks, who is running for the Seattle City Council District 5 seat this November. 

Carolyn Bick recently published some top-notch investigative reporting in The Stranger. They uncovered a recent report from Madison’s  Office of the Independent Monitor documenting a failed body-worn camera pilot program stewarded by Chief Shon Barnes at his old police department in Madison. Critically, the report found that “Barnes had ignored City Council’s “multiple directives” for essential, specific guardrails, which likely violated state law.” 

The report specifically said the failure was Barnes’. 

This information is especially important given Barnes is overseeing the rapid expansion of SPD’s surveillance program. Seattleites may wonder: if Barnes felt comfortable disregarding many of the Madison City Council’s directives about the body worn camera pilot in 2024, will he feel similarly empowered to run Seattle’s surveillance “pilot” as he sees fit today? 

Given the current federal risks towards immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color, the stakes around surveillance are very real and very high. 

Last week, SPD’s policy office sent an unsigned directive to instruct officers on how to respond to calls about ICE. PubliCola sums up this policy succinctly: “If you see someone being grabbed off the street or attacked by ICE in Seattle, feel free to call the local police—just don’t expect them to do anything about it.”

PubliCola also reported on SPD hiring in 2025, finding that 90% of its officer hires were men.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE are looking into expanding their detention capacity in the local area. According to a 187-page draft contract dated December 2025, “The objective of this contract is to obtain comprehensive detention, transportation, and food services for ICE detainees located in the Seattle, WA area in support of the ICE ERO Seattle Field Office.”

Body camera footage from the protest at last year’s Memorial Day far-right Mayday USA event was released that shows SPD officers’ intent to respond violently to protesters. SPD Officer Matthew Didier can be heard saying, “We’re here to fuck people up now,” and “We’re going in this time with guns blazing and all our pieces in place.”

This was only a few months after the Seattle City Council passed a new ordinance giving SPD greater leeway to use less lethal weapons at protests. This legislation paved the way for Seattle’s exit from an extremely lengthy consent decree that was prolonged due to SPD’s violent behavior during the George Floyd protests of 2020. 

The Seattle LGBTQ Council sent a letter last week saying that nearly all investigations relating to misconduct at the 2025 Memorial Day protest have been completed. Out of 28 allegations against 13 officers, only two have been sustained against a single officer, who received a written reprimand. 

Finally, the board of the Seattle Social Housing Developer fired its CEO, Roberto Jimenez, last week. Tiffani McCoy of House Our Neighbors has stepped up to serve as its interim CEO. 

Recent Headlines:

Related to ICE:

Everything else:

Two weeks after UW report, WA’s driver data is still accessible for immigration enforcement Read More »

Will Katie Wilson be a Sea Change for Seattle?

/

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 »

City Council begins budget gymnastics as alternative response in Seattle takes another blow from the new SPOG contract

/

My Recent Stories:

First up, we have my Urbanist story documenting the saga of King County’s pre-filing youth diversion program Restorative Community Pathways, which King County Executive Shannon Braddock is planning to replace with a new program. I’ve been following this story for some months and was just waiting for the Impact Justice evaluation to be released before writing it up. However, it turned out to be so complex that I think this is the longest story to date I’ve published at The Urbanist. I haven’t seen this covered in this depth at any other outlet thus far, and I hope you’ll take the time to have a read. 

Last week the new SPOG contract was announced, and I combed through it so you don’t have to. Several aspects of this new contract surprised me, but perhaps most of all, I was surprised it wasn’t more favorable for the City, given the timing of its release only two weeks before the mayoral election. The continued hindrance of the SPOG contract on the CARE alternative response team’s ability to do their jobs is particularly noteworthy. 

Finally, I wrote about the recent King County Department of Public Defense report on Seattle’s 2023 drug criminalization ordinance and the folks being brought into the criminal legal system as a direct result of it. I also provide an update on the SODA order numbers. 

Seattle News:

In Seattle, much of the news is either budget or election related. 

The fall revenue forecast came out, and it was better than anticipated (certainly better than I thought it would be!) However, given all the recent tech layoffs and federal government worker furloughs, as well as the potential for the AI investment bubble to burst and continued uncertainty around tariffs, I do wonder if the adopted forecast might end up being a little rosier than what we’ll actually see in 2026. But I certainly hope to be wrong! 

That being said, the Seattle City Council has very little money to play with in terms of allocating spending to their own priorities in the 2026 budget, and we see this tension very starkly in all the new spending proposed by councilmembers’ proposed amendments this week. Councilmembers are suggesting spending many millions more than are available, which will mean either most of these amendments will be jettisoned or other cuts in the budget will have to be made. 

We’ll have to wait and see which amendments make it into Budget Chair Dan Strauss’s balancing package when he releases it next Wednesday. You can view the full agendas for previous budget meetings, including lists of the proposed amendments, here, here, and here. You can also find the agenda for the October 17 meeting, which included Central Staff issue considerations for SPD, SFD, CARE, and HSD.

Councilmembers are proposing budget additions of almost $3 million to SPD and $21.7 million to HSD, as well as several million to the fire department to expand Health One, among other priorities. Councilmember Bob Kettle has proposed moving LEAD, Co-LEAD, and We Deliver Care contracts from HSD directly to the CARE department, which involves a financial transfer between the two city departments. 

Councilmembers have also requested some reporting, including three reports I’d really like to see: one that would require SPD to report on federal immigration enforcement policies (co-sponsored by every councilmember except Council President Sara Nelson); one that would require SPD ​​to provide quarterly reports on staffing, overtime, and performance metrics; and one that would require IT to provide a series of reports on the City’s investments in and uses of AI. 

Also noteworthy, as reporting from PubliCola discussed, is a whopping 30% increase in the Office of Economic Development’s (OED) budget proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell. An interesting facet of this is that the director of OED has donated to Harrell’s reelection campaign and sent an email soliciting city workers’ personal email addresses, which he gave to Harrell’s campaign manager. 

In other news, King County’s “Health Through Housing’s” Sharyn Grayson House, a 35-unit supportive housing unit in Capitol Hill run by the Lavender Rights Project with support from Chief Seattle Club, is ready to receive residents. 

Worth reading is an opinion piece in Real Change by Marigold Green, who is both a sex worker and a sex trafficking survivor who breaks down the City of Seattle’s recently announced awards for funding for sex trafficking prevention, which Green says has anti-sex-work implications. 

Surveillance News:

Last week, the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights published a report about Flock Safety’s surveillance privacy gaps in Washington State, including license plate reader data shared with U.S. Border Patrol/ICE. Local cities found to be sharing data with Border Patrol included Auburn and Renton. The report’s release triggered several Washington police departments to “change” their surveillance programs, per The Seattle Times. 

On a personal note, one of my surveillance articles for The Urbanist was mentioned in the report, and I’m glad to see awareness of these surveillance issues continue to grow, as is evinced by Rachel Maddow speaking about federal surveillance via cell phone for several minutes on MSNBC on Monday. 

Recent Headlines:

City Council begins budget gymnastics as alternative response in Seattle takes another blow from the new SPOG contract Read More »

Is there a budget bloodbath in the offing?

/

Personal News:

I’ve been a bit quieter than usual lately because my beloved little dog Nala died last week. I took several days off to spend some quality time with her beforehand, and I’ve been slowly gearing back up. I miss her terribly, of course, and am also very grateful that she lived such a good, long life (she was nearly 18!) and that everyone is being so kind to me as I adjust to this huge change.

Amy in a coat, hat, and scarf holding a cute little dog in a red jacket, the sandy beach and sunset behind them

Seattle and King County News:

I wrote about the Seattle Public Schools school board vote last week on a year-long pilot to bring a police officer back to Garfield High School. Things didn’t go the way I thought they would, as the board rejected the pilot proposal.

I wrote about Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal to use part of the new public safety sales tax money (which Council just passed in an 8-1 vote, Councilmember Maritza Rivera the sole nay vote) to double the number of CARE alternative responders. The CARE alternate response teams have been struggling since their inception due to an overly restrictive MOU with SPOG. I also wrote about a “mysterious” and sudden drop in police referrals to the CARE team, which coincidentally happened right after SPOG members had trouble with their paychecks due to the City using faulty new payroll software. Hmm. 

The Seattle Times published a similar story with this great lede: “Leadership with Seattle’s new police alternative has become increasingly frustrated with what they view as “a pattern of subversion” by street-level officers who seem to be routinely rejecting or ignoring assistance from civilian responders, records show.”

Relatedly, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) just released a report on the CARE team.

And I wrote about the new SPOG contract that Harrell has said he is almost done negotiating. Will it drop before or after the election? I’m fascinated to find out. 

SPD and Chief Shon Barnes have been engaging in some questionable promotions, as PubliCola has reported: Marc Garth Green, who was demoted after making offensive comments about sex workers, was promoted to commander of the West Precinct, and Mike Tietjen, who has several worrisome disciplinary actions on his record, including allegedly harassing a trans woman, was promoted to be in charge of the East Precinct. Barnes later walked back Tietjen’s new assignment, seemingly due to PubliCola’s coverage, blaming “internal leaks” and “a lack of comprehensive input from those involved in employee assignments.”

The King County Council approved the plans for the new crisis care center in Capitol Hill at the old Polyclinic building. 

I have been industriously listening to both Seattle and King County budget meetings. King County has successfully bridged their deficit for the 2026-2027 biennium with the new public safety sales tax, although they’ll be struggling to deal with federal impacts on services. Seattle will be receiving its revenue forecast on Monday, which might lead to a bit of a bloodbath for the budget depending on how bad the forecast turns out to be.

Surveillance news:

The Seattle Metro Chamber recently conducted a poll with this statement: “Recently passed laws, such as installing closed circuit cameras to capture real -time information about crime on our streets and keeping people out of areas where they have previously committed crimes are making Seattle safer and reducing crime.”

51% of respondents agreed (with only 17% strongly agreeing), while 46% of respondents disagreed. 

In local journalism circles, SPD is known as a place where you send public record requests to die. However, recent reporting from Hardpressed reveals that SPD is fulfilling public record requests for ICE in less than four days. The article further states:
“The initial six pages of records provided by Mayor Harrell’s office show that ICE is requesting information on people the SPD has charged with lowly crimes such as drug possession and fourth degree (gross misdemeanor) assault, which can be charged with no injury and for something as simple as a push. It is unclear based on the limited information and redactions made by Harrell’s office within the released records if the individuals SPD arrested were ever convicted of a crime.” 

404 Media has followed up on their reporting about Flock Safety and their ALPR database. Flock’s database was searched by law enforcement in Texas looking for a woman who had self-administered an abortion. It turns out that said law enforcement had considered charging the woman they were searching for with a crime.

Meanwhile, 404 Media discovered that ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy’s criminal investigation unit all had access to Flock’s huge data network. This news prompted US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to write a letter to Flock, in which he said, “I now believe that abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable and uninterested in preventing them. Cities around the country, including in Oregon, are currently reevaluating their decision to install Flock cameras. I commend and support this reexamination. In my view, local elected officials can best protect their constituents from the inevitable abuses of Flock cameras by removing Flock from their communities.”

The City of Mountlake Terrace, which voted to purchase Flock automated license plate recognition (ALPRs) back in June, has been continuing to discuss the issue. Councilmember William Paige, Jr. originally voted in favor of the technology, but he has changed his mind and now wants to cancel the contract. It’s possible the most recent news, along with the letter from Wyden, might sway more councilmembers.

The Flock cameras haven’t yet been installed in Mountlake Terrace. 

A few more recent articles about surveillance you might be interested in checking out:

Recent Headlines:

Is there a budget bloodbath in the offing? Read More »

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

/

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 »