Stop Surveillance City

Ballard Food Bank's annual report for 2025 is out. Its a reminder that in one of the richest cities in the world:
-Food insecurity keeps increasing
-Community funds food banks, not government
-Seattle spends more on surveillance each year than on food access

static1.squarespace.com/static/5d4b3...

SPD wants to have drones respond to calls. Shows the police always want more surveillance and the reason SPD's fight to prevent anyone else from responding to calls is just SPD trying to get more money

Seattle Library Workers Raise Alarm About Security Crackdown Hitting Homeless People » The Urbanist # Some library staff say that a new enforcement crackdown led by the Seattle Public Library’s new head of security is turning librarians into part-time cops, and they’re not happy about it. Justin…

The Seattle Public Library hired a cop to run security. It's going about how you would expect.

New article from DivestSPD editor Justin Ward:
www.theurbanist.org/2026/02/23/s...

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz The Big Lie About Body Cameras

youtu.be/b5HtV4vip5s

In the wake of the horrific ICE killings in Minnesota, many prominent Democrats have called for ICE to wear body cameras. Yesterday, @equalityalec.bsky.social talked to @democracynow.org about how important it is that we don't get distracted by meaningless & counterproductive reforms.

Only deeply sick societies spend obscene amounts on chains, cages, walls, and all-seeing cameras as opposed to stuff that fosters beauty, joy, health, people who can think, and a natural world capable of sustaining it all.

The good folx at Seattle Solidarity Budget put together a map showing the location of
-SPD's cameras
-SDOT cameras (which feed into SPD's Real-Time Crime Center)
WSDOT cameras
-Some private cameras

www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/surveillance...

I write all about age verification and how it's being pushed in this WA legislative session.

When I wrote my piece about AI bills last month, every privacy advocate I spoke with expressed their concern about the age verification bills in play this session. So I carved out some time to learn more.

Two cops fired, and a $29 million settlement feels like some measure of justice, but it's still not enough.

DivestSPD's statement on the Jaahnavi Kandula settlement.

Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist’s Bank and Credit Card Numbers Amandla Thomas-Johnson didn't know how much information ICE requested in a subpoena now. Google never gave him a chance to fight it.

Google fulfilled an ICE subpoena demanding large swaths of information on a student journalists, including his bank and credit card numbers.

My latest for @theintercept.com

theintercept.com/2026/02/10/g...

SPD works with ICE

ICE doesn't need to file a subpoena to get access to SPD's data, including its surveillance. ICE can get all the data it wants just by asking SPD for it.

Seattle PD Operating Secret CCTV Camera HardPressed

NEW: Seattle Police Operating Secret-No-More CCTV Camera
www.hardpressed-info.com/seattle-pd-o...

12th and Pine

Why you should try to get on a jury: electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-wi...

The story also contains a great reminder of why to never use biometrics to unlock a device.

Washington State Fusion Center Shares Intelligence Products With ICE & CBP After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Good last month, a voice on the agent's own video recording called Good a "fucking bitch." Weeks later, two Customs and B...

Washington State Fusion Center Shares Intelligence Products With ICE & CBP

www.hardpressed-info.com/washington-s...

This. So much this.

Don’t serve them. Don’t date them. Don’t treat them like human beings. Make them pariahs. Break their morale.

Make them do the “sad Charlie Brown” walk out of every store they go into.

In the coming days you might well hear arguments that surveillance is the answer to the tragedy of gun violence, and therefore Seattle shouldn't turn off SPD's cameras. I urge you to interrogate this framing.

Appears these somehow didn't go through the surveillance determination process. At least some versions of these air quality sensors include microphones: www.wired.com/story/school...

www.seattle.gov/tech/data-pr...

We only know about a lot of the ways mass surveillance has been used because of public records requests by reporters & community groups.

Cops & surveillance companies are obscuring info on use.

And, WA state legislature is working on a bill SB 6002 to exempt surveillance data from public records

Great reporting once again highlighting why Seattle needs to withdraw from the Join Terrorism Task Force. JTTF policy is set by the FBI. JTTF lets Kash Patel tell SPD what to do.

And, the Washington Department of Licensing is sharing driver data with ICE.

If Ferguson wants to protect people from ICE, there are lots of concrete actions he can take instead of making vague, empty claims at press conferences

jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/...

"But if training hasn’t worked, why does it continue? Why is it always trotted out, alongside new technologies, as the solution? Because training and technologies (body cams, Tasers, so-called less-than-lethal weapons, predictive policing software) are a boondoggle for corporate interests."

Those sources can include HHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and “CLEAR.” The guide does not provide any more specifics on what CLEAR might be, but ICE has repeatedly contracted with Thomson Reuters which sells a data product called CLEAR. Thomson Reuters did not respond to a request for comment. HHS did not respond to a request for comment. The documents don’t say if those are the only entities providing data for ELITE. The user guide says ELITE is “integrating new data sources” to reduce officer workload.

ELITE gets data from lots of sources, and one of them appears to be Thomson Reuters' CLEAR data product. ICE has long contracted with the company, which sells addresses and other personal data. Those addresses can come from credit header data (when you open a card) www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

Seattle Council Member Eddie Lin Suggests Redirecting Surveillance Tech Funding To Immigrant Resources As ICE’s reign of terror returns to headlines, activists demand bold and urgent action from City Hall’s new progressive bloc, including a reversal of a recent expansion to the Seattle Police Departmen...

NEW: Seattle City Council Member Eddie Lin wants Mayor Wilson to delay implementation of surveillance expansion so the City can revisit decision in wake of ICE terror. He suggests possibly redirecting funds to immigrant resources. www.theburnerseattle.com/post/seattle...

UW Report: Immigration Agents Still Accessing WA Driver Data » The Urbanist # The University of Washington Center for Human Rights reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is still accessing state license data to aid mass deportation, despite state efforts ...

My latest about how a new UW report shows ICE still has ways to access to WA's Dept of Licensing driver data, including photos, home addresses, etc. This is the latest in a now long saga of the DOL giving personal information to immigration enforcement.

Another “weaponized vehicle” claim from occupation forces in Portland.

It sure sounds like the fed was at the driver’s window here too. Not sure how he could’ve struck two people from the front.

JD Vance says ICE agent has "absolute immunity" after Minneapolis shooting Vance says ICE agent in Minneapolis shooting has “absolute immunity” and blasts Tim Walz for trying to “make his life miserable.”

For anyone that thinks state or local laws on data sharing will prevent ICE from accessing data, the Federal administration is claiming ICE has "absolute immunity" www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-min...

The only way to prevent ICE accessing data is to not collect the data

Shows the only way to prevent data from being accessed is to not collect it. Legislative just create a game of whack-a-mole where ICE just changes its approach.