It's Time to Take Down your Smart Cameras 😬 YouTube video by Benn Jordan

Meeting in the conference room at 10am ET.
Pam brought donuts and coffee. First come, first serve.

youtu.be/UMIwNiwQewQ

Also, one of the murders SPD "cleared" in 2025 was SPD arresting, charging, & jailing an innocent man due to CCTV footage stopsurveillancecity.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/s...

The CCTV / ShotSpotter / police tech crowd has very little in terms of actual studies proving their efficacy, so they mostly win over politicians with this one simple argument

For 23 years, WA has detained a man for a crime he can’t understand Washington taxpayers spend more than $500,000 a year to hold a man with an intellectual disability on McNeil Island. He’s been sexually abused for decades in state custody.

Torture is routine in the US, and legal. We do it to prisoners.

Katie Wilson wants to surveil you while you go to the bathroom.

Seriously, these things are functionally honey buckets (there's no actual plumbing connection) with surveillance to record who uses them, when they use them, how long they use them, etc.

Phoenix police won’t discipline any officers in massive scandal of testing fake gangs and charging protestors falsely as members in 2020.

I’ve been studying the punishment bureaucracy and suing judges, prosecutors, and police across the U.S. for more than 15 years. One defining feature of our legal system is that there is rarely any accountability for massive corruption and criminality by those with power.

It’s kinda wild that the lady who lied and destroyed records was even on an “ethics board” to begin with.

But it was at the company that makes the taser, a safe, “non-lethal” weapon that constantly kills people, so it tracks

Bob Kettle: "I don't see any risks with SPD's mass surveillance. I also didn't see any risks ahead of 9/11 and dismissed or ignored all threat reports."

Seattle cops caught scamming overtime With officers on the honor's system and tacit approval from supervisors, leaving early and logging a full overtime shift is seen as an "accepted practice."

While the Mayor is asking departments to trim the fat, cops are leaving hours early and claiming overtime for full shifts.

One officer's defense: Everybody does it.

open.substack.com/pub/divestsp...

Grandma jailed after AI error linked her to crime in state she never visited: lawyer The charges were later dismissed after bank records showed she was in Tennessee at the time

Another case SPD would call "justice" since an arrest was made: www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...

Yup

And Shotspotter's CEO is a former member. Yeah, this is going to be a real "impartial" panel

Who did Mayor Wilson hire to do a report on SPD's mass surveillance? SPD www.policingproject.org/news-main/st...

By SPD's definition, arresting, an innocent person, caging them for a month, and charging them with arson & murder is "justice"
stopsurveillancecity.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/s...

Keep that in mind every time SPD, or one of their mouthpieces, brags about how cameras led to an arrest

And, things that actually make communities safer typically get cut in order to pay for surveillance. We've seen this locally with Jumpstart/affordable housing and the FEPP levy/youth programs being raided while the city is spending $ millions a year on surveillance

Yup, there's lots of data. It all shows that cameras don't increase safety (or even clearance rates) and that they have negative psychological impacts on people. stopsurveillancecity.wordpress.com/closed-circu...

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...

The Big Lie About Body Cameras YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz

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...