By Erica C. Barnett
Was Mayor Katie Wilson’s decision to audit the safety and security of police surveillance cameras a classic “split-the-baby” compromise, a pro forma move with a foregone conclusion, or a thoughtful approach to ensure public safety for Seattle residents? That’s our topic of discussion on Seattle Nice this week.
As I reported last week, Wilson announced she would leave all the existing cameras up and recording while the Policing Project, out of New York University, does a “privacy and data governance audit” to determine whether outside entities, such as federal immigration authorities, could access camera footage and use it to target people caught on camera in Seattle. (There’s no such thing as privacy in public places, but until lthe cameras were installed last year, Seattle residents were not under routine camera surveillance by police.) Assuming the report says the cameras are reasonably safe from outside access, Wilson said, her administration will work to strengthen city laws restricting access to the footage.
Wilson also said the city would hold off on installing new cameras in the Central District and Capitol Hill, but will install dozens of new cameras around the stadiums south of downtown, where six World Cup games will take place in June. For now, these new cameras will only be turned on if there is a “credible threat.”
In justifying her decision to keep existing cameras rolling and install new ones, Wilson said she trusts SPD to use the cameras wisely to solve crimes. “I know that cameras can be, have been, and will be useful tools to solve crime in Seattle and in countless other cities across the world,” she said. (Indeed, police cameras cover every in across the UK and China, but the United States has its own traditions and values that, at their best, have prioritized individual rights like privacy).
PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.
“There’s no doubt that these cameras make it easier to solve some crimes, including serious ones like homicides, but also, cameras are not the one key to making our neighborhoods safe,” Wilson said. “And on the other hand, there are legitimate concerns about privacy over surveillance and potential misuse of surveillance technologies. But also, these cameras are not the primary threat to immigrants, trans people or people seeking reproductive health care in our country right now.”
At Wilson’s press conference last week, I asked a question about how her values were guiding her decision on whether to expand the police department’s ability to surveil Seattle residents. Say the audit comes back golden, and she says, “Great, let’s expand the program.” That’s not just an endorsement of a particular camera system’s safety; it’s a statement of Wilson’s values, and one where her position has flipped since the campaign, when many voters were excited to support a candidate who didn’t want to give SPD even greater powers.
Maybe Wilson’s values have shifted. Maybe SPD has convinced her that crimes really will go unsolved without 24/7 video surveillance, despite the fact that the cameras have only existed for nine months. Or maybe the camera supporters she’s talking to in neighborhoods with high crime rates have convinced her that surveillance is a form of safety and social justice, as the mayor has often suggested. In any case, my guess is that more police surveillance cameras are coming, and that Wilson will expand them again in the future. Once you’ve decided that it’s simply unsafe not to have surveillance in some places, it’s very hard to justify not providing the same level of “safety” to other neighborhoods, and eventually the whole city.
