A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

saltyoldman wrote: post #52

emptybits wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, depending on specific intent, credibility, and the nature of harm threatened. But since this is about surveillance, I hope that detection of verbal threats is not a goal of government surveillance because it's difficult to imagine how that could be accomplished without significant loss of privacy or other liberties.

I can see it in court now. Our AI monitoring system did indeed know about the threat to the building where 800 people died on Sunday. It says: " Agent: Voice to text detected: I have everything ready - all the XXX chemicals are ready in the van and I'm going to park in the 900 S Crap St now" Agent: Thread Level HIGH. Agent: Looking up local codes. Agent: Mayor signed SB-1238 in 2026 - no surveillance devices may be u…

Post by shortstuffsushi » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

Bratmon wrote: post #64

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, I'd say this sort of comment is not really contributing much to the conversation, but in this case I agree with the sentiment. With a lot of these posts about the surveillance tech that's becoming increasingly prominent everywhere in the public, there are a lot of commenters here that seem to be of the opinion that "this is fine, as long as you have nothing to hide, there's nothing lost" - or worse in this c…

> I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.

Post by sieabahlpark » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #72

I think this is just the new normal. My car was stolen in Seattle and it was found with the person driving it when he was pulled over by police. In the car he had paperwork with his name on it, a weapon, and his work uniform in the trunk with a name badge (he was a security guard - lol) along with a neighborhood witness. Despite a mountain of evidence, the prosecutors declined to press charges because without direct…

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

patja wrote: post #28

shermantanktop wrote: post #11

Lots of po-mo art-school language on this site about “encoding ways of seeing” and “gazes.” The content itself is somewhat interesting but imo plain language would be more accessible.

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about statements like these which seem to assume the reader is incredibly uninformed and naive, to the point of condescension. "sends the information to a central storing place (called a database)" TIL what the word database means? "Amazon can use your purchases to know more about you using patterns." Is this news to someone? Condescending. "It might be connected to a network…

Post by downrightmike » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #72

I think this is just the new normal. My car was stolen in Seattle and it was found with the person driving it when he was pulled over by police. In the car he had paperwork with his name on it, a weapon, and his work uniform in the trunk with a name badge (he was a security guard - lol) along with a neighborhood witness. Despite a mountain of evidence, the prosecutors declined to press charges because without direct…