Wilson Turns On Surveillance Cameras She Once Opposed — And She Still Doesn’t Have Proof The Footage Keeps Us Safe

On Tuesday, Mayor Katie Wilson did her big one: Finally, fully capitulating to her bootlicking predecessor’s proposal to dramatically expand the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) surveillance capabilities, a proposal Wilson took a strong, public stance against when it was politically advantageous to her leftward challenge.

While her office may try to retroactively downplay her opposition to mass surveillance or hide behind the recommendations of an audit, it's hard to see this as much else than a lack of principal when she’s flicking on some cameras before the City can actually implement recommended safeguards, knowing that they can’t actually guarantee the security of the data those cameras collect, and even though the City cannot yet demonstrate that surveillance make Seattle safer. 

At a Tuesday press conference, Wilson announced the City will go forward with what she once described as a “dramatic” increase to the number of cameras feeding into the controversial Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) — turning on pre-existing cameras in SODO and installing even more in Capitol Hill and in the Garfield High School area. This comes after her office received an audit of the civil liberties implications of the tech from the NYU Policing Project.

Wilson said she will implement some (not all) of the audit’s recommendations to protect Seattle residents’ civil liberties, but that’s not happening for another several months. The cameras in SODO are rolling right now, before actually implementing any of those recommendations, according to her remarks Tuesday.

Wilson knows there’s risk in that strategy and that there will be risk even after the City implements the recommendations from the audit: “There’s no such thing as zero risk,” she said in the press conference Tuesday. But she seemed confident that the risk (which she said is hard to quantify) is outweighed by the benefits (which she could not demonstrate beyond her personal belief).

The only evidence the City could provide at the press conference came from SPD’s own account. According to the audit, SPD’s statistics claim that the RTCC supported 17 homicide cases in 2025. But that’s pretty generous. As the audit points out, SPD counts RTCC “support” as any action, even just checking a camera, “regardless of whether that action yielded any useful information or meaningfully impacted the investigation.”

Broadly, evidence is “thin” that this type of surveillance brings about more safety, according to the audit. Another audit from the University of Pennsylvania, ordered before Wilson took office, will evaluate the efficacy of this program. That audit won’t be done until late 2027. So for a whole year, Wilson will simply take the cops’ word that this technology is helpful enough to shrug off concerns from vulnerable people and civil liberties advocates.

For the anti-surveillance crowd, this is a disappointment a year in the making. In September 2025, the City Council voted to help then-Mayor Bruce Harrell grease the wheels of fascism by expanding a pilot surveillance program — the Real Time Crime Center — before the City could actually take stock of its efficacy and safety. The premature expansion saw near universal opposition in City Hall, with concerns that the footage could be used to help the Trump administration or other nefarious actors hunt down immigrants, trans people, women seeking reproductive care, or political dissidents.

Wilson glommed on to the anti-surveillance sentiment at the time. In a statement on Instagram, her campaign urged the City Council to “stand with immigrant rights groups, civil rights advocates, and the city’s own Surveillance Advisory Working Group to reject the proposals before City Council to dramatically expand CCTV surveillance.”

The post continued: “Turning on more cameras won’t magically make our neighborhoods safer. But it will certainly make our neighbors more vulnerable. As

the Trump administration escalates its attacks on immigrants, trans people, and big cities in general, we need to prioritize safety, not surveillance.”

But once she had the power to actually do something to stop the expansion, Wilson froze up. The Burner asked Wilson after her victory if she would reverse her former foe’s expansion efforts — after all, the cameras weren’t even purchased yet. She wouldn’t commit one way or the other. My pointing that out upset some of her sycophants who thought I was simultaneously assuming the worst, not giving her time to prove herself, or (god forbid) expecting that an executive act proactively on issues they claimed mattered to them when they were trying to win an election. Turns out, I was right to be skeptical of a wishy-washy statement!