Although she opposed surveillance camera expansion along with the ACLU, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and many other advocates last year during her campaign, this week Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson says she’s now opening her mind to adding surveillance cameras after learning from a Super Bowl ad that they might help find missing dogs.
“While I’m as concerned as you are about how our literally fascist government might be able to use surveillance camera footage to target, kidnap and even kill local residents as they clearly already have more and more over this last year, I also recently saw this really cool Super Bowl commercial about how surveillance cameras everywhere can help find cute missing dogs,” said Mayor Wilson at her State of the City address earlier this week. “You shoulda seen this cute little Goldendoodle feller no one could find until the cameras beamed out their brown face recognition software to find the little guy. While completely fictional, it was also very cute and compelling.”
Although she knows more than 18 local civil rights organizations as well as many of her most ardent supporters are deeply disappointed in her stalling on even trying to end the surveillance camera expansion, Wilson said she hopes they all understand the need for more dialogue.
“Have I heard any specific stories or received solid data that I could share with you to even help convince you it’s remotely worth it to consider this expansion of the surveillance state while our federal government is killing immigrants and American citizens in the streets in broad daylight? No,” Mayor Wilson said. “But the police told me they have and why would they or that adorable Super Bowl commercial lie about that? I look forward to continuing to act like you haven’t already shown me mountains of evidence that they absolutely would and already have.”
At press time, Mayor Wilson asked her disappointed supporters to maybe focus a little less on the quickly tightening and possibly irreversible chokehold of a fascist federal government’s surveillance state and a little more on cute Super Bowl ads.
