World Cup Week in Seattle kicked off with the Secret Service, FBI, Seattle Police and other emergency responders giving what details they could about keeping the matches safe.
Amid their efforts, mounting criticism came towards Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson over her decision to turn on 22 CCTV cameras near and in the Stadium district.
“We’re here to discuss the most complex, the largest sporting event not only in this nation’s history, but in the history of the world,” Trent Heinrichs, the U.S Secret Service Special Agent in Charge of the Seattle Field Office, “I think we’re prepared as we could possibly be. The fans should feel very comfortable coming to Seattle and enjoying the games here.”
As part of the response, a temporary flight restriction will make it illegal to fly drones during the matches. Heinrichs says 30 agencies are coordinating and creating a Federal Interagency Coordination Center to monitor host cities and be in contact with local agencies.
“We’ve trained and rehearsed a range of scenarios, and we have identified staging areas in the event that we need to have life-saving teams come into this area,” Scott Zaffram said, the regional coordinator for FEMA’s Region 10.
On Friday, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced she will reverse her decision on CCTV cameras in the city, saying 22 cameras that have been installed near Seattle Stadium will be turned on because of “credible threats.”
“This is not surprising given the event of this magnitude where we have a complicated international situation,” Wilson said of the threats on Sunday.
While not discussing details, the FBI said Monday the threats are “where people could be hurt.”
“What they described are the general circumstances of any gigantic event.” Phil Mocek said, a software engineer and privacy advocate.
Mocek is part of the pushback to the cameras that also includes the organization of Communities not Cameras.
On Monday, Communities not Cameras pushed back against Wilson’s decision to turn on the cameras, going against one of her platforms during her Mayoral Campaign.
“Any local safeguards or policy limitations the City claims SPD follows are completely meaningless against the collection capabilities and legal mechanisms available to the federal government,” the organization said in a statement.
Mocek says the security cameras that were installed, part of a pilot program that was implemented by Wilson’s predecessor, Bruce Harrell, are not stored on internal servers inside the city, rather are subjected to privacy the company that controls them can provide.
“It feeds a police database. The data is recorded, retained, and searchable. It’s on a private vendor’s machine where it can be subpoenaed by anybody from out of state if they want to.” Mocek said.
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