Beginning two years ago, but unbeknownst to the public—until now—intelligence officers inside the Seattle Police Department headquarters on Third Avenue acquired the ability to watch your social media posts in real time, using software that can place those posts on a digital map.
This tracking software, which the SPD purchased in October 2014 from a CIA-funded company called Geofeedia, is designed to tell officers where you posted from and what you said. It can also show hundreds of other tweets, Instagrams, and other social media posts from anyone else in the vicinity, and then file all of that information into one big database.
The secret purchase of the Geofeedia software—for $14,125—violated a Seattle law requiring a city official outside of the police department to be notified of such acquisitions, the SPD admitted this week in response to questions from The Stranger. The secret use of the software may have also violated the city’s 2013 surveillance ordinance, which requires “any City department intending to acquire surveillance equipment” to “obtain City Council approval.”
City council member Lorena González, a former civil rights attorney who now leads police oversight for the council, conferred with the ACLU of Washington after The Stranger told her about the police department’s quiet Geofeedia acquisition. “I am concerned about allegations that SPD’s acquisition and use of Geofeedia is in violation of Seattle’s surveillance law,” González said.