At a routine Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee meeting, a figure in a Doctor Doom costume approached the podium and proceeded to thank the city for its surveillance cameras. The man behind the mask was Clifford Cawthon, a policy advisor for the Washington State Department of Commerce and a member of advocacy group Community Not Cameras, which is pushing Seattle to scale back its reliance on systems sold by Axon and Flock.
The Villain’s Case for Watching Everyone
The costume is the hook, but the argument underneath it is serious.
Cawthon’s remarks, reported by 404 Media, were delivered entirely in character: “Doom has total dominion over the city of Seattle. Doom will be behind the cameras watching those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. Doom will be able to find your immigrant neighbors.”
The sarcasm is the point. Whoever controls the surveillance infrastructure holds real power over the people moving through it, and that power does not come with a villain’s mask to tip you off. Governments have even built a secretly tracking users playbook that shows how quietly that control can be exercised…