Today, I, Glen Stellmacher, agreed to settle a public records lawsuit with the City of Seattle (City) over the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) handling of text messages from key employees who were involved in covert infiltration, public relations and intelligence operations during the 2020 protests. The PDRs at issue

Link to full story here: https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/08/07/inside-spd-s-use-aerial-surveillance-during-2020-protests This week, Real Change publishes a feature I have been working on for a long time. It shows that Seattle’s Surveillance Ordinance is failing. Seattle PD are using surveillance systems without disclosing them to the

SPD's May 31, 2020 Kettle

Illustration by Robin Hunt. https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2023/07/19/derailing-defund-how-spd-manipulated-media-narrative-around-2020-protests Additional reporting done by Tobias Coughlin-Bogue.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/05/30/chaos-and-banned-weapons-spds-use-of-mutual-aid-police-departments-in-2020/

https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/04/27/please-stop-on-the-teams-chat-new-records-expose-mayor-durkans-role-and-others-in-abandonment-of-east-precinct/

https://southseattleemerald.com/2023/02/22/opinion-the-next-big-one-could-mean-big-displacement-for-seattles-black-population/

https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/02/09/texts-reveal-durkans-office-used-covert-efforts-to-disperse-protesters/

You could argue that Amazon may live in the future, interacting with technologies well before us mortals see them in the mainstream. However, as the media savant Marshall McLuhan noted, “the future of the future is the present.” And thus, we don’t have to speculate on the future to

We all know palm oil makes things taste good. It’s the foundation of Nutella. We also know that rainforest clearing to start palm plantations has caused environmental and social catastrophe.1 (I don’t eat Nutella anymore.) As a result, we have lost a significant percentage of our world&

In 1851 twelve adults and twelve children of the Denny Party arrived at Alki and were quickly surrounded by encampments of “over a thousand” Indians.1 Ten years later, a gift of land from Charles Terry, of the original Denny Party, and others allowed a new Territorial University to be