Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a Democrat who identifies as a Socialist, said on Friday that due to “general but credible threats,” surveillance cameras will be turned on during the upcoming FIFA World Cup tournament, which begins June 15.
Wilson, who had made permanently turning off surveillance cameras across the city a central focus of her campaign for mayor, said that she made the decision after the Seattle Police Department and FBI briefed her on current threats.
“The breadth and depth of intelligence gathering that informed the briefing identified general but credible threats to safety and security during the games,” she said. “While not unexpected given an event of this magnitude, this information has persuaded our law enforcement, emergency management and FIFA security partners that we should be operating at a heightened risk level.”
Wilson said that the cameras in the Stadium District will be activated during the tournament.
Citing privacy concerns, she said that the city “will continue honing our policies and protections to safeguard the data these videos capture.”
Seattle City Council member Rob Saka, who ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon and has said that surveillance footage during the bombing of that marathon led to the identification of the bombers, praised the mayor for the decision.
“Lives are on the line,” he said. “We need to leverage all our public safety tools when hosting major events like FIFA.”
