What really irks me about these grants is that they seem largely to be driven by political contributions to DHS. What company wouldn't love to generate millions or billions in sales for itself by providing technology to every major city in the country? And it's all "free" to the cities so who cares if any of it works or not? The cost is just a few thousand dollars to whoever inherited Jack Abramoff's black book and a couple Congressional fact finding missions to the facial recognition conference in Tahiti.

Good for her. This shit has nothing to do with security and everything to do with shiny new military toys for the cops. They're never going to catch a crook with this stuff; they probably won't even try. There's a good chance they'll never figure out how to work it and someone will find all however-many millions of dollars worth of crap still in the packaging stuffed in a closet somewhere. How many cop shops in the US have night-vision goggles with dead corroded batteries leaking out of them, or Urban Assault Vehicles parked on a back lot with flat tires?

@ 3. The cost to the taxpayers isn't the concern here.

Days like this I wish we had a law that mandates all people voting on the Council and executives signing legislation have to enter statements of no less than 300 words with a stated justification for their vote.

@4: It's the new normal, and you should just get used to it.

[/fake Ken Mehlman]

I like the idea of facial recognition for identity.

I would love to get rid of my cards, keys and wallet, and just smile for the camera to get inside my apartment, ride Sounder or buy groceries.

However, what bothers me is the arbitrary assignment of various "records" by parties unknown to be in a database entry associated with my puss.

This problem, that of the relational database as the measure of the man is general one, and I have long pondered it. Facial recognition, without any corresponding change in the way we create identity, personal value, recognition, will exacerbate the problem. This may be good. Maybe it will force change.

I vote yea on facial recognition.

Damn!

This is why the Democrats we end up with these days with one party rule in Seattle are useless. Not one single one of the other eight could find the balls to stand up for principle and for human rights. Not one.

@3 Good. It should be more on "entitlements" (also known as "things people need") and less on garbage like this.

I'm totally okay with this 'no' vote. I'm deeply skeptical of what this will be used for. SPD has a pretty shitty track record of violating civil rights of minorities. They should not be given more toys with which to abuse the citizenry.

@3, yes, it is indeed ridiculous to spend money on food and medical care.

Brendan wrote, "the facial-recognition technology—aka the `booking comparison system'". That's not quite accurate. Seattle Police Department's proposed Booking Photo Comparison System (see Seattle Police Manual section 12.045 Booking Photo Comparison Software) is just one potential use of facial recognition technology.

SPD staff have cleverly shifted attention from the general-purpose and potentially-invasive facial recognition software they intend to purchase with this this year's bag of Department of Homeland Security money to one particular proposed use of that software. I've seen nothing yet that would suggest, much less enforce, that they use this software exclusively for "booking photo comparison."

@13: I can't speak for "the Sawantanistas," but the Defender Association's Racial Disparity Project have been studying and reporting on this phenomenon since 1999.