Washington Privacy Organizers

That was fast!

blacksky.community/profile/did:...

Looks like SB 6002 has just passed the House, 82-10 (or something like that). Rep. Brianna Thomas respectfully voted no, saying the bill doesn't go far enough. Kudos to her! And many thanks to Rep. Reed for keeping us informed.

Up next: Senate votes on whether to accept the House version ...

SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act (Flock / ALPR regulation) is on the floor right now!

Here's the livestream. I won't be able to liveskeet it, but @staterepjuliareed.bsky.social is a world-class poster (complimentary) and has a ringside seat!

tvw.org/video/house-...

That didn't take long. Sure enough, there's a new, much weaker, striker. Not Rep. Salahuddin's fault of course (or yours obviously!) but really really disappointed in the D caucus on this

lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/202...

I’m [NAME] of [CITY], one of your constituents, and I'm very concerned that SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act is much too weak to protect immigrants, rapid response groups, and other vulnerable Washington residents. There are thousands of Flock surveillance cameras are all over the state -- and cities like Redmond, Everett, and Olympia which have turned their Flock cameras off are likely to turn them back on once SB 6002 passes.  So the guardrails in this bill need to be strengthened significantly. Reduce retention time to three minutes or less unless license plates are already on a hotlist. This significantly reduces risk of data getting to ICE and CBP -- or being used by police officers to stalk people. Ensure that human rights organizations, local organizers, and journalists can provide oversight by eliminating the public records act exemption. This is very important legislation and its guardrails need to be strong enough to protect us.

Whew, that was a long thread. And I'm sure there's more to come ... so stay tuned!

Right now, though ... please call your state representatives!

Hit the phones! Tell legislators to STRENGTHEN SB 6002 (Flock/ALPR regulation) to protect immigrants and other Washingtonians The Driver Privacy Act regulates ALPRs like Flock, which allow law enforcement to track where people drive and when. The bill needs to be strengthened significantly to protect Washingtonians and preve...

The Indivisble action also has instructions for how you can use the "bill comment" page on the legislature's web site, another good approach. Just cut-and-paste the script, and customize it however you want.

www.takeaction.network/xactions/48433

Protect privacy: Tell the House to strengthen and pass The Driver Privacy Act Please take action!

Or, if you want to keep your phone call short but still weigh in on the amendments, ACLU has an action up (that also covers a potential amendment we haven't seen yet).

Keep in mind that email isn't a substitute for a phone call. Still, it can be a good followon.

action.aclu.org/send-message...

I’m [NAME] of [CITY], one of your constituents, and I'm very concerned that SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act is much too weak to protect immigrants, rapid response groups, and other vulnerable Washington residents. There are thousands of Flock surveillance cameras are all over the state -- and cities like Redmond, Everett, and Olympia which have turned their Flock cameras off are likely to turn them back on once SB 6002 passes.  So the guardrails in this bill need to be strengthened significantly. Reduce retention time to three minutes or less unless license plates are already on a hotlist. This significantly reduces risk of data getting to ICE and CBP -- or being used by police officers to stalk people. Ensure that human rights organizations, local organizers, and journalists can provide oversight by eliminating the public records act exemption. This is very important legislation and its guardrails need to be strong enough to protect us.

The script I shared at the beginning of this thread doesn't mention any of the SB 6002 amendments -- it's already kinda long for a phone script, and I didn't want to make it any more complicated. But if one or them is important to you, by all means add it!

Holdout Democrats leave WA House support for income tax in doubt • Washington State Standard The votes weren’t there yet late Wednesday for Democrats’ income tax bill in the Washington state House. Democratic members are withholding support for the proposed income tax on millionaires, saying ...

Less positively, there's also an amendment from Rep. Leavitt that would allow ALPR data to be searched not just by license plate but by vehicle characteristics. Nope.

Leavitt's a conservative Democrat who's often a barrier to progress. For example ...

washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/03/04/h...

I may not have the description of that quite right, it's one of the places where the EFFECT isn't that helpful -- it just says "subject to specified conditions".

Anyhow, ACLU of Washington supports this amendment, because it ensures bodycams can be used for transparency and accountability purposes

The Indivisible script also mentions Rep. Entenman's amendment 2166, which clarifies that bodycam and dashboard camera video footage generally isn't considered ALPR data (although it is if the bodycams or dashcams integrate ALPR functionality)

lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/202...

Hit the phones! Tell legislators to STRENGTHEN SB 6002 (Flock/ALPR regulation) to protect immigrants and other Washingtonians The Driver Privacy Act regulates ALPRs like Flock, which allow law enforcement to track where people drive and when. The bill needs to be strengthened significantly to protect Washingtonians and preve...

So @acluwa.bsky.social and many coalition groups that want three-minute-or-less retention are supporting Rep. Thomas' amendment.

Here's an action from Washington Indivisibles with a script supporting the Thomas amendment *and* asking for three-minutes-or-less

www.takeaction.network/xactions/48433

But, 7 day retention is significantly less than 21 day retention.

And there isn't an amendment yet on three-minute-or-less retention.

This is a really challenging situation in legislative activism: whether to support an amendment that makes incremental progress but falls far short of what you want.

The best way to protect data is not to store it.

Three-minute-or-less retention accomplishes that.

Seven day retention doesn't.

Rep. Thomas' amendment 2186 is also an important one: it reduces retention time to seven days, down from 21 in the current. bill.

We've been pushing for three-minute-or-less retention, which basically means data is only stored for license plates already on hotlists.

Generally right, but I would more say that House and Senate Republicans are very different groups with different cultures. Agreement and support from Senate Republicans helps, but does not at all bind House Republicans and neither body defers to the other (same for Dems).

60 amendments IS a lot. Especially if multiple Republicans get up and speak on each amendment. But it’s also a signal from the minority party that says “we don’t like this”. The majority party can then see if there’s room to negotiate on their concerns, so I assume that’s what’s happening now.

That's not a big deal, just slightly confusing. But I've seen other situations where changes were left out of the EFFECT, or the summary wasn't quite right. So I always also look at the bill text, and for a striker like this do a PDF diff from the previous version.

Amendments published before votes usually have an "EFFECT" section at the bottom, written (I think) by non-partisan staff. This is very useful -- but not always 100% correct.

Here, for example, the EFFECT talks about several changes that actually happened in the previous committee's striker.

Anyhow, Rep. Salahuddin's striker addresses one of the coalition's demands: it prohibits vender access to ALPR data, and limits access to systems. That's good!

It also has a bunch of other relatively small changes which seem mostly-okay to me.

lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/202...

Of course, the Governor could remove this leverage by saying "fine, if you wanna play, let's play - I'll just call a special session and pass the bill there."

But multiple people have told me that no, they don't do special sessions for bills like this.

It's infuriating! But, it is what it is.

Then again, maybe it's just a heavy-handed negotiating ploy. Behind the scenes, R's could be hinting to D's that they'll withdraw most of the amendments if Rep. Salahuddin replaces his striker with a weaker version.

"Nice bill you have there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it."

So this sure looks like an attempt to kill the Driver Privacy Act, by making it too expensive in terms of floor time for the Democrats to vote on it.

Hmm, maybe the Republicans in the Senate who talked about how we need to regulate Flock to protect Washingtonians didn't really mean it?

State Representative Julia Reed (@staterepjuliareed.bsky.social) There are 19 Republican amendments on this bill. You can read them as we go on the FAR: https://app.leg.wa.gov/far/House/Calendar You can also read about this bill on SB 5925 Here: https://lawfilese...

Republicans are in general known for slowing things down as much as possible -- like the 19 amendments they filed on SB 5925 yesterday blacksky.community/profile/did:...

But 60 amendments???? That's over-the-top even by #waleg standards!

Leqislative calendar January 12 (Monday): First day of session February 4 (Wednesday): Policy committee cutoff February 9 (Monday): Fiscal and transportation committee cutoff February 17 (Tuesday): Cutoff for passing house of origin February 25 (Wednesday): Opposite house policy committee cutoff March 2 (Monday): Opposite house fiscal and transportation committee cutoff March 6 (Friday): Cutoff to go through opposite house - unless it's NTIB! March 12 (Thursday): Last day of session — Sine Die

Friday (March 6) is the cutoff for the House to pass legislation that started in the Senate, including SB 6002 and dozens of other bills they haven't voted on yet.

There's only a finite, relatively-small amount of floor time between now and then. 60+ amendments will chew up a LOT of it!

What's with that?

Let me now attempt to channel @staterepjuliareed.bsky.social and explain the dynamics.

She knows this stuff much better than I do of course ... but, it's not my first #waleg rodeo, so I'll give it a try ...

A long list of amendments, in a small font, each with an 20-character code starting with 6002-S.E.AMH, a number, a legislator name, and a page reference

And then Republicans filed 60+ more amendments, and any hope of voting on Tuesday went out the window.

Here's what the bill page at app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/... looks like right now.

As for the update ... well as usual for #waleg at this time of the session, it's pretty chaotic.

There were rumors that they might vote on SB 6002 as early as Tuesday, and by early afternoon several amendments had been filed - including a striker by Rep. Salahuddin that we'll talk more about below.

If you don't know your reps' phone numbers, you can look their numbers up in the Member List on the legislature's site. leg.wa.gov/legislators/...

And if you're not sure who your reps are, try the District Finder. app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder

I’m [NAME] of [CITY], one of your constituents, and I'm very concerned that SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act is much too weak to protect immigrants, rapid response groups, and other vulnerable Washington residents. There are thousands of Flock surveillance cameras are all over the state -- and cities like Redmond, Everett, and Olympia which have turned their Flock cameras off are likely to turn them back on once SB 6002 passes.  So the guardrails in this bill need to be strengthened significantly. Reduce retention time to three minutes or less unless license plates are already on a hotlist. This significantly reduces risk of data getting to ICE and CBP -- or being used by police officers to stalk people. Ensure that human rights organizations, local organizers, and journalists can provide oversight by eliminating the public records act exemption. This is very important legislation and its guardrails need to be strong enough to protect us.

#waleg update: tomorrow is the last day for the House to vote on SB 6002 , the Driver Privacy Act, regulating Flock and other ALPRs.

So *now* is the time to contact your state reps. They're getting so much email that phone calls are a lot more effective at this point. Here's a script. 1/N