Beschreibung

The west end of Northwood Road is a public street. I have been walking there for literally decades personally. During the pandemic, when many more people were walking and cycling, someone evidently decided they didn't want anybody there and put up a sign which said, "Private Drive. No Trespassing. No Pedestrians. No Dog Walking."

I checked the book of plats online at the time, and confirmed that the street was platted as a public street. Interfering with lawful use of public land is a crime. Putting up "No Trespassing" signs on it is a textbook example.

(Volume 56 of plats, page 49. Access from here: https://recordsearch.kingcounty.gov/LandmarkWeb/search/index?theme=.blue&section=searchCriteriaBookPage)

Unfortunately SeeClickFix isn't used by the city of Seattle yet. I'll find a way to file a report with them, and I'm still posting it here for reference. Thinking that it was, I went there this evening to take pictures. They now have a different sign along the road opposite house #909 which only says, "Private Property - No Outlet No Soliciting No Trespassing", in the hopes of misleading you into thinking that the street onwards from there is a private drive without actually directly claiming it is, and they also have surveillance cameras with motion detection and will harass you for walking there.

I took a picture of the sign, and continued down to the west end of the road. They now have a Ring camera with motion-activated lights aggressively pointed across the end of the street from the gate of house #1001.

A short while later, I decided to go back and see if I could get a better picture of the site. There was now an old lady wandering in the street who tried to accost me. "Do you have business on this lane?"
I told her, "This is a public street. I checked the book of plats; it is a public street down to the streetlight at the end."

"But I want to know why you're walking back and forth. You were here 10 minutes ago. Why are you here again?" Note, I did not see her personally. She has her phone set up to beep her every time somebody walks there.

I told her again, "This is a public street. I can walk here all day if I please." I walked down to the streetlight; on the way back, I could see her mashing buttons furiously on her phone. As I walk past, up swoops the phone and she starts harassing me with the camera at close range. Me: *gives camera the finger* Her (angrily: "Happy Holidays to you too!" Me: "I am tired of you trying to pretend this is a private street."

I can see this turning into an incident. Again, I have been walking on that exact length of street for literally decades. There was never any trouble /until/ they had Ring cameras. Now that they /know/ people walk there, they don't like it, and they think they can come drive you away. I have the absolute 100% legal right to walk there, all the way to the end of the street, not just to the halfway point where the old biddy arbitrarily decided it becomes hers.

My immediate complaint is about the sneakily misleading sign. But beyond that, we need surveillance control laws. It's one thing if people want to have cameras aimed solely at their own property. Covering public streets with them needs to be illegal, for many reasons. For all of human history up until very recently, we were free of the surveillance cancer, and it needs to go away.