Amazon, Facebook, FBI have access to a private intelligence-sharing network

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In Seattle, Facebook, Amazon, real estate management, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) all share one thing in common: membership to Seattle Shield, an exclusive intelligence-sharing network operated by the Seattle police. 

The system highlights how secretive public-private networks of information-sharing have permeated law enforcement intelligence collection in Seattle and across the country under the banner of supposedly preventing terrorism. However, questions concerning the usefulness of the program, accountability measures, and how information is shared remain unanswered. 

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) did not respond to Prism’s detailed requests for comment. Facebook, Amazon, and each of their analysts identified in public records as members of the Shield network did not respond to requests for comment.

The Seattle Shield website states that its mission “is to provide a collaborative and information-sharing environment between the Seattle Police Department and public/private partners in the Seattle area. Seattle Shield members assist Seattle Police Department efforts to identify, deter, defeat or mitigate potential acts of terrorism by reporting suspicious activity in a timely manner.”

One SPD email obtained by Prism states that the Seattle Shield is an “unfunded program,” which is managed by Officer Erin Nicholson.

The Seattle Shield network, which includes members from multiple law enforcement groups as well as private institutions and corporations, has been established and operating since 2009. However, it appears to be mostly off the radar of some of the most prominent civil rights groups in the state, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which told Prism in an email that it hasn’t been following or looking into the network.

Through public records requests, Prism obtained the Seattle Shield bulletins, as well as a full list of Seattle Shield members who had access to the program as of 2020. A Prism review of dozens Seattle Shield reports sent out between 2020 and 2025 to a list of hundreds of military intelligence operatives, nonprofits, private corporate entities, private security companies, and law enforcement agencies show that in 2025, the reports were almost exclusively about protests and potential traffic delays caused by protests throughout Seattle.

For instance, one email “blast” from Oct. 6, 2025, warns about upcoming local events related to “the 2nd anniversary of the Hamas and Palestinian militants coordinated assault against Israel.” The notice lists a few examples of attacks on Jewish targets in other U.S. cities last year; it does not mention widespread anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attacks throughout the country.

“Homegrown violent extremists (HVES), racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (REMVES), and grievance-driven malicious actors may use this anniversary to conduct their own attacks at any relevant target locations, depending on their aspirations,” the blast says. “There have been several local protests last week, including one that resulted in graffiti and property damage at a local tech company CEO’s residence.” 

The notice went on to share information about upcoming local events.

Longtime Seattle privacy activist and organizer Phil Mocek has been following the network since 2012, around when requested several Seattle Shield documents from the SPD. Mocek told Prism that the coordination among the Seattle Shield network is even more concerning today with the implementation of a National Security Presidential Memorandum from President Donald Trump in the fall of 2025 that identifies protest speech and protected speech as potential “indicia” of terrorist threat.

Information shared over Seattle Shield might be “all it takes to get someone labeled a ‘far-left domestic terrorist,’” Mocek said.

“Somebody could show up to protest ICE, and then that information gets reported out to Seattle Shield and suddenly they could be on a terrorist watch list? That is not OK,” Mocek said. 

Accountability concerns

Seattle Shield requests that broad swaths of the city’s private companies create suspicious activity reports, which are then pumped into a system that serves as an extension of a sprawling nationwide law enforcement surveillance apparatus.

The network effectively creates its own list of potential suspects. Photographs of those who end up reported by the Seattle Shield network or of their cars could end up plastered onto a private blotter, hosted on a private server, for hundreds of military intelligence, federal, immigration, and local law enforcement agents, and private security guards to see.

According to records obtained by Prism, members of the network include FBI agents, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “surface program analyst,” and intelligence analysts with the Washington State Fusion Center, a separate but parallel intelligence-sharing network that also collaborates with ICE.

Law enforcement far outside of Seattle also have access to the Seattle Shield system including Nassau County Police in New York, the New York City Police Department, Cleveland Transit, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota, and a “threat and risk analyst” for the United Nations.  

Virginia State Police Captain Austin White is a member of Seattle Shield and multiple other local shield networks across the U.S., all under the umbrella of the Global Shield Network (GSN), of which he is the president. “Does [the network] affect me on a daily basis? Not really,” he told Prism. But it can help give a sense of what members feel is a concern, he added.

White said that in 2017, personal connections made through shield networks allowed him to expedite the search for a minor who made violent threats online.

He said the GSN does not oversee any of the local networks, which operate independently.

Mocek said it is unclear if any oversight for the Seattle Shield program exists at all.

“This is something that should be tracked, accounted for, and probably audited,” Mocek said. “Any sharing between any part of Seattle’s municipal government and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is concerning and I think would be concerning to the majority of the public.”

Some of the officials listed on the 2020 Seattle Shield membership list obtained by Prism have since retired, left their positions, or are no longer active. For instance, the Church of Scientology, U.S. Navy, and the Washington State Military Department told Prism that they are no longer working with the network.

Creating the panopticon

The Seattle Shield program is modeled directly after NYPD Shield, born in 2005 following 9/11, which aimed to mimic the FBI’s InfraGard. The concept was exported to various police departments across the world, forming local networks operating under the umbrella of the GSN.

White said the NYPD Shield model was essentially “franchised out” across the country; however, each local shield network is responsible for funding, operating, and managing their own system.

In October 2025, the GSN hosted its seventh annual global conference in partnership with the Seattle Shield and SPD at Seattle’s Sheraton Grand Hotel. According to a conference schedule obtained by Prism, the keynote address was delivered by William Edwards, a retired Army colonel and specialist in drone systems. 

In several of the photos Prism obtained that were taken at the conference, some people’s faces or entire bodies are redacted. When Prism appealed the redactions, SPD said that the individuals perform undercover police work, and publishing their photos could put them at risk. 

The Seattle Shield network was formed “with the goal of reducing pre-operational surveillance by terrorist organizations,” wrote one SPD officer in a 2012 email previously obtained by Mocek.

However, since its founding in 2009, it’s unclear what the ultimate public benefit of the system is  or what its counterterrorism bona fides might be. A Prism search of the SPD’s crime blotter shows that the department has neither mentioned the Seattle Shield network publicly nor touted its usefulness following an arrest.

The FBI Seattle did not respond to questions from Prism about whether reports from the local Shield network had ever led to a terrorism arrest. 

“FBI Seattle regularly participates in meetings and working groups with law enforcement partners, community members, and members of the private sector,” Amy Alexander, a public affairs officer at FBI Seattle, told Prism in an email. “At various times, this has included Seattle Shield. While we cannot comment on specific relationships or communications, the FBI’s partnerships are critical to our mission, and we routinely share information with our partners at all levels, from executives to field agents working investigations to community outreach events.”

“What did Hoover say? ‘I want everyone to believe that there is an FBI agent hiding behind every mailbox.’ That’s what this list is doing. It’s creating the panopticon.

Terry Albury, former FBI agent

“What did Hoover say? ‘I want everyone to believe that there is an FBI agent hiding behind every mailbox,’” former FBI agent Terry Albury told Prism. “That’s what this list is doing. It’s creating the panopticon.” 

While serving as an FBI agent, Albury was disgusted by how he felt the law was weaponized against vulnerable communities. In 2018 he was arrested and sentenced to prison over “draconian” charges, according to the Knight First Amendment Institute, after he began leaking FBI documents to The Intercept.

Seattle Theatre Group (STG), a nonprofit that operates several live performance venues across the city, is part of the Seattle Shield network. In a statement to Prism, STG’s Senior Communications Manager Rachel Liuzzi wrote, “Our operations team works with the Seattle Shield network to receive information that can help keep our venues and audiences safe. We occasionally call on the network for information and sometimes directly receive information from it. The information we receive is specifically related to security concerns that may impact our venues and the safety and well being of our audiences when attending performances.”

STG declined to share any suspicious activity reports with Prism.

In addition to monitoring protests, email notifications sent to Seattle Shield members provide updates on traffic warnings, private access to SPD commanders, and inside information about SPD staffing.

One suspicious activity report reviewed by Prism from March 2025 details a man claiming to be an electrical subcontractor trying to access an electrical room at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. The market distributed photos of the man and a description of the incident over the Seattle Shield system. No police report was made, and the man did not gain access to sensitive areas. The contractor the man claimed to work with told Prism that “by all indications” the man was not one of their employees or contractors and that the contractor did “not have record of this purported work order and believe that this involved a vandal or attempted imposter.” 

Seattle Shield email blasts have also included notice of dignitary travel and private meetings to review the city’s “Terrorism Outlook” for 2025. The SPD does not release this information publicly. 

One such email, sent out via the network’s mailing list on June 12, 2025, stated, “Immigration is currently a contentious topic around the United States. As you all have probably seen, there are many demonstrations taking place around the country to include Seattle. There has been a daily protest at the Federal Building this week where people are expressing their unhappiness with the federal government.” 

Following the protest, SPD asked Seattle Shield members to take measures that would aim to protect officers from harm during future protests, such as looking for items around their properties that could be used as “projectiles.” 

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle, Shield members received regular updates from the SPD, including that “the Department is working hard to mitigate the risks of violence and property damage.” In addition, the SPD asked Seattle Shield members to “review their internal security video systems retention policies to ensure valuable evidence of criminal activities are retained/saved. We are requesting that all sites retain any video from May 29th [2020] through a date (TBD).”

“Benefiting private economic interests is absolutely one of the leading factors in creating these groups and organizations, and the public is all too happy to carry water for it,” Albury said. 

The Seattle Shield network is “a larger pool of informants,” he added, “but they’re official informants because now they have an association and a connection, in the same way that an unofficial informant is used off the books.” In this way, a surveillance system of informants operates openly, he explained.

The Seattle Shield program is one component within a mosaic of networks and contractual relationships the SPD has built with Seattle’s business community, where the stream of money, resources, special assistance, and information flows both ways. 

Developing “partnerships with local companies” is specifically identified within SPD’s Relational Policing Plan. 

Another part of that mosaic includes the SPD’s contractual obligations to the city’s 501(c)(6) corporate business league named DBIA Services, which requires off-duty cops to “address civility issues and illegal street behaviour that detracts from a positive experience” downtown, including petty crimes of poverty such as violations of the city’s “sit and lie” ordinance, aggressive panhandling, and public urination.

Contracts between the SPD and DBIA Services obtained by Prism show that off-duty SPD officers “must approach public safety through the lens of economic vitality.”  

Jennifer Casillas, vice president of public realm and ambassador operations of Downtown Seattle Association, a subsidiary of DBIA Services, was a Seattle Shield member as of 2020, according to the roster obtained by Prism. She did not respond to several requests for comment. 

James Sido, media relations director for Downtown Seattle Association, wrote to Prism in an email, “We have received emails from Seattle Shield but there’s been no two-way correspondence.”

Seattle Shield members are also offered direct access to training from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, housed under DHS, showing that federal law enforcement resources are invested directly in private business interests that participate in intelligence collection activities.

Technology

Who manages the Seattle Shield data streams, website, servers, and the information pumped into the network is an open question. The SPD did not respond to numerous questions about how and where Seattle Shield intelligence data is stored. 

In 2011, ABM Security Services announced that “it is augmenting Seattle Shield’s capabilities by providing a secure platform that allows members of the association to share information— including photographs and video clips—in real-time about potential threats.”

“ABM Security Services developed and is maintaining the Seattle Shield application at no charge, though the Company is seeking to offset some of the maintenance costs through a Department of Homeland Security grant,” the press release continued.

ABM did not respond to Prism’s multiple requests for comment. White, the GSN president, told Prism that he’s not familiar with ABM and that the GSN does not dictate, recommend, or provide any templates for local agencies to implement for their own shield networks.

According to an archived version of the Seattle Shield website, the network “uses a secure internet-based website to send our alerts.” NetSentinal, the web hosting service used by the Seattle Shield, suffered a data breach in 2020, later dubbed BlueLeaks, compromising the entire Seattle Shield member list, including their IP information, addresses, and contact information. Members received a Seattle Shield bulletin at the time, obtained by Prism, advising members not to download the BlueLeaks data trove.

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor

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Glen Stellmacher

Glen Stellmacher is a licensed architect. He is a graduate and former lecturer at the University of Washington. His work can be found around Seattle and in print within Advancing Wood Architecture: A Computational... More by Glen Stellmacher