Seattle Weighed National Guard Cyber Help, Then Walked Away

Source Domain: www.governing.com

Last summer, technology staff for the city of Seattle decided they needed help: The library system had recently suffered a debilitating ransomware attack, the threat of AI agents was growing, and federal assistance was in peril. The FIFA World Cup was on the horizon.

IT leaders came up with a plan: Call in the National Guard.

The previously unreported deliberations over bringing in the National Guard — and why they were torpedoed — highlight a tension in Seattle over where to draw the line between useful partnerships and the city’s efforts to roadblock federal intervention.

The conversation about how to navigate technology advancements contains echoes of the recent debate over surveillance cameras in Seattle. In both cases, backers argue the tangible benefits outweigh hypothetical concerns over federal exploitation, while opponents say now is not the time to provide possible new avenues for data collection by the federal government.

Ultimately, following opposition from city employees and union representatives concerned about any military partnership during President Donald Trump’s term, the plan was dropped.

“We decided this partnership with a National Guard unit was not the best fit for the City of Seattle, and we will not be moving forward with this plan,” said Megan Erb, spokesperson for Seattle IT.

Conversations began in August, according to city staff and union representatives, when recently hired Chief Information Security Officer Jake Hammock, who had served in the U.S. Army in intelligence and cybersecurity, pursued the idea.

The city was still smarting from a ransomware attack that crippled the library’s systems for roughly three months and revealed vulnerabilities in the city’s defenses against bad actors trying to exploit local governments. The attack exposed nearly 27,000 Social Security numbers and brought down the library’s online catalog and loaning systems, e-books and…

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