For the second day in a row, Waymos (and Zoox cars, which are still in testing) are retreating from areas where anti-ICE protests have taken place in San Francisco. The image of Waymos burned and graffitied in downtown Los Angeles have become a potent symbol of the anti-ICE uprising, as have the driverless cars vandalized in San Francisco. (Representatives for Waymo and Zoox declined to be quoted on-record.)
Organizers with Safe Street Rebel, the San Francisco coalition of pro-transit activists, say that the targeting of Waymos underscores the concerns the group has been addressing since it gained national attention for “coning” Waymo and Cruise vehicles in San Francisco. Waymo, at the time, called “coning” — the placing a traffic cone on the hood of a car to disable it — an act of vandalism. Safe Street Rebel organizers have argued that the presence of these vehicles detracts from investments into public transit and that the cars themselves surveil people and streets as they make their rounds.
“I think it’s very clear that there’s significant opposition or dissatisfaction to Waymos,” Austin, a Safe Street Rebel organizer, told Gazetteer.
The surveillance aspect is key to the newly central anxieties about Waymo, emphasized Anne, another activist with Safe Street Rebel. “They’re drones on the ground that are roaming around and taking camera footage,” she said. (Both Austin and Anne declined to provide their last names.)
In April, 404 Media reported that the Los Angeles Police Department used Waymo video in investigations. Even as the company has stated that it only provides data to law enforcement with “a valid legal request,” this use of Waymo-gathered footage affirmed one of the bigger fears that critics had: These cars are recording at all times, and the footage can be given to police.
Whatever chaos flares up amid the mostly-peaceful protests in LA and SF, Anne emphasized, is not a result of reckless agitation but of people responding to the havoc ICE has wrought.
“The chaos comes from federal agents breaking apart families, kidnapping people, going to schools and courthouses and disappearing people unlawfully and local police helping them do that,” she said.
While Waymo suspended its services throughout large parts of downtown and the Mission, BART kept the 24th St. Mission station open despite its proximity to last night’s protest.
