A man dressed as Marvel supervillain Doctor Doom stood at the podium during a Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, and thanked officials for expanding the city’s surveillance network.
“Doom took over Axon enterprises and now Doom will be watching you. Your continued cooperation expanding Doom’s surveillance network is required,” he said, according to video of the meeting and reporting by 404 Media.
“This is the first of Doom’s gifts to the city of Seattle. The second gift is this: Doom will expand the real-time crime center to all neighborhoods with over 1,000 cameras watching every move,” he continued. “Doom has total dominion over the city of Seattle.”
The speaker, wearing the character’s distinctive silver mask, green hood, and white gloves, went further. He said Doom would watch people seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care, locate immigrant neighbors, and work alongside officers who stalk their exes. He closed with “Doom will be watching you. Glory to Latveria.”
Behind the mask was Clifford Cawthon, a policy adviser for the Washington State Department of Commerce and a member of the local activist group Community Not Cameras. Cawthon, who also goes by Cliff, used the costume as deliberate political theater to criticize Seattle’s growing network of cameras and data systems supplied by companies including Axon and Flock Safety.
The meeting took place in the Council Chamber at Seattle City Hall, 600 4th Avenue. Public comment periods at the Public Safety Committee, chaired by Councilmember Robert Kettle, routinely draw residents on policing and safety issues. Cawthon’s appearance came as the committee and full council weighed surveillance-related proposals amid ongoing debates over crime and privacy.
Seattle Police Department has access to about 62 surveillance cameras, many feeding into a real-time crime center that can pull CCTV, body-worn camera footage, automatic license plate readers, shot detection, and other data sources. Axon markets the centers as tools that aggregate information for faster responses. Critics, including Cawthon’s group, argue the systems create broad surveillance infrastructure with weak safeguards.
Cawthon told 404 Media the idea crystallized after he and colleagues visited the real-time crime center and after an activist in San Diego dressed as Darth Vader praised Flock cameras at a city council meeting last month. The RTCC’s wall of screens reminded him of a supervillain’s lair or the film *Minority Report*. A colleague suggested Doctor Doom, a fitting choice given the character’s obsession with absolute control and the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday* film.
“We thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if the Seattle city council meets Victor von Doom, the Lord Emperor of Latveria,” Cawthon said, “and Victor von Doom shares with this pathetic American municipal council that they are actually doing Doom’s bidding without even realizing it.”
Originally from Buffalo, New York, Cawthon holds a master’s degree in human rights and political science from the University of Manchester. He has worked as a community organizer, tenants’ rights advocate, Seattle Renters’ Commission member, political science instructor at Bellevue College, and freelance writer. He lives in the Seattle area and has long focused on housing justice, workers’ rights, and civil liberties. He describes himself as a comics fan who believes pop-culture satire can reach people who tune out conventional policy talk.
In interviews, Cawthon listed concrete concerns: data security vulnerabilities, partnerships between surveillance vendors and immigration enforcement, documented cases of officers misusing license-plate data to stalk partners, and heightened risks of racial profiling for Black and brown residents. Community Not Cameras has circulated a petition asking the council to shift funding from surveillance expansion toward community-based prevention programs. Last month a committee voted to redirect $250,000 away from CCTV expansion; that measure still needs full council approval.
Cawthon said the stunt drew positive reactions and drove traffic to the petition. He framed the performance as a way to make abstract threats to civil liberties feel immediate. “These stories, these ideas about fascism, authoritarianism, they can be very close to home if we let them,” he said.
The appearance fits a recent pattern of activists using costume and character at public meetings to dramatize opposition to automated surveillance. Business leaders in Seattle, meanwhile, have pressed city officials for more cameras and faster police responses, citing public safety concerns. The tension between those priorities and privacy advocacy remains unresolved as the council continues its work.
