surveillance_spending

A DISCOVERY INDEX of surveillance and police-technology dollar figures found in local government meeting records across 130+ named vendors — NOT a table of confirmed spending, and NOT safe to SUM. An audit on 2026-07-29 found aggregate views were adding amounts that must not be added: the same procurement recurs at committee, council, approval, amendment and renewal stages; "not to exceed" figures are authorization ceilings, not payments. Use the canned query "the CONSERVATIVE total" for any number you intend to publish, and "data-quality report" to see what is flagged. Columns added for this: `amount_type` (stated / ceiling / proposed / recommended / estimated), `dup_rank` (>1 = redundant copy), `geo_suspect` (city disagrees with the source link), `anomaly` (implausible figure), `state_norm` (normalized state). Vendors covered include ALPR (Flock, Vigilant, Genetec), body cameras/tasers (Axon, WatchGuard, Utility, Getac), gunshot detection (ShotSpotter/SoundThinking), face recognition (Clearview AI, DataWorks Plus), fingerprint biometrics (Idemia AFIS/Livescan, filed separately under `sv:biometrics`), data fusion and OSINT (Fusus, Peregrine, LexisNexis Accurint, Thomson Reuters CLEAR), phone forensics (Cellebrite, GrayKey, Magnet), drones (Skydio, BRINC, DJI), cameras/VMS (Verkada, Avigilon), cell-site simulators, CAD/RMS records systems, photo enforcement, jail-call and student monitoring. Every row carries a VERBATIM quote from the minutes and a link to the source document, and a row only publishes if that quote was found character-for-character in the source text. READ THE `ledger` COLUMN: `sv:<category>:<vendor>`. `radio_infra` (two-way radios), `rms` (records/CAD software), `biometrics` (fingerprints) and `not_surveillance` are NOT surveillance sensors — exclude them before quoting any surveillance figure.

Data license: CC BY 4.0 · Data source: MyTown

9 rows where ledger = "flock" and state = "MA" sorted by amount descending

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Suggested facets: city, spend_date, product, amount, quote, dup_rank, spend_date (date)

state 1

ledger 1

  • flock · 9 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
2075 2075 Flock Braintree MA 2026-03-03 mitigation payment 80000.0 FIL Flock Cameras $80,000 https://www.braintreema.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03032026-1787 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/braintreema.gov/#m1231609 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1503 1503 Flock Safety Lawrence MA 2026-05-05 Payment of Prior Year Invoices 60000.0 128/26 Payment of Prior Year Invoices [$60,000] with the vendor Flock Safety – Rosa M. Shephard, Director of Support Services, Police Department https://www.cityoflawrence.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05052026-1826 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/cityoflawrence.com/#m16194 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1504 1504 Flock Safety Lawrence MA 2026-04-07 Payment of Prior Year Invoices 60000.0 Payment of Prior Year Invoices [$60,000] with the vendor Flock Safety https://www.cityoflawrence.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04072026-1799 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/cityoflawrence.com/#m16196 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1505 1505 Flock Safety Lawrence MA 2026-04-07 Payment of Prior Year Invoices 60000.0 Payment of Prior Year Invoices [$60,000] with the vendor Flock Safety – Rosa M. Shephard, Director of Support Services, Police Department https://www.cityoflawrence.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04072026-1802 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/cityoflawrence.com/#m16197 flock stated 2 0 0 MA
1506 1506 Flock Safety Lawrence MA 2026-04-27 Payment of Prior Year Invoices 60000.0 128/26 Payment of Prior Year Invoices [$60,000] with the vendor Flock Safety ~ Rosa M. Shephard, Director of Support Services, Police Department https://www.cityoflawrence.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04272026-1821 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/cityoflawrence.com/#m16211 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1507 1507 Flock Safety Lawrence MA 2026-04-13 Payment of Prior Year Invoices 60000.0 Payment of Prior Year Invoices [$60,000] with the vendor Flock Safety https://www.cityoflawrence.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04132026-1804 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/cityoflawrence.com/#m16212 flock stated 2 0 0 MA
2048 2048 Flock Safety Auburn MA 2026-03-30 accept grant 18250.0 To accept the Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant in the amount of $18,250 to purchase six Flock Safety license plate recognition cameras. https://www.auburnma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03302026-2441 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/auburnma.gov/#m1113592 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1747 1747 FLOCK safety Franklin Town MA 2023-04-26 discuss proposal 2500.0 He stated that FLOCK was chosen due to the great cost benefit of $2,500 annually per camera with a one-time installation cost. https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04262023-33 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/franklinma.gov/2023/#m524016 flock stated 1 0 0 MA
1748 1748 FLOCK safety Franklin Town MA 2023-03-15 discussion of proposal 2500.0 He stated that FLOCK was chosen due to the great cost benefit of $2,500 annually per camera with a one-time installation cost. https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03152023-30 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/franklinma.gov/2023/#m524018 flock stated 2 0 0 MA

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CREATE TABLE surveillance_spending (
  vendor TEXT, city TEXT, state TEXT, spend_date TEXT, product TEXT,
  amount REAL, quote TEXT, source_document TEXT, mytown_record TEXT, ledger TEXT, amount_type TEXT, dup_rank INTEGER, geo_suspect INTEGER, anomaly INTEGER, state_norm TEXT);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_vendor ON surveillance_spending(vendor);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_state ON surveillance_spending(state);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_amount ON surveillance_spending(amount);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_ledger ON surveillance_spending(ledger);