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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

3 rows where ledger = "sv:bodycam:watchguard" and state = "TX" sorted by amount descending

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Suggested facets: amount_type, geo_suspect, spend_date (date)

vendor 1

  • WatchGuard Video 3

state 1

  • TX · 3 ✖

ledger 1

  • sv:bodycam:watchguard · 3 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
2469 2469 WatchGuard Video Georgetown TX 2025-12-22 WatchGuard video system (approve annual appropriation) 210000.0 Consideration and possible action to approve an annual appropriation of $210,000.00 to Motorola Solutions, Inc. for the WatchGuard digital video evidence system and for the NICE radio & 911 call recorder system https://georgetown.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1001 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/gr-georgetown/2025/#m6312701 sv:bodycam:watchguard stated 1 0 0 TX
2775 2775 WatchGuard Video Princeton TX 2024-05-13 body cameras (recognize grants received) 47190.0 including: Motorola Solutions WatchGuard JAG Grant, $47,190.00 for upgrade to the body worn/in car camera system and storage. https://www.princetontx.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05132024-1042 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/princetontx.gov/#m1255412 sv:bodycam:watchguard stated 1 0 0 TX
3184 3184 WatchGuard Video Tyler County TX 2023-04-12 body camera equipment (declare surplus and authorize donation) 2750.0 Request that the City Council consider authorizing the City Manager to declare and approve Tyler Police Department WatchGuard body camera equipment, valued at approximately $2,750, as surplus and authorize the donation of same to the Whitehouse (TX) Police Department to use for law enforcement purposes. https://tylertx.primegov.com/Public/CompiledDocument/2937 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/tylertx/2023/#m672812 sv:bodycam:watchguard estimated 1 1 0 TX

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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);
Powered by Datasette · Queries took 110.359ms · Data license: CC BY 4.0 · Data source: MyTown