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

8 rows where ledger = "sv:forensics:cellebrite" and state = "SC" sorted by amount descending

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

vendor 1

state 1

ledger 1

  • sv:forensics:cellebrite · 8 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
3976 3976 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2024-09-24 forensic extraction device (budget) 46000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 46,000 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_09242024-133 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2024/#m1508839 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 1 0 0 SC
3977 3977 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2024-10-22 forensic extraction device (purchase) 46000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 46,000 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_10222024-136 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2024/#m1508837 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 2 0 0 SC
3978 3978 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2024-11-26 forensic extraction device (purchase) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_11262024-144 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2024/#m1508834 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 1 0 0 SC
3979 3979 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2025-01-28 forensic extraction device (purchase) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01282025-153 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2025/#m1508780 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 1 0 0 SC
3980 3980 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2025-02-11 forensic extraction device (purchase) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_02112025-157 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2025/#m1508778 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 2 0 0 SC
3981 3981 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2025-02-25 forensic extraction device (purchase) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 16,000 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_02252025-159 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2025/#m1508777 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 3 0 0 SC
3982 3982 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2025-04-22 forensic extraction device (budget) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 25,780 -9,780 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04222025-173 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2025/#m1508770 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 1 0 0 SC
3983 3983 Cellebrite Lancaster SC 2025-05-27 forensic extraction device (budget) 16000.0 Cellebrite universal forensic extraction device 16,000 25,780 -9,780 https://www.lancastercitysc.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05272025-179 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lancastercitysc.com/2025/#m1508768 sv:forensics:cellebrite stated 2 0 0 SC

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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);