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

2 rows where ledger = "sv:fusion:thomson_clear" and state = "PA" sorted by amount descending

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  • sv:fusion:thomson_clear · 2 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
2471 2471 Thomson Reuters CLEAR Lower Merion School District PA 2024-09-16 Clear Tool (approve order form) 15420.0 The Administration recommends that the Board of School Directors approves the attached Order Form from Thomson Reuters for the Clear Tool for the Registrar's office in the amount of $15,420. https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/lmsd/Board.nsf/PRINT-AgendaDetailed?open&id=D8DNHD5FEBFE https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/bd-pa-lmsd/2024/#m6038114 sv:fusion:thomson_clear recommended 1 1 0 PA
2472 2472 Thomson Reuters CLEAR Lower Merion School District PA 2025-10-20 CLEAR Tool subscription (renew) 1285.0 The Administration recommends the Board of School Directors approve the attached renewal with Thomson Reuters - Clear Tool for the Registrar's Office in the amount of $1285/Month for a 12 month period. https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/lmsd/Board.nsf/PRINT-AgendaDetailed?open&id=DLNN7F5E62B5 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/bd-pa-lmsd/2025/#m6038063 sv:fusion:thomson_clear recommended 1 1 0 PA

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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);