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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

5 rows where state = "RI" and vendor = "Axon" sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

  • Axon · 5 ✖

state 1

  • RI · 5 ✖

ledger 1

  • axon 5
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
490 490 Axon Lincoln RI 2025-06-17 bundle/OSP 253750.0 Motion to recommend the town council waive competitive bidding and award the bid to axon enterprise inc in the amount of $253,750 https://lincolnri.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=7667,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lincolnri/2025/#m484133 axon recommended 1 0 0 RI
864 864 Axon South Kingstown RI 2026-02-09 other 70399.48 ng an award of contract to Axon Enterprise, Inc., 17800 N. 85th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85255, for the sole source purchase of an Axon Virtual Reality training system under a 43-month agreement, in an amount not to exceed $70,399.48, inclusive of a five percent contingency, with $25,000 allocated in https://southkingstownri.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=6615,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/southkingstownri/#m396734 axon ceiling 1 0 0 RI
954 954 Axon Lincoln RI 2025-10-21 other 51614.64 Motion to recommend the town council award the bid to axon enterprise inc in the amount of $51,614.64 with the caveat that there is an indemnification clause https://lincolnri.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=7769,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/lincolnri/2025/#m484186 axon recommended 1 0 0 RI
968 968 Axon Smithfield RI 2025-03-18 body cameras 50000.0 twenty-nine (29) body worn cameras and four (4) administrative/managers licenses from Axon Enterprise of Scottsdale, AZ, in the amount of fifty-thousand dollars and zero cents ($50,000.00) https://clerkshq.com/Content/Smithfield-ri/council/2025/mar18_25ag.htm https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/Smithfield-ri/2025/#m1017676 axon stated 1 0 0 RI
1190 1190 Axon North Kingstown RI 2026-03-09 Tasers 19175.72 Approval of Sole Source Purchase - Police Department - six (6) Taser-7s - Axon Enterprise, Inc. - $19,175.72 https://northkingstown.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1554 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/gr-northkingstown/#m6350534 axon stated 1 0 0 RI

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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 875.829ms · Data license: CC BY 4.0 · Data source: MyTown