Several Texas cities and a county have accepted Flock Safety’s offer to suspend payments for 90 days so grant-funded license-plate and vehicle-recognition cameras can stay on while officials wait to see if Gov. Greg Abbott will lift a state funding freeze. Dallas secured more than 300 cameras through the reprieve, and Addison, New Braunfels and Johnson County received similar extensions; Flock told those jurisdictions they could exit affected contracts without penalties if reimbursement doesn’t return. Local leaders said the company’s pause prevented immediate shutdowns that would have occurred without state grants, and Flock CEO Garrett Langley met with Dallas police as part of the negotiations.
The freeze, ordered in late August after reporting showed a small state agency funneled at least $30 million toward more than 3,200 cameras, has already led some cities to remove equipment - El Paso tore down about 150 devices and at least 13 jurisdictions shuttered cameras - and paused new license-plate-reader installs on state roads. About 900 devices run by the Department of Public Safety were funded via a $15 million contract and remain in legal and budgetary limbo. The cameras are touted by law enforcement as a crime-fighting tool, but privacy backlash and bipartisan calls for regulation - amplified by Democratic gubernatorial challenger Gina Hinojosa - have made funding politically fraught ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
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ICE stored photos, license plates, and other data of protesters in a Palantir-built database called the Investigative Case Management system. Court filings reveal DHS agents used this database to track and intimidate observers during enforcement operations in Maine. (wired.com)
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