> Naturally, it wasn’t just $4.5 million for four 2026 Chevy Tahoes, though the SUVs themselves were still bizarrely expensive at $150,000 a piece. Here’s how the purchase order breaks down:
- FalcoNet Core System (x4): $2,850,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet core system: $200,000
- Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V (x4): $280,000
> Why is there so much demand for military grade surveillance?
Because there's just not enough room in the budget for things like community engagement, rehabilitation programs, and similar things, so we have to spend millions on military surveillance gear to compensate for the absence of community engagement, rehabilitation programs, and similar things. Isn't it obvious?
And Radley Balko blogged about it every day 20 years ago before publishing a book in 2013 literally subtitled as The Militarization of America’s Police
It is prohibited by the nation's Constitution which overrules all contained regions. The contained regions can add further restrictions, not lower them.
The Supreme Court has over multiple cases recognized that the collection of mass digital information can implicate Fourth Amendment protections.
Here is the foundational line:
> "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It clearly says: The right of the people to to be secure in their persons and effects against unreasonable searches shall not be violated.
Well the problem comes down to what is considered "unreasonable searches". When I think "surveillance", I think cameras on cars that photograph everything they pass by. The courts have again and again considered those to be reasonable with no expectations of privacy. And the trucks in this article are doing exactly that.
Uhh FalcoNet doesn't photograph cars. It snoops telecom traffic. And no, SCOTUS has certainly not found that the government is allowed to just arbitrarily snoop telecom traffic.
Maybe so, but four physical trucks, interpreting physical radio waves in their immediate vicinity, allocated across the whole state of Texas… that’s “targeted,” not “mass.”
I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the definition of "targeted". It has nothing to do with the total capacity of the system, it's about the ability differentiate a specific target from everything else.
The design of these systems is the opposite of that: they're intended to intercept everything within their reach. The fact that with only four devices, their reach isn't (yet) so great has no bearing.
It’s the “within their reach” that constitutes the targeting, it seems to me. Maybe “particularized scrutiny” is a better word?
Each fancy radio can only be in one place at one time, and presumably with a human operator in the vehicle or wearing the backpack. Which emulates a cell station, not all tens of thousands of them in the state simultaneously.
That feels much more like “DUI checkpoint checking all cars on this road at this time,” or “canvassing the neighborhood around the crime,” or “the stadium operator invited the cops into the security office to watch their CCTV feeds during the big game.” Precipitated on some reason—maybe not the specific human, but something that’s different about that place and time that warrants a human targeting their attention there.
As opposed to the network-level, “all communications between all people all the time just in case” that constituted the “mass” surveillance that Snowden described (and Flock has since innovated and extended to the physical world).
A telescope on a hill that can see everything within a 12sq mi circle Vs a "google maps" type 360 panorama lens on the same hill.
Live only versus 24/7 recording, filtered (only pointed at one house of interest / only logging specific devices / only logging a network of devices that interact with devices of interest)
The question re: "targeted" goes to whether it's opened ended recording of everything, or filtered and targeted sifting out of warranted subjects.
If I install one great big Dr Evil dish that records all web traffic in texas, that would be mass. I have no idea how far these vehicles surveil, but I'm guess it's very far.
Maybe the Chevy Tahoes were priced as the initial capex, and a maintenance and support contract covering capex and opex for the next X years with a local dealership? I’ve sometimes seen this in corporate budgeting. Some companies prefer to lock in support and maintenance in advance for a more expensive fixed price instead of pay a variable but lower price over the same time period because of the budgeting vagaries that entails.
Considering the amount of time and the number of expensive management staff involved in them I’ve seen some budgeting knife fights burn up, I see the logic.
Wait I read the memo - it said “duty of care.” That’s powerful rhetoric but really narrow and well defined legalese.
I checked, and Texas police only have a duty of care in narrow situations: if someone requires emergency medical care, they must call an ambulance; if they are driving an emergency vehicle, they must do so safely.
That’s about it. There’s no “general duty of care” obligation.
Maybe they’re just using scary sounding language, or maybe this narrow clause is being interpreted to grant the police much larger powers.
But “duty of care” is usually intended to hold someone accountable.
I find it amusing how ineffective all of this stuff becomes if you simply leave your phone at home. No one is doing the hard kind of police work anymore.
Most criminals are dumb, some of them not only carry their phones with them, they even post their crimes on social media. With that and Flock I would think police work has never been easier.
It also depends on what you consider to be “criminal.” I’d wager most shoplifters are dumb. Most supervisors who engage in wage theft aren’t dumb. But that’s not the kind of person who comes to mind when we think “criminal.”
They also use flock to find and accuse people who did commit crimes and accuse them of having done so.
They also find and accuse people of crimes they didn’t commit without using Flock.
They also use Flock to skip accusing people who they might have suspected if it weren’t for Flock evidence that exonerates them.
It seems like any meaningful analysis needs to consider the rates of all four combinations of {true|false} {accusations|exonerations}, and compare that matrix to the matrix for the status quo techniques.
They don't care about catching criminals. They can use real police work for that. They care about being able to profile everyone going back some arbitrary amount of time so that when someone who isn't homeless with nothing the state can steal gets out of line they can come up with a short list of who done it.
This just adds fuel to the fire favoring police location apps, where users who spot police vehicles, in this case DPS vehicles post on their app and all app users receive notifications, so anybody nearby can turn off their cellphones - - or, "clam them up" in a ball of 50 layers of aluminum foil slit on the side.
Of course, police will merely start placing hardware in inconspicuous vehicles then.
What if there was a way to massively FLOOD these devices with spurious data though?
They do have their own BTS. If that BTS is the one strongest advertising itself to your phone (most often simply the closest one), your phone will connect to it.
A core issue as I see it is that the police has too much money. Why are people willingly paying so much in taxes? Why don't people move to lower tax cities and counties? Granted, fines also contribute to their income.
There are ways of lowering crime that don't require police militarization, some of which are covered in https://youtu.be/YJTPGu2E4qk.
As a country, we spend nearly as much on domestic police (~$250B) as China does on their military each year. And from what I've seen, there is no correlation with increases in police spending and drops in crime rates. It's pretty disturbing if you think about it.
It's an interesting question: Isn't Texas widely marketed as a 'low tax area'?
It may be a 'low income tax area', with more regressive taxes used to fund the state and an equal or higher total? Texans need to pay for the same things, generally, as people in Massachusetts (though maybe they don't invest as much in schools, health care, etc.).
You vastly under-estimate how expensive social services programs are. The people of Texas can pay less have piles of money for 1984 equipped police cars and highschool football stadiums and other boondoggles by simply not having those programs.
Is it the right thing to do? ehhh....
That said Texas isn't that low tax overall compared to a lot of other states. They have pretty oppressive property taxes.
I realize this particular case is state level but at the federal level $21 TRILLION has been spent on militarization including police forces from 2001-2021
I think the vast majority of the public has no comprehension of what a trillion even is. All the “*illions” are units they will never have to deal with in their personal lives.
However, I suspect a family of four could start to understand $300k of cash they (and everyone they know) couldn’t have because the money was used for such purposes...
Even over 20 years, that’s like a nice new car every other year…
Sure, taxation isn’t uniform but this is an enormous amount of money!
And what do we get for it? Cops that think they are in the military, acting as a hostile occupation force and killing our own citizens. Their personal urges should have led them to put up (join the actual military) or shut up (don't). Instead they were given an easier and safer option that requires all of the bravado of shooting fish in a barrel, so they took it.
Answer: Military Grade surveillance tech
> Naturally, it wasn’t just $4.5 million for four 2026 Chevy Tahoes, though the SUVs themselves were still bizarrely expensive at $150,000 a piece. Here’s how the purchase order breaks down:
- FalcoNet Core System (x4): $2,850,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet core system: $200,000
- Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V (x4): $280,000
- 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe (x4): $600,000
- FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $355,500
- Flexable [sic] antenna kit: $27,000
- Cognyte PA Ranger: $105,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $70,000
- Total PO Amount: $4,487,500
The obvious question then becomes why 4 military-grade surveillance Tech Tahoes are needed.
Was three not enough for the current demand for military grade surveillance by the police?
Why is there so much demand for military grade surveillance? Is there a better way to address that core need?
A million bucks buys a lot of essential services.
> Why is there so much demand for military grade surveillance?
Because there's just not enough room in the budget for things like community engagement, rehabilitation programs, and similar things, so we have to spend millions on military surveillance gear to compensate for the absence of community engagement, rehabilitation programs, and similar things. Isn't it obvious?
The cartels have also militarized. Bit of a vicious cycle we’re in.
Yes, the cartels have always been at war with the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division...
John Oliver did a report on militarization of police 11 years ago. It's only become worse since: https://youtu.be/KUdHIatS36A?is=C86HI8463VZnqjXU
And Radley Balko blogged about it every day 20 years ago before publishing a book in 2013 literally subtitled as The Militarization of America’s Police
Every police station needs to be a mini-CIA, surely.
It is 4 trucks for the state police, and it is a big state.
Mass surveillance is prohibited by the Constitution. The majority of the funds went toward it.
State or federal constitution?
It is prohibited by the nation's Constitution which overrules all contained regions. The contained regions can add further restrictions, not lower them.
I'm pretty sure that surveillance is not mentioned in the US Constitution. They didn't really have a concept of surveillance. Can you quote the line?
The Supreme Court has over multiple cases recognized that the collection of mass digital information can implicate Fourth Amendment protections.
Here is the foundational line:
> "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It clearly says: The right of the people to to be secure in their persons and effects against unreasonable searches shall not be violated.
Well the problem comes down to what is considered "unreasonable searches". When I think "surveillance", I think cameras on cars that photograph everything they pass by. The courts have again and again considered those to be reasonable with no expectations of privacy. And the trucks in this article are doing exactly that.
Wireless cell communications have no expectation of privacy?
Have you asserted or waived your rights? You may have the right to consult an attorney.
I certainly have no agreement with the Texas police or any government through which I could have waived any rights.
Constitutionally granted rights cannot be waived, no matter what a legal agreement says.
You can certainly do so, such as waiving the right to a jury trial.
Yes. People can waive a trial altogether, even a trial by judge. It has to be done in front of a judge, and is limited to that trial for that person.
Uhh FalcoNet doesn't photograph cars. It snoops telecom traffic. And no, SCOTUS has certainly not found that the government is allowed to just arbitrarily snoop telecom traffic.
Under the 4th amendment which has been incorperated against the states in the 1960s.
Maybe so, but four physical trucks, interpreting physical radio waves in their immediate vicinity, allocated across the whole state of Texas… that’s “targeted,” not “mass.”
I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the definition of "targeted". It has nothing to do with the total capacity of the system, it's about the ability differentiate a specific target from everything else.
The design of these systems is the opposite of that: they're intended to intercept everything within their reach. The fact that with only four devices, their reach isn't (yet) so great has no bearing.
It’s the “within their reach” that constitutes the targeting, it seems to me. Maybe “particularized scrutiny” is a better word?
Each fancy radio can only be in one place at one time, and presumably with a human operator in the vehicle or wearing the backpack. Which emulates a cell station, not all tens of thousands of them in the state simultaneously.
That feels much more like “DUI checkpoint checking all cars on this road at this time,” or “canvassing the neighborhood around the crime,” or “the stadium operator invited the cops into the security office to watch their CCTV feeds during the big game.” Precipitated on some reason—maybe not the specific human, but something that’s different about that place and time that warrants a human targeting their attention there.
As opposed to the network-level, “all communications between all people all the time just in case” that constituted the “mass” surveillance that Snowden described (and Flock has since innovated and extended to the physical world).
> Each fancy radio can only be in one place at one time
5G mid-band (let's go with the charitable option) has an effective range of up to 2miles.
So no big deal, just all 5G communications within up to a 12sq mi circle surrounding the vehicle.
Don't think that's exactly "targeted".
> Don't think that's exactly "targeted".
Legally, there's a debate to be had.
A telescope on a hill that can see everything within a 12sq mi circle Vs a "google maps" type 360 panorama lens on the same hill.
Live only versus 24/7 recording, filtered (only pointed at one house of interest / only logging specific devices / only logging a network of devices that interact with devices of interest)
The question re: "targeted" goes to whether it's opened ended recording of everything, or filtered and targeted sifting out of warranted subjects.
If I install one great big Dr Evil dish that records all web traffic in texas, that would be mass. I have no idea how far these vehicles surveil, but I'm guess it's very far.
4 trucks... That can intercept and record all nearby 5g traffic? That's not even useful for police lmao
You'd think the real CIA would get pissy about these upstarts and stomp em.
Maybe the Chevy Tahoes were priced as the initial capex, and a maintenance and support contract covering capex and opex for the next X years with a local dealership? I’ve sometimes seen this in corporate budgeting. Some companies prefer to lock in support and maintenance in advance for a more expensive fixed price instead of pay a variable but lower price over the same time period because of the budgeting vagaries that entails.
Considering the amount of time and the number of expensive management staff involved in them I’ve seen some budgeting knife fights burn up, I see the logic.
Wait I read the memo - it said “duty of care.” That’s powerful rhetoric but really narrow and well defined legalese.
I checked, and Texas police only have a duty of care in narrow situations: if someone requires emergency medical care, they must call an ambulance; if they are driving an emergency vehicle, they must do so safely.
That’s about it. There’s no “general duty of care” obligation.
Maybe they’re just using scary sounding language, or maybe this narrow clause is being interpreted to grant the police much larger powers.
But “duty of care” is usually intended to hold someone accountable.
I find it amusing how ineffective all of this stuff becomes if you simply leave your phone at home. No one is doing the hard kind of police work anymore.
Most criminals are dumb, some of them not only carry their phones with them, they even post their crimes on social media. With that and Flock I would think police work has never been easier.
> With that and Flock I would think police work has never been easier.
“A policeman's job is only easy in a police state.” — Touch of Evil (1958), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfgNNfnNAa8
> Most criminals are dumb
You mean most criminals who get caught?
I think both can be true.
Both can be true but it’s unclear if both are true, and it also depends on what one considers “dumb”
It also depends on what you consider to be “criminal.” I’d wager most shoplifters are dumb. Most supervisors who engage in wage theft aren’t dumb. But that’s not the kind of person who comes to mind when we think “criminal.”
There are two kinds of people in the world. Criminals, and criminals with plausible deniability.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Cops are lazy and dumb as well. They use flock to find people in the area and accuse them of crimes they didn't commit.
They also use flock to find and accuse people who did commit crimes and accuse them of having done so.
They also find and accuse people of crimes they didn’t commit without using Flock.
They also use Flock to skip accusing people who they might have suspected if it weren’t for Flock evidence that exonerates them.
It seems like any meaningful analysis needs to consider the rates of all four combinations of {true|false} {accusations|exonerations}, and compare that matrix to the matrix for the status quo techniques.
I've read enough of your comments here to know to disregard your opinion. You just want a surveillance state.
They don't care about catching criminals. They can use real police work for that. They care about being able to profile everyone going back some arbitrary amount of time so that when someone who isn't homeless with nothing the state can steal gets out of line they can come up with a short list of who done it.
Another story in the same publication is about one of their writers being arrested because of Flock cameras (falsely IDing their test-drive car).
This just adds fuel to the fire favoring police location apps, where users who spot police vehicles, in this case DPS vehicles post on their app and all app users receive notifications, so anybody nearby can turn off their cellphones - - or, "clam them up" in a ball of 50 layers of aluminum foil slit on the side. Of course, police will merely start placing hardware in inconspicuous vehicles then. What if there was a way to massively FLOOD these devices with spurious data though?
Isn’t most of the data sent between your phone and the cell tower encrypted anyways? This would only catch voice calls and SMS right?
They do have their own BTS. If that BTS is the one strongest advertising itself to your phone (most often simply the closest one), your phone will connect to it.
A core issue as I see it is that the police has too much money. Why are people willingly paying so much in taxes? Why don't people move to lower tax cities and counties? Granted, fines also contribute to their income.
There are ways of lowering crime that don't require police militarization, some of which are covered in https://youtu.be/YJTPGu2E4qk.
As a country, we spend nearly as much on domestic police (~$250B) as China does on their military each year. And from what I've seen, there is no correlation with increases in police spending and drops in crime rates. It's pretty disturbing if you think about it.
It's a mass jobs program with a powerful set of unions behind it.
It's an interesting question: Isn't Texas widely marketed as a 'low tax area'?
It may be a 'low income tax area', with more regressive taxes used to fund the state and an equal or higher total? Texans need to pay for the same things, generally, as people in Massachusetts (though maybe they don't invest as much in schools, health care, etc.).
You vastly under-estimate how expensive social services programs are. The people of Texas can pay less have piles of money for 1984 equipped police cars and highschool football stadiums and other boondoggles by simply not having those programs.
Is it the right thing to do? ehhh....
That said Texas isn't that low tax overall compared to a lot of other states. They have pretty oppressive property taxes.
I realize this particular case is state level but at the federal level $21 TRILLION has been spent on militarization including police forces from 2001-2021
https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...
enough is enough, it is beyond ridiculous, imagine how much food, clothing, shelter and healthcare that could have bought instead
I think the vast majority of the public has no comprehension of what a trillion even is. All the “*illions” are units they will never have to deal with in their personal lives.
However, I suspect a family of four could start to understand $300k of cash they (and everyone they know) couldn’t have because the money was used for such purposes...
Even over 20 years, that’s like a nice new car every other year…
Sure, taxation isn’t uniform but this is an enormous amount of money!
And what do we get for it? Cops that think they are in the military, acting as a hostile occupation force and killing our own citizens. Their personal urges should have led them to put up (join the actual military) or shut up (don't). Instead they were given an easier and safer option that requires all of the bravado of shooting fish in a barrel, so they took it.
The new Miami police chief's salary is over $300K. I don't mind, fix this rathole, will ya?