Procurement Power-When Cities Realized They Can Just Say No: 2025 in Review

"In 2025, elected officials across the country began treating surveillance technology purchases differently: not as inevitable administrative procurements handled by police departments, but as political decisions subject to council oversight and constituent pressure. This shift proved to be the most effective anti-surveillance strategy of the year. Since February, at least 23 jurisdictions fully ended, cancelled, or rejected Flock Safety ALPR programs (including , , , Hays County , , Eugene, Springfield , and ) by recognizing surveillance procurement as political power, not administrative routine."

"This bureaucracy obscures the power that surveillance vendors have over municipal procurement decisions. As Arti Walker-Peddakotla , this is a deliberate strategy. Walker-Peddakotla details how vendors secure "acquiescence" by hiding the political nature of surveillance behind administrative veils: framing tools as "force multipliers" and burying contracts in consent agendas. For local electeds, the pressure to " " government decision-making makes vendor marketing compelling. Vendors use "cooperative purchasing" agreements to bypass competitive bidding, effectively privatizing the policy-making process."

"These cancellations were also acts of fiscal stewardship. By demanding evidence of efficacy (and receiving none) officials in Hays County, Texas and San Marcos, Texas rejected the "force multiplier" myth. They treated the refusal of unproven technology not just as activism, but as a basic fiduciary duty. In Oak Park, Illinois, trustees cancelled eight cameras after an audit found Flock lacked safeguards, while Evanston terminated its 19-camera network shortly after. Eugene and Springfield, Oregon terminated 82 combined cameras in December ."

In 2025 elected officials across the country treated surveillance technology purchases as political decisions rather than routine administrative procurements. Since February at least 23 jurisdictions ended, cancelled, or rejected Flock Safety ALPR programs by recognizing procurement as political power. Bureaucratic procurement practices obscure vendor power, with vendors securing acquiescence by framing tools as "force multipliers," burying contracts in consent agendas, and using cooperative purchasing to bypass competitive bidding. Officials demanded evidence of efficacy and found none, treating cancellations as acts of fiscal stewardship and basic fiduciary duty. Audits found insufficient safeguards, prompting terminations and raising vendor lock-in concerns.

Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation