Webb County

Volunteers have mapped 283 devices in Webb County, 209 of them license plate readers, and Flock Safety is the manufacturer recorded on 199. The word “Flock” appears in none of the 848 agendas and minutes the Webb County Commissioners Court has published since 2013. That gap is the shape of this county: most of the cameras belong to the City of Laredo, and most of what the county itself buys is paid for by somebody else.

We read every agenda and every set of minutes the Court publishes, 848 documents covering October 2013 to September 2026. Each set of minutes prints every item in full with its price, its account number, the documents filed with it, and the vote. What follows is what the Court decided.

The Sheriff’s real time crime center

In February 2023 the Court bought software from Fusus for the Sheriff’s Office, up to $350,000 over two years, sized in the item at 2,000 data points and 2,000 public and private video feeds. In November 2024 it replaced that with a three-year agreement worth up to $450,000 with Axon, which had bought Fusus. Both were approved without a bid, on the exemption for patented products. Both were paid for out of Operation Lone Star, the state border security program, and both say the same thing about what happens next: renewal costs $150,000 a year and the grant does not cover it. The Sheriff’s Real Time Crime Center has the details.

Plate readers, never from the county’s own money

The county has bought plate readers since 2014 and has never paid for one out of its general fund. Operation Stonegarden supplements bought them in 2015, 2018 and 2019. An auto theft grant bought one in 2022, with the match met from the Sheriff’s forfeiture funds. Operation Lone Star bought two Jenoptik reader trailers in 2024, approved at $249,800 and re-approved two weeks later at $279,800 after what the Court called a typo. In January 2026 three Motorola readers went through on the consent agenda, charged to federal forfeiture money. Two more grant applications followed in 2026. License plate readers has the full run.

Thermal cameras across the ranch country

Between 2017 and 2023 the Sheriff’s Office built a camera network on border grant money: four cameras for $180,000 in 2017, thermal retrofits for four mobile surveillance trailers and a command center in 2022, fixed cameras on the El Cenizo and Rio Bravo water tanks and at Los Botines and Las Lomas in 2022, and in 2023 three cameras the item describes as able to pick out a person three kilometers away. That last purchase the Court was asked to ratify after it had been made. The border camera network has the sites and the figures.

A facial recognition program nobody voted on

The Sheriff’s Department unveiled one in January 2015. The whole of its trace in thirteen years of the Court’s record is two sentences of congratulation in the communications section of one meeting. No purchase, no vendor, no price, no policy. The Sheriff’s facial recognition program is what there is.

An antenna, and a name in a file listing

On 8 January 2024 the Court approved a short term lease of roof space at the Justice Center to “a federal contractor” for “an antenna”, flagged for closed session under the state law provision for deliberations about security devices. The item names no company, no price and no purpose. The minutes record the vote, 5-0, and list the documents filed with it, one of which is called “Agreement Dedrone Holdings Inc - Executed”. Dedrone sells drone detection. The file name of the executed agreement is the only place in the public record where the other party is identified.

How it all gets approved

Most of it passes on the consent agenda, the block of items the Court approves in one vote without separate discussion. The $450,000 Axon agreement, the three plate readers in 2026, the video wall and the thermal camera kits all went through that way, each unanimously. Some items did get their own motion: the first Fusus agreement, the antenna lease, the 2017 border cameras.

The Court has pushed back once in this record. In November 2015 it approved $190,023 of cameras for the Youth Village on a cooperative contract, then rescinded that two weeks later and told the Purchasing Agent to seek proposals instead, “in an effort to obtain additional proposals and possible cost savings”. The rebid came in at $179,830.

What these pages cover, and what they do not

Everything above is what the Webb County Commissioners Court decided in open session. The City of Laredo is a separate government with its own council, and its record is unread. Most of what the EFF Atlas of Surveillance files under this county belongs to the city rather than to the county: a $1.4 million real time crime center approved in 2018, a Flock Safety plate reader expansion in 2026, a drone, and body cameras at two school district police departments. None of it is published here as our own finding.

The bid notices and the executed contracts behind the county’s purchases sit in the county’s procurement portal and with the County Clerk. Those are unread too, so these pages describe what the Court approved rather than what the paperwork says it bought.