Texas city demands $2M for public records on Flock usage

Been there with a 33M cost estimate [1]. If the requester is reading this -- hold them to it and request a much smaller but still significant amount of records. Use that as the foundation for "how much time it actually takes". Another option is to get clever with helping them with means and modes of review/redaction. This is how I got the email metadata for 6M emails from Houston for example.

Another example from Vermont's governor's office: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/vermont-80/email-metadata-55744...

Happy to help more but I'll probably be unavailable tonight.

[1] https://mchap.io/that-time-the-city-of-seattle-accidentally-...

Original article specific to the $2.3M invoice:

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/10/05/texas-flock-cameras-...

Less egregious, but still egregious, a few weeks ago a local news investigator in Houston was quoted $121,000 for public records request related to Flock cameras:

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/09/24/harris-c...

FOIA requests that have to be redacted are labor intensive. However, flock shouldn’t need to be redacted right? They’re just public webcams. Lots of those already exist and many stream live.

If the data is so difficult to get, that it's unreasonable to get, just get rid of flock then. You're already not getting any benefit.

Unless... no, that couldn't have been a lie, could it? The government would never try to overcharge anyone, right?

Texas sure does a lot of treading for being the don't tread on me capital

Headline should read “North Richland Hills TX…” Texas City TX is near Galveston. ;)

All digital government records should already be freely distributed. This is basically the same thing as poll extortion tax. You want to use your rights? Then pay up! Oh you didn't go away yet? Pay up even more!

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