Watch Live: Mayor Johnson meets with media following city council meeting | CBS News Chicago
The short version: CBS Chicago's presser coverage of Mayor Johnson and CPS's budget fight has nothing to do with ALPRs directly, but it's a reminder of how city hall spends and hides money.
Our Take
Credit to CBS Chicago for getting this presser on tape. This particular clip is about Chicago Public Schools' budget hole and the Teachers Union's revenue plan, not about license plate readers or Flock Safety cameras. We're not going to pretend otherwise or manufacture a surveillance angle that isn't in the footage.
That said, this is exactly the kind of council-meeting churn where surveillance contracts get buried. When a city is staring down a nine-figure shortfall and officials are trading blame in front of cameras, it's easy for a multi-year ALPR vendor deal or a quiet contract renewal to slide through without the same scrutiny as the headline fight. Budget crises are often the cover under which surveillance expansion gets rubber-stamped, because nobody's asking about it while the big money fight is happening in the same room.
If you're in Chicago or anywhere else watching your city council juggle budgets, it's worth asking a second question alongside the funding fight: what's being spent on tracking residents, and who approved it? Check our map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action page if you want to push your local council for answers.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Chicago, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.