In August I trained a room at the Healing Center to pull NOPD records, published my request templates, filed four complaints against NOPD detectives for illegal use of facial recognition and mass surveillance, and launched a petition to end illegal surveillance in New Orleans. I worked through two records productions — one nearly 2,000 pages, one 69 — and the City answered most of my requests with some version of “no.”
It also felt like a tipping point nationally. On August 13, Flock Safety announced platform changes after the Washington Post documented nearly 50 cases of officers using its cameras to track exes and family members. By the end of the month, more than 90 localities had dropped Flock in August alone by Secure Justice’s count, a fourfold jump from July, and the ACLU was calling it the biggest grassroots privacy backlash in more than twenty years. New Orleans is not the exception. It’s the pattern.
One ask up front: sign the petition. It goes to the City Council and Mayor Moreno. It takes thirty seconds. Everything below is the reason it exists.
Here’s my August work:
Aug 3 — Don’t Spy on Me. Announced a free public training on New Orleans surveillance. (IG)
Aug 8 — The Healing Center. Stood in a room and walked people through what the records show: Project NOLA’s ~5,000-camera face-tracking network, NOPD drone flights with the reason field blank, a state intelligence director quietly handed access. Then the useful part: how to file records requests and turn what comes back into complaints. (IG)
Aug 11 — Go Read: AI-Powered Surveillance Networks are Worse Than You Know. A drone is a camera. Cameras don’t stop crime or render first aid.
Aug 11 — Filed the July records cycle. NOPD–Project NOLA communications (26-16978), drone flight logs (26-16979), facial recognition request forms (26-16983), and NOPD requests to LA-SAFE (26-16984). Also published the filing runbook as a Claude skill in public_ai_skills.
Aug 12 — My Public Records Templates are Public. Four templates, free, here. File them at nola.nextrequest.com. The trick is filing the same request every month until the pattern shows.
Aug 13 — One Request to Rule Them All. Production 25-20667: ~1,985 pages of NOPD–Project NOLA email, March 2023 through November 2025. Go read it yourself.
Aug 13 — Need to Illegally Spy on New Orleans? Just Email Project NOLA. A 311 dumping complaint becomes a face-tracking camera, with a suggestion that private donations would keep it clear of the ordinance.
Aug 17 — Sign the Petition: Stop Illegal Surveillance in New Orleans. Launched it. Investigate the facial recognition and plate reader abuse, cut the city off from Project NOLA, freeze surveillance purchases, discipline the officers, and put independent expert oversight over every NOPD surveillance contract and policy. (IG)
Aug 17–25 — The City answered. Closed my request for discipline records tied to Project NOLA or facial recognition (26-1642): answering would “require the department to create a new record.” Released one email from a year of LA-SAFE requests (26-11846), attachments withheld. Closed the June LA-SAFE request as having no responsive records (26-14633). Invoiced $10 for the June facial recognition forms (26-14634) — so those exist. And warned that staff losses and the hiring freeze mean everything else will take longer.
Aug 24 & 27 — Petition push. Post and video. The video went further than anything I’ve put out.
Aug 26–31 — Four complaints. Filed with the Independent Police Monitor, the Inspector General, and NOPD PIB, all from production 26-651: Det. Shanay Howard (Aug 26), Det. Nico D’Alessandro (Aug 27), and Det. John Huntington and Det. Raionda Edgerson (Aug 31). D’Alessandro sent Project NOLA photos of a suspect and the victim and asked them to find both. All four PDFs are in this folder.
Aug 31 — November 2025 NOPD Unlawful Requests for Facial Recognition. The write-up of all 69 pages. Not a private network volunteering tips — a police department placing orders. Also filed May’s drone logs (26-18679).
That’s the month. Now the ask again, because it’s the only thing on this page that scales:
Sign the petition. Then send it to one person who lives here.
