Project Mayhem is a comprehensive investigative operation exposing the illegal surveillance infrastructure in New Orleans, where Project NOLA—a private nonprofit founded by ex-NOPD officer Bryan Lagarde—runs America’s first known live facial recognition system across over 5,000 cameras in direct violation of the city’s 2022 surveillance ban. Through systematic public records requests, technical security analysis, and formal complaints to oversight bodies, Project Mayhem has documented how NOPD circumvents constitutional protections by partnering with this unaccountable private spy network that sends real-time facial recognition alerts directly to officers’ phones, maintains a database of 30,000+ “suspected criminals” with zero oversight, and operates on banned Chinese Dahua software flagged for national security concerns. The investigation reveals catastrophic security failures including the default password “Temp1234” distributed via email, 44 publicly-accessible Google Drive folders containing surveillance footage, and shared accounts that make attribution impossible—transforming New Orleans into what privacy advocates call “the laboratory for mass surveillance experiments” that threaten to spread nationwide.
Shared Files
- Full Public Share
- Suspected Project NOLA Camera Locations
- Suspected Project NOLA Victims
- New Orleans Public Records
- Project NOLA Videos
NOPD Complaints
Blog Posts
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/29/ever-wonder-how-to-remember-the-passwords-for-thousands-of-spy-cameras/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/21/type-temp1234-to-login-to-new-orleans-private-spy-network/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/22/project-nola-exposed-surveillance-videos-through-insecure-google-drive-shares/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/21/transparency-is-accountability/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/19/new-orleans-is-covering-up-illegal-mass-surveillance/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/18/what-is-project-nola/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/15/nopd-is-using-frt-against-suspects-in-custody/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/13/using-public-records-to-investigate-and-report-illegal-use-of-facial-recognition-technology/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/08/nopd-is-using-body-camera-footage-for-mass-surveillance/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/06/nopd-is-putting-private-spy-cameras-on-public-property/
- https://insomniac.tech/2026/01/05/nopd-was-caught-spying-on-you/
- https://insomniac.tech/2025/09/27/how-to-spot-project-nola-cameras/
- https://insomniac.tech/2025/06/25/supt-kirkpatrick-hasnt-ordered-nopd-to-suspend-use-of-project-nola/
- https://insomniac.tech/2025/06/24/nopd-is-using-banned-chinese-mass-surveillance-tech/
- https://insomniac.tech/2025/06/23/nopd-is-spying-on-you/
News Articles
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/19/live-facial-recognition-police-new-orleans/
- https://thelensnola.org/2025/06/29/nopd-is-using-images-of-you-from-more-than-5000-cameras-across-the-city/
- https://truthout.org/articles/battle-over-facial-recognition-in-new-orleans-will-shape-future-of-surveillance/
- https://epic.org/project-dystopia-how-a-little-known-non-profit-has-new-orleans-considering-mass-real-time-facial-recognition-surveillance/
- https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/06/07/ai-police-camera-new-orleans
- https://www.npr.org/2025/12/16/nx-s1-5616681/new-orleans-live-facial-recognition-surveillance
Want More information or Want to Help?
Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/projectmayhem-network/shared_invite/zt-3pqh4r5j5-gxIAeX7QvOLpxAxXerMcIQ
Email: projectmayhem@insomniac.tech
Twitter: @mwollenweber
Instagram: matthew.wollenweber
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