Days before Thanksgiving shuffled Nashville’s political calendar, the mayor quietly submitted a resolution to approve a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to the Metro Council. The legislation would enable $15 million in state surveillance funding to flow to a local nonprofit — a controversial move that could stymie accountability over the use of such surveillance technology.

This type of funding mechanism has become something of a national trend that police agencies are using to grow their access to surveillance tools: route those technologies through private entities like nonprofits that operate beyond democratic control, essentially outsourcing surveillance and policing.

Prominently, the Atlanta Police Foundation funded and built the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, colloquiall

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