Public records fees block camera oversight

Cities are quoting enormous fees to fulfill public‑records requests about AI‑enabled camera systems (example: North Richland Hills asked for $2.3M for Flock records), justifying costs by attributing massive hours to searching communications and logs. Those fees are effectively a gatekeeping mechanism that can prevent journalists, advocates, and auditors from examining errors, misuse, or wrongful arrests tied to surveillance tech. — If municipalities can weaponize public‑records pricing, democratic oversight of policing technologies will be uneven and easily blocked, enabling harms to persist without public scrutiny.