NOTE: The City Council’s criminal-justice committee is slated to discuss surveillance cameras at 10 a.m. today (Monday).
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) is spying on you and lying about it. On May 29th, 2025, the Washington Post revealed NOPD’s secret collaboration with Project NOLA to use banned Chinese facial recognition cameras all over New Orleans to spy on you. There are more than 5,000 cameras across NOLA. All of them are run by Project NOLA executive director Bryan Lagarde, a former NOPD cop.
In 2022, the New Orleans City Council banned facial recognition. But it gets worse. Through years of FOIA requests and research, I know that NOPD is lying about their unlawful use of Project NOLA and facial recognition software…