In July, I published an investigation into Chico Police Department’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras. In my investigation, I found that Chico Police were sharing ALPR data with up to 20 federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE, Border Patrol, and a U.S. military police department — actions that violate two California state laws. While reporting, I was able to experiment with data visualizations, emphasizing the extent of the police department’s data sharing network. You can read the rest of the investigation here.
Check it out on GitHub.
Earlier this summer, I tried creating a local policy/wire scrapper that would use open policy APIs to track all bills at a local, county, and state level, then calcuate what, if any, impact that bill might have on Chico. The idea was this: if, for instance, a state senator introduced a bill that would make fire insurance harder to access, I wanted the scrapper to recognize that and alert me. I never finished it, but if time permits, I will at some point. You can check it out here.