Who is watching the watchers

Big Brewther is a public record of the automated license plate readers (ALPR) that police agencies in Milwaukee County run or reach: fixed cameras, in-squad readers, parking enforcement and the networks that share their reads. It is written by Winston Schlitz, a pen name. The records speak for themselves; the person who asked for them doesn't need to.

How it works

• Every police agency in the county has been asked, under the Wisconsin Public Records Law, for the same things: agreements and invoices, the approval behind them, written policy, the sharing list, and the search audit logs.
• What each agency produces is published here as released. What it doesn't produce is tracked against the law's timelines on the agency page.
• Systems an agency runs are listed only with a source: a released record, a public meeting document, or published reporting.

What is published, and what isn't

• Published as released: contracts, invoices, policies, approvals, sharing lists and search audit logs. License plates in audit logs are left as the agencies released them, because a plate is how a driver can find out they were searched.
• Removed: file metadata, and the requester's own contact details, which have nothing to do with the records.
• Not published: correspondence with records custodians, and anything that is not a released record or a public source.

No contact

There is no contact address, form or mailbox. Everything here can be checked against its source, and the requests are a template anyone can send.