How Texas Police Spent $4.5 Million on Four Chevy Tahoes
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How Texas Police Spent $4.5 Million on Four Chevy Tahoes
It's hard to make a 2026 Chevy Tahoe cost more than a million dollars. Until you start packing it with military-grade public surveillance technology.
By Andrew P. Collins
Published
Jul 14, 2026 6:01 PM EDT
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Ominous Israeli surveillance tech is now being deployed on American roads. FalcoNet, brought to you by a company called Cognyte (Israel’s Palantir rival), secretly tracks people by intercepting the connection between your phone and the nearest cell tower. The idea is that you can strap this bad boy to a helicopter, backpack, or Chevy Tahoe and gobble up everybody’s data as you cruise around. It’s already in use in Florida. This year, Texas State Police bought a little fleet of FalcoNet-equipped SUVs for just under $4.5 million. I found the purchase receipt and FalcoNet user guide to learn a little more about it.
In March of 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Criminal Investigations Division asked for approval to spend $4,487,500 on a Cognyte surveillance setup. Actually, what they requested was "approval for emergency purchase necessary to protect the safety and welfare of state personnel and property. Delaying the procurement process could result in unacceptable safety risks to personnel and compromise operational readiness."
The request memo is chock-full of urgency and dramatic language—peppered with terms like "emergency” and "immediate." But no specifics are mentioned. "Any delay in procuring would compromise employee safety, public safety, operational readiness, and overall mission success," the memo states, without saying how or why this brand-new, very expensive technology is suddenly essential to operations.
Naturally, it wasn’t just $4.5 million for four 2026 Chevy Tahoes, though the SUVs themselves were still bizarrely expensive at $150,000 a piece. Here’s how the purchase order breaks down:
FalcoNet Core System (x4): $2,850,000
Unlicensed FalcoNet core system: $200,000
Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V (x4): $280,000
2026 Chevrolet Tahoe (x4): $600,000
FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $355,500
Flexable [sic] antenna kit: $27,000
Cognyte PA Ranger: $105,000
Unlicensed FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $70,000
Total PO Amount: $4,487,500
So, yeah, that’s how (and why) Texas police spent $4.5 million on four Tahoes. They’re bristling with really expensive peeping equipment.
Texas Department of Public Safety Cognyte Quote, January 21, 2026
As for the FalcoNet system itself, the core principle people are rightfully freaking out about is the fact that it can hoover up private data from unsuspecting people en masse and in secret. I don’t consider myself a person with anything to hide, but I still hate this with a passion. Just the other day, a member of our very own staff was wrongfully detained by corporate-controlled cop tech!
And as Cybernews pointed out, the legality of such things is still questionable. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled (Chatrie v United States) "that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in location data revealing their movements, and that even short-term tracking of that kind counts as a search under the Fourth Amendment."
We have been and will continue to cover the rapidly evolving corpo-surveillance state we’re all driving around in, because it affects infrastructure and road travel (driving) in such a major way.
FalcoNet hardware Cognyte
But we can also get into the specifics of this technology, too, since I found the FalcoNet user guide and thought you might be curious about how it works exactly. GM has a standard cop loadout for the Tahoe: Tahoe Police Pursuit Vehicles come with a V8, big brakes, robust suspension, secondary battery, and 250-amp alternator.
The FalcoNet system itself breaks down thusly:
Dimensions & Form Factor: The core module measures 563mm x 200mm x 86mm (designed as a 2U half 19” rack drawer) and weighs 8kg.
Hardware Interface: The module features RJ45 LAN ports, a 4-way Amphenol Power connector, SMA panel connectors for GPS and clock synchronization, and QN-Type connectors for RF input...