Texas police dropped $4.5M on four Chevrolet Tahoe SUVs packed with phone-spying gear

Procurement documents from the Texas Department of Public Safety reveal a massive line-item purchase for high-tech surveillance gear mounted inside four 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicles. The bulk of the expense comes from cellular interception systems developed by Israeli defense firm Cognyte, designed to trick nearby mobile phones into connecting directly to the vehicle.

The setup relies on the FalcoNet platform, which functions as a fake cell tower capable of harvesting subscriber identifiers and signal data across 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G networks. To keep these rolling wiretaps running smoothly, General Motors built the underlying V8-powered SUVs with heavy-duty police pursuit suspensions and beefed-up 250-amp alternators, because catching casual passersby in a digital net requires a ridiculous amount of electricity.

The hardware itself is packed into ruggedized Pelican cases and half-width rack units mounted neatly inside the cargo bay, hidden under modified roof panels and puck-style antenna covers to blend into traffic. Despite a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court establishing that warrantless location tracking violates Fourth Amendment protections, Texas is pushing forward with the deployment following a similar rollout in Florida.

The line between routine traffic patrol and state-sponsored mass surveillance continues to blur, proving that arbitrary constitutional guarantees rarely stand in the way of a well-funded department memorandum. It appears mobile privacy is now just another optional accessory that didn't make the fleet order guide.

Source: The Drive