Follow the money.
You’ve seen and heard the adage countless times. But while the phrase is often linked to media, I fail to see a real connection. From my perspective as an editor who has led teams that have exposed problems at the root in various Massachusetts agencies, it’s never seemed like there is interest in procurement from large publications of record or five o’clock news crews.
If that sounds like hyperbole, query how often those outlets recognize Strategic Sourcing Services Teams. Orchestrated by the state’s Operational Services Division, SSSTs are supposed to be staffed by subject matter experts from various state agencies. These ad hoc groups are so powerful that once a statewide contract is put in place by an SSST, more than 400 entities—from municipalities and schools to commonwealth agencies—can purchase through them without further public bidding.
Politicians and voters alike both frequently holler about waste and abuse. Nationally, President Donald Trump made a spectacle ranting about bureaucratic thievery, even enlisting Elon Musk to cosplay as a reform agent. But in reality, dollars disappear through vendor contracts without much or any notice—especially down at the state and local level.
Despite having so much discretion over the spending of taxpayer dollars, SSSTs operate in relative secrecy. In many cases, members of the public or reporters have to submit formal information requests just to see who is populating these teams and making key decisions. We have covered strategic sourcing before, particularly around Massachusetts State Police purchasing of firearms. That investigation revealed an astounding lack of oversight; and in revisiting some of our past reporting for our tenth year of operation, procurement seemed to be an area that’s ripe for further exploration.
Critically, spending is relative to everything we cover—from housing and homelessness, to prisons and opioid remediation. As an example of how unaccountable these sourcing teams are, we turned an investigative eye on the contractors paid to watch us: surveillance IT providers.
The state’s surveillance super contract
If you are with the Massachusetts Department of Correction and shopping for new IP (internet protocol) cameras, or if you work for the Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and need to procure new biometric services to monitor interstate overpasses, you turn to ITC71. Let’s call it Itsy. Think of it like Etsy, only instead of handmade crafts and old thrifted concert tees, the marketplace is filled with security tech and devices out of your darkest dystopian nightmares.
Itsy is the primary vehicle for the commonwealth’s security infrastructure, covering everything from basic locks to high-end digital surveillance. The scope of the umbrella contract is divided into four major categories: catalog sales (hardware like IP cameras and sensors); systems integration (the high-cost labor of linking cameras, biometrics, and databases); monitoring services (command center oversight, etc.); locks and hardware (physical security for state buildings and prisons). In total, Itsy is a nine-figure behemoth that appears to have facilitated more than $100 million in spending since 2019.
Specific examples of Itsy spending to date include: large-scale MassDOT expenditures for “video management systems” that link the thousands of cameras along the Mass Pike and various tunnels; Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) software contracts for “investigative platforms” and data analytics; significant expansion of surveillance footprints in municipalities including Lowell, Quincy, and Canton via controversial vendors like Flock Safety.
No privacy advocates in sight
The most alarming part of the SSST process is often who is not invited to participate. In state police arms procurement, the only oversight comes from law enforcement representatives and people who are partial to the demands of those agencies. So-called “good-government” advocates were nowhere to be found; neither were voices from community groups working on behalf of those harmed by police.
According to the Operational Services Division (OSD) Best Value Procurement Handbook for Itsy, the experts tapped for its SSST were chosen because they are frequent purchasers of these technologies. This means the people scoring the surveillance bids are the very people who want to use the software and spying devices—police, prison officials, and IT managers.
Notably, there are no seats for privacy watchdogs at the table. While the state has mandatory programs to ensure environmentally preferable products and supplier diversity, there is no requirement for a civil liberties expert to chime in. The result is the state is purchasing advanced video analytics, including facial recognition and behavior tracking, without a single person on the evaluation team whose job is to protect the constitutional rights of the public being filmed.
No checks and balances, but a blank check
The scale of spending under Itsy is insanely difficult to track. One thing that’s for sure though is that there is no official ceiling for how much can be spent on Big Brother. The current term of the open contract runs until May 31, 2026, but OSD recently signaled it would exercise its two, two-year extensions, pushing the maximum end date to May 2028.
Making matters more concerning, Itsy operates on a 1% pay-to-play fee that helps fund the very agency tasked with overseeing it. So while OSD allows technicians to bill the taxpayer at rates as high as $290 per hour to install the state’s growing surveillance net, a penny out of every dollar spent on the vendor goes back to the department. It’s not the only contract that works like that, but it’s a huge one, leading to the question of whether such an arrangement forges incentive for the state to encourage more spending on surveillance.
Tracking all these millions through the matrix is made even harder by a loophole that allows agencies to spend up to $50,000 per engagement for “trade services” like installation without a full public bid. We will be impugning those red flags across the state and others as we continue to look into the entities responsible for and lack of accountability around so much questionable government spending.
