
After city switched to a new bodycam vendor, Axon threatened its credit rating - morisy
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/may/09/algorithms-axon-fontana/
======
warent
Not to be too "chaotic-good" here but it's somewhat invigorating seeing the
government getting treated by businesses the way normal people are. Not to say
that this is some kind of poetic justice, but hopefully by sleeping in the bed
they've made it will be a wakeup call for them to make things a little fairer.

Then again this is probably a small city council we're talking about. Not
exactly the federal government. So yeah, it sucks.

~~~
JackFr
That is a bizarre sentiment. You somehow think better governance will somehow
result from unethical salesman behavior leading increased local government
waste.

The police department doesn't lose the money the taxpayers do.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
No, the post is saying that it's good that government is getting a taste of
their own medicine: govt has allowed corporations to screw over common people,
so it's a bit nice to see govt also getting screwed over

~~~
perfmode
_we_ are the government.

~~~
drdeca
No, I am not.

The laws in the democracies that exist are not, in fact, determined by a
uniquely/canonically defined aggregate “will of the people”.

I don’t think that they even can be, as I don’t think that there can be a
canonical definition for what the “will of the people” is.

The laws are the result of a particular choice of set-up of democratic
systems, along with peoples actions and choices within those systems.

In practice as things currently are, and I believe also theoretically
necessarily (except for randomness or other things not determined by a
person’s choice), different persons have different degrees of influence over
what laws are enacted, and over what the government does.

If you are telling someone that you and they are a certain organization, but
the influence they have is minuscule (by some way of measuring), and you have
the rest of the control, it seems reasonable that that person would object to
your framing.

The government is not “us”, nor is it “those people”. The government is “it”.
It is a useful structure which is generally good to have around, but does have
a number of drawbacks at times, which it would be good for us to mitigate
using what influence over it we may happen to have.

I am not saying this as against government or against democracy, which both
seem better than the alternatives.

But democracy, I think, is good because of pragmatic reasons, not because it
allows the government to “be us”.

------
ocdtrekkie
Axon are the guys offering "free body cams for every officer" as a marketing
line, which is truly genius. Citizens can demand body cameras saying "well,
hey, they're free, you have no excuse". But the money is in that cloud service
that the body cams upload to, and the fun part is that once a department is
putting their data into it, they might be _legally required_ to maintain it
years after they stop using Axon cameras.

~~~
OrgNet
> which is truly genius

It's not nothing new to give out free hardware and charge for service, but way
you phrased it, if you aren't allowed to spin-up your own servers, it is a lie
and it is not free.

------
strictnein
Wow. That is a really misleading title.

It wasn't a threat. The Axon employee said:

> "The only cancellation term is Termination for Non-Appropriations or lack of
> funding. There is a negative effect, however, as it can affect the credit
> rating of the City"

Read the entire thing. It's actually rather polite.

~~~
handedness
Except, as mentioned in the article in a few places (including the second
paragraph), the contract allegedly contains a "Termination for Convenience"
clause, which should have allowed the PD to cancel the contract and not have
to pay the $4,000/year fee. But nobody knew that.

So the real story here is that "...between turnover within the police
department and a trusting approach to its relationship with the company,
neither the IT department, which handles payments for recurring annual
technology costs in the City of Fontana, nor the police department had
actually consulted the specific terms of the agreement until contacted for
this article."

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen parties sit down and disagree
about a business deal without having ever read the contract they've both
signed. Any time I go to a meeting to discuss a relationship that's governed
by contract I read the contract ahead of time, and often I'm the only one in
the room who has. It can be a lot of fun to inform someone who's trying to
renegotiate a better deal that they've been in violation of their own terms
and conditions for years. "And you want _us_ to give more up when you haven't
even kept your end of the bargain?" I can see the Taboola ad now: "One mom's
weird trick to prevail in negotiations..."

It sounds like the PD isn't getting their money's worth with Axon, and the
citizens of Fontana aren't getting their money's worth with the PD or city
officials. If the title should change, it is "City officials careless with
contracts; Axon also terrible to deal with."

~~~
strictnein
Yeah, that's kind of my point as well. The title makes it sound like they
tried to get out of a deal and Axon threatened them. The reality is they
dropped the ball and when they contacted Axon a couple years later the rep
they talked to probably gave them information based on their understanding of
the deal, but was just incorrect.

It's likely that rep was just used to more recent deals whose contracts did
contain language like that.

~~~
handedness
They tried to get out of a deal and Axon essentially threatened them. What a
nice credit rating you have; it would be a shame if something happened to it.

"The only cancellation term is Termination for Non-Appropriations or a lack of
funding," was their reply, which was false, and they're making a positive
statement about the nature of a contract apparently without having first
reviewed said contract. I'm not an attorney and I know not to do that.

If someone asks me a question as it relates to the terms of a contract, I
would never respond without reviewing, or if I did, state that "I haven't had
a chance to review it but if memory serves..." If someone says, "we want out
of this contract," I would never say, "you haven't satisfied the conditions
for cancelation" without reviewing the conditions for cancelation.

If only because I may want to do business with that company or someone who
works there in the future, and referencing the terms of a fair deal (which it
looks like this was) is the best way to mitigate any unjustifiably bad
feelings coming as the result of it. Terrible practice by Axon and they wound
up in the news over it. The same could be said for the city and PD. Precisely
nobody looks good in this scenario, and a quick search of the contract would
have saved the city thousands and a lot of bad PR.

Just because Axon isn't the only bad guy in this story doesn't mean they
aren't the bad guy.

~~~
chrischen
Nobody threatens by literally stating "I threaten thou". They say things like
"yea but if you do that this bad thing will happen" which is exactly what they
said.

~~~
handedness
> "yea but if you do that this bad thing will happen"

Which was a false statement on the part of Axon.

------
joncrane
TL;DR:

City of Fontana PD entered into a small agreement to try out 5 body cameras
and associated Cloud Storage. Contract was for 5 years (for some reason).
Contract had several convenient ways to terminate it.

After trial, Fontana PD issues an RFP and the winner was a different vendor
than the trial.

A few years later, IT department notices bill related to original contract
that it realizes is not for anything. They try to terminate the contract, and
the account rep for Axon tells them the only termination clause in the
contract is for lack of appropriated funds and that terminating under the
current conditions would result in the company putting a bad item on the PD's
credit report. (This was a lie)

Also, the company used to be called Taser and they were the originators of the
famous Taser gun.

Pretty cruddy.

~~~
busterarm
The shady Taser story doesn't end there:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/taser-accused-of-
anticompeti...](https://www.businessinsider.com/taser-accused-of-
anticompetitive-behavior-patent-infringment-2016-10)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/tom-swift-and-his-
electric-r...](https://www.businessinsider.com/tom-swift-and-his-electric-
rifle-review-2015-4)

~~~
mrguyorama
Don't forget the fact that it is marketed to police forces (and the training
also reflects) as a "Non-lethal" option, while the truth is that it is much
more like a less-lethal option. The company behind Taser has worked very hard
to bury any research into dangers of their product

This leads the police into a false sense of security and they may not realize
that tazing someone could kill them, leading them to overuse or overreact in
some cases

~~~
busterarm
Well covered in the documentary mentioned in the second link.

I never liked the less-than-lethal term either to be honest. It's still
disingenuous. Potentially-lethal or Occasionally-lethal is more accurate and
better describes the risks associated with their use.

------
deckar01
This sounds like fraud, but unless they get investigated and uncover a pattern
of this behavior I'm sure it will be easy to dismiss it as a technical error.

------
throwawaysea
This seems like a sensationalist title and article. It seems like this police
department entered a contract with Axon and now wants to sever the contract
partway to save costs. But they've already entered a business contract with
the other entity here, so that's on the police department. The actual email
from the Axon employee also seems standard and professional. What's the issue
here?

~~~
handedness
The contract contained a Termination for Convenience clause. I tend not to
threaten people or advise them to "ride it out" when they terminate for
convenience and our agreement contains such a clause.

~~~
lotu
In short they got bad legal advice about a contract from someone at the
company on the other end of the contract. It is not even clear if this person
is a lawyer, who would have understood the details of the contract, but they
very clearlly are not the lawyer for the city.

~~~
JackFr
It's like your introductory offer ended, and you call your cable TV provider
to cancel, and customer service telling you if you cancel, it will affect your
credit rating.

It's a lie. To keep you paying.

