Audit · 02
A viral post said Texas police bought trucks that can “read your phone.” Part of that is true, and the true part is worse than the headline. Here are the documents, so you do not have to take my word for any of it.
Texas Department of Public Safety, Business Unit 40500, Purchase Order 26P0010314, dated March 4, 2026, to Cognyte Software LP of Bohemia, New York, a U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli company Cognyte Software Ltd. (see who sold it). Total not-to-exceed value $4,487,500.00. The purchase order is marked “**EMERGENCY PURCHASE**” (asterisks in the original) and cites 34 Texas Administrative Code § 20.210. It references vendor Quote No. 1299; the emergency memo lists no requisition number and one recommended vendor. Contract ID 0000000000000000000005527, Requisition 26R0014623.
| # | Line item, as written | Qty | Unit price | Extended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FalcoNet core system | 4 | $712,500 | $2,850,000 |
| 2 | UNLICENSED FalcoNet core system | 1 | $200,000 | $200,000 |
| 3 | Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V | 4 | $70,000 | $280,000 |
| 4 | 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe | 4 | $150,000 | $600,000 |
| 5 | FalcoNet Backpack Core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G) | 1 | $355,500 | $355,500 |
| 6 | Flexable antenna kit [sic] | 1 | $27,000 | $27,000 |
| 7 | Cognyte Compact PA Ranger | 1 | $105,000 | $105,000 |
| 8 | UNLICENSED FalcoNet Backpack Core V2 – 6 x BTS | 1 | $70,000 | $70,000 |
| Total PO amount | $4,487,500.00 |
Read the purchase order (PDF, 3 pages). In the purchase order, quote and memo hosted here, the names, signatures, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of individual DPS and vendor staff are blacked out; in DPS’s contracts list, one phone number and one partial staff name are painted out; they are not the story. The unredacted document is public at the source linked below.
The state's own title for this contract is not mine. DPS's disclosure of contracts exceeding $100,000 (Government Code § 2054.126) lists it as:
DPS contracts over $100,000, May 2026 edition, p. 4 0000000000000000000005527 COGNYTE SOFTWARE LP HQ Cell Tracking Trucks 3/4/2026 8/31/2026 $4,487,500.00
Read DPS's list (PDF, archived May 2026). The entry is absent from the September 2026 edition, which is consistent with the contract term ending August 31. That is an expiry, not a removal.
Correction, September 30. From September 8 until this correction, this page listed “Israeli” under “What I checked that turned out to be nothing.” The sentence under that heading said the parent company is Israeli, which is true. Putting it on that list told readers the claim was false, and it is not. The first version of the page, on September 8, also called the contractor “a New York limited partnership.” It is organized in Delaware. The facts have been moved here, with the company’s own SEC filing as the source.
The purchase order names Cognyte Software LP, at an address in Bohemia, New York. Cognyte’s annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Form 20-F for the year ended January 31, 2026, filed March 25, 2026) lists Cognyte Software LP among its subsidiaries, organized in Delaware (Exhibit 8.1).
The company filing that report is Cognyte Software Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGNT). Its SEC cover data gives Israel as its place of incorporation and its address as 33 Maskit, Herzliya Pituach, Israel. DPS’s own emergency memo recommends “Cognyte Software Ltd” by name, meaning the Israeli parent, at the New York address. Forbes’s July 13 report was headlined “Israel’s Palantir Rival Is Selling $1 Million Spy Vans To U.S. Cops.”
So the answer to “Is it an Israeli company?” is yes. The contract was signed with the Israeli company’s U.S. subsidiary, and the state’s written justification names the Israeli parent itself.
The viral post said the trucks would “READ YOUR PHONE.” The equipment on the order is a cell-site simulator. It impersonates a tower, phones in range connect to it automatically, and it collects device identifiers and location. It does not read the contents of your messages. Mutual authentication on 3G, 4G and 5G networks means a fake tower has no key to decrypt traffic, and the one historical workaround, forcing a phone down to 2G, only works on a handset that still has 2G enabled; Android has shipped a switch to turn 2G off since 2021. Forbes, which broke the story on July 13, wrote that the vehicles could “monitor the locations of nearby cell phones.” Monitor locations. Not read.
The commentator in the viral video also said $800,000 went to the trucks. Line 4 says $600,000.
Cognyte Quote No. 1299 is billed to Texas DPS, itemizes the same equipment, and totals $4,487,500, matching the purchase order to the dollar. It is dated January 21, 2026. The emergency purchase order is dated March 4, 2026. That is 42 days.
The Comptroller’s rules define an emergency procurement as one the agency must make “more quickly to prevent a hazard to life, health, safety, welfare, or property or to avoid undue additional cost to the state” (34 Tex. Admin. Code § 20.25(b)(21)), and its Procurement and Contract Management Guide says “emergencies occur as the result of unforeseeable circumstances.” For a purchase over $25,000 the agency “must retain a full written explanation of the emergency” in the contract file (§ 20.82(d)(2)(B)). I am stating the two dates. I am not stating what they mean. On September 8, 2026 I filed a Public Information Act request with DPS for the written determination, the requisition, the Comptroller submission, all DPS–Cognyte communications from January 1 to March 4, and DPS’s policies on when this equipment may be switched on.
Correction, September 8. When this audit and its video were prepared I wrote that the written justification was not public. It is. The Drive published DPS’s Emergency Decision Memorandum (form PCS-21) on July 14, 2026, alongside the purchase order and the quote. Read the memo (PDF, 2 pages; two individuals’ names and contact details painted out).
It is dated March 4, 2026 and marked approved March 5, 2026. Requisition number: “N/A.” Purpose: “Purchase of Cellular Tracking Equipment For Immediate Law Enforcement Use.” The discussion says delay “could result in unacceptable safety risks to personnel and compromise operational readiness,” and lists the uses: locating missing persons, high-threat manhunts, tracing suspect movements, coordinating emergency response. It recommends “Cognyte Software Ltd” at the Bohemia, New York address; the purchase order names Cognyte Software LP at the same address.
What the memo does not do: it does not mention Quote No. 1299, and it does not identify any event or circumstance that arose between January 21 and March 4. That is a description of the document, not an accusation.
Read the quote (PDF, 8 pages). It also lists what each core system includes: 13 software-defined base stations covering 2G through 5G, “Heat Map, Silent Call, MuCom + Enhancer,” and a “PathFinder DF system,” which is direction-finding. Two line items on both documents are marked “UNLICENSED.” I do not know what that means on these documents and I am not going to guess. It is Item 5 of the records request.
Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112, syllabus, p. 2 “Held: Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information.”
Read the opinion (PDF, 72 pages). Chatrie is a geofence-warrant case about location data held by Google. A cell-site simulator collects location off the air with no provider involved, so the ruling does not directly govern this equipment. What it holds is that cell-phone location information carries a reasonable expectation of privacy. Texas signed for a machine that collects that kind of information on March 4. The Court ruled on June 29.
Correction, September 14. Earlier versions of this page said the court order for this class of equipment “does not require probable cause” and that the purchase was awarded “on a single vendor quote.” Its share preview read “no bid” and “no warrant standard,” and the Audits page card also said “no bid.” Each went further than the documents show, and each now says only what the documents say. These fixes were first published September 9. A site update on September 10 put the old wording back, and it stayed up until this correction.
Chapter 18B does not expressly name cell-site simulators or IMSI. Article 18B.053 sets application requirements for a pen register, ESN reader, trap and trace device, or similar equipment. One requirement is a statement that installation and use of the equipment
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 18B.053(3) “will likely produce information that is material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Articles 18B.151 and 18B.152 provide a limited emergency procedure for pen registers and trap and trace devices. Specified officers must satisfy additional statutory conditions, promptly report to a prosecutor, and obtain an order within 48 hours after installation is completed or use begins, whichever occurs first. These provisions do not, by themselves, establish whether a particular cell-site-simulator deployment is authorized or whether a warrant is required under other law.
A bill to require a warrant for cell-site simulators, SB 2093, passed the Texas Senate on May 8, 2019 by a vote of 30 to 1 (Senate Journal, 86th Legislature, May 8, 2019). The House referred it to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on May 9, 2019. Nothing happened after that.
Texas DPS has owned cell-site simulators since at least 2014 (Atlas of Surveillance: a Harris StingRay II). So the capability is not new. What is new in 2026 is the scale, the vendor (an Israeli company’s U.S. subsidiary), and the route: what Forbes reported as the largest known Cognyte contract with any U.S. police agency. The purchase order references Quote No. 1299 and carries an emergency designation. The contract was listed on DPS’s own contracts-over-$100,000 disclosure by April, and first reported four months after the order date (Forbes, July 13; the documents themselves posted by The Drive, July 14).