The company also asks police departments to sign confidential agreements, which often include a clause promising not to issue public statements about Ring before they are first vetted by Ring itself. “The relationship between the company and the police departments doesn’t necessarily seem to be completely about public safety,” says Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “They seem to be enlisting law enforcement in a sort of sales role. ”When police departments go even slightly off script, Ring pushes back. In April, the Bloomfield Police Department in New Jersey announced it was partnering with Ring and published a press release on social media that, according to documents obtained from another public records request, appeared to be almost entirely written by the company. The only parts that weren’t taken from Ring directly were quotes attributed to Bloomfield’s mayor, Michael Venezia, and its public safety director, Samuel DeMaio.