A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'

toomuchtodo

https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/

vatsachak

This cop is doing his part to get rid of flock

progforlyfe

Policy officers are mis-using this powerful, hugely invasive massive surveillance tool? I am utterly shocked!

ShadowOfThePit

> Data reviewed by the EFF included searches labelled 'LMAO', 'LOL', 'Hehe', 'Haha', 'idk' and 'blah'. Other entries included 'asdfg' and strings of apparently random keyboard characters. In one case, an officer entered: 'robbery I don't remember the case number leave me alone'. lol wtf. Like, I get it, "haha quirky me", if it was a personal coding project or an informal setting, but not here!? I wouldn't believe if you told me they were older than, what, 30? On second thought, that's absolutely possible.

alistairSH

Too bad they haven't named/shamed the actual officers. Lack of details is effectively giving the police carte blanche to continue doing this shit. "Oh, we'll tell the officer to cut that out (fingers crossed behind back)"

dayyan

Would you have not? Don't lie.

foolfoolz

flock isn’t going away. this feels like the 1990s web that grew into a more regulated system with safeguards. flock or a (more advanced) replacement are going to be part of policing in the us forever

y1n0

Given the absurd commit messages I see, basically along the lines of “oops” “lmao” “wtf” I don’t see the issue.

maerF0x0

In this case the issue isn't 19k flock cameras, but an utter lack of repercussion for failure to justify usage. In the same way I'd be arrested and jailed if I breached/used 19K ring cameras that do not belong to me, this guy should be arrested and jailed for his misuse. Police unions are a major root cause of many issues in the USA.

pelagicAustral

My commit messages when no one is looking, and the reason I hardly ever open source stuff...

josefresco

> July 2025, an officer with the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff's Department Do they not know the name of this officer, or are they not reporting it?

jasonlotito

Flock makes it easy to track people and where they go. For example, if you are going to a gun range, or going to a place to buy guns and ammo, Flock makes it easy to track that. This makes it easy to figure out who has weapons and allows the government to easily target them first. This would make it easy to create a digital database of known and suspected gun owners. This is something I'm sure all gun owners support.

JsonDemWitOster

Naturally I don't know how the Flock search platform operates but this implies to me that this "Reason:" field is a mere formality, after-the-fact accountability (if even that!). If the search was granted based on human checks for the reason given, they would not dare be flippant about this. Of course it would take more time, humans don't scale, etc. but that's kinda the point: invasive methods should be a last resort.

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49699493