GoKawiilEFF Finds Officers Entered 'LMAO' and Gibberish to Justify Flock Camera Searches
An Electronic Frontier Foundation review of Flock Safety's license plate reader logs found police officers across the U.S. entering flippant or nonsensical justifications—like 'LMAO', 'LOL', 'idk' and random keystrokes—for searches spanning thousands of cameras. One Lake County, Indiana officer searched over 19,000 cameras across 1,558 cities with the stated reason 'LMAO', while more than 6,300 searches from over 30 agencies simply listed 'TBD'.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
These logs suggest that the documented justifications required for accessing a nationwide surveillance network are often not taken seriously, undermining claims that the system includes meaningful accountability. Flock's decision to replace free-text reasons with preset categories may make it harder to detect this kind of abuse, since generic labels could mask searches with no real investigative basis.
- An officer searched 19,000+ Flock cameras across 1,558 cities citing 'LMAO' as the reason.
- EFF found dozens of flippant or nonsensical search justifications and over 6,300 'TBD' entries from 30+ agencies.
- Flock's new pre-set category system may reduce transparency by hiding how casually searches are justified.
Source: techtimes.co.uk — Vinay Patel, 2026-09-15
Published there as: “A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'”
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