Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

  • Hacker News
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.

  • 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.

  • > 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.

  • > 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?

  • This cop is doing his part to get rid of flock

Explore Birbla archives

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