A Deputy Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras and Logged the Cause as “LMAO”

Last summer season, a Lake County, Indiana deputy used Flock Safety’s nationwide search instrument to question greater than 19,000 cameras throughout 1,558 cities and cities. The official reason logged in the system: “LMAO.”

That single entry isn’t an outlier. It is a window into how officers throughout the nation deal with one of the highly effective location-tracking networks ever constructed for home regulation enforcement.

What the Logs Actually Show

Officers typed “asdfg,” “idk,” and “WEIRD KID” right into a discipline meant to doc authorized justification for looking a nationwide surveillance database.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained Flock Safety audit logs by way of public information requests and published its findings in September 2026, overlaying police searches from 2023 by way of late 2025. According to the EFF’s evaluation, as reported by 404 Media, officers usually entered causes together with “LOL,” “Hehe,” “Haha,” “idk,” “blah,” “TBD,” and “robbery I don’t remember the case number leave me alone.”

Insults appeared too: “idiot,” “dickhead,” “shithead,” and “WEIRD KID” all confirmed up as official justifications for accessing delicate location knowledge. Then there have been the button-mashers, who typed strings like “asdfg,” “gyghkkghghjkghjk,” and “nmbvcbnm” and known as it a day.

The joke entries sit alongside a deeper structural downside. In a separate dataset of 11.4 million Flock nationwide searches over six months, the ACLU discovered that greater than 14% of entries contained solely the phrase “investigation,” with no case quantity hooked up.

What Happens When You Get Caught

Agencies responded with counseling classes, union contract loopholes, and the occasional declare that looking for somebody “driving around being weird” counted as authentic police work.

When the EFF contacted departments whose officers logged joke causes, the implications had been skinny. Some officers had been “counseled.” Others confronted no motion in any respect. Union agreements imposed 90-day disciplinary home windows that had already expired by the point the entries surfaced.

The Fishers Police Department in Indiana mentioned one detective logged “blah” solely when annoyed with sluggish system efficiency, framing the conduct as a technical grievance slightly than misconduct. Another division concluded {that a} search documented as “driving around being weird” served, of their evaluation, “legitimate public safety purposes,” in accordance with 404 Media.

At the time of these searches, each company whose cameras had been queried had entry to the identical audit logs. None of them flagged the entries in actual time, and none caught them afterward both.

After earlier reporting uncovered searches concentrating on abortion seekers and immigrants, surveillance fusion facilities reportedly suggested officers to be “as vague as permissible” within the motive discipline, in accordance with 404 Media. That steering amounted to a roadmap for obscuring intent whereas sustaining the looks of compliance.

In late 2025, Flock changed its free-text motive field with a drop-down menu of pre-set justification classes. The EFF characterised the change as “a loss for transparency,” as a result of the granular, searchable textual content that made abuses seen in public information not exists.

The joke entries share the identical audit logs as searches that used phrases like “gypsy vehicle” and “possible gypsy” to focus on Romani individuals, queries flagged with immigration-related language, and a Texas search documented with the phrase “had an abortion, search for female,” in accordance with prior EFF and 404 Media reporting.

Legal stress is constructing. The ACLU and EFF filed swimsuit towards San Jose, California, arguing that its almost 500 Flock cameras and warrantless search entry violate the state structure. A letter from Sen. Ron Wyden’s workplace cited EFF knowledge on the weak point of Flock’s justification necessities as a matter of federal concern.

If courts require warrants and legislators impose significant logging requirements, Flock’s product adjustments essentially. If a drop-down menu satisfies regulators, the audit path narrows, the searches proceed, and the subsequent “LMAO” by no means makes it right into a public information request.