Sgt John Finnegan Searched Two Plates 574 Times The Reason Field Says It All

Our Take

Credit to OhDangReally for digging through the audit logs on this one, because the details are the whole story. 'SUS' and 'DAYTIME SEARCH FOR BEST RESULT' aren't reasons — they're a cop typing nonsense into a box because the system made him fill something in before it let him keep looking up the same two plates for seven straight months. That's 574 searches nobody at that department questioned until an outside audit forced the issue.

This is the pattern critics of ALPR networks keep pointing to: the technology isn't just a tool for solving crimes, it's a tool that creates the opportunity to stalk, harass, and surveil private citizens under the cover of a badge. Three Treasure Coast officers caught in under three weeks — one arrested for hammering his ex-girlfriend's plate, another running his own plate under 'TEST,' and now Finnegan — isn't three bad apples. It's what happens when a department hands out unrestricted query access to a database of everyone's movements and then checks the logs only when someone finally complains.

Flock and departments like to sell these networks as narrowly targeted crime-fighting tools, but the audit trail says otherwise: access control and oversight are an afterthought, bolted on after the fact. If you want to see how many of these cameras are already watching your own commute, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment in your city, our take-action page has next steps.