Cops searched a nationwide surveillance network. The reason they typed: "LMAO" #flock #FactThisNews
The short version: A cop reportedly justified a nationwide license-plate-reader search with the word "LMAO," and Fact This News' clip is a perfect snapshot of how casually these surveillance tools get misused.
Our Take
Credit to Fact This News for surfacing this clip, because it says more about Flock's "audit trail" safeguards than any corporate press release ever could. Flock and its police customers love to point to the mandatory reason field as proof the system is accountable — every search gets logged, every officer has to justify why they queried a nationwide network of license plate cameras. Except here, the justification on record is literally "LMAO." That's not an audit trail, that's a permission slip nobody's checking.
This matters because the entire legal and PR defense of ALPR networks rests on the idea that access is controlled and searches are for legitimate law enforcement purposes. When an officer can type a joke into the reason box and still pull data from thousands of cameras across state lines, it exposes the audit system as theater. Nobody's plate, location history, or driving pattern is safe from a bored cop with database access and no real oversight — and departments keep insisting this is fine because "it's logged."
If you want to see how far this camera network has spread into your own neighborhood, check our map. And if clips like this make your blood boil, don't just watch and scroll — take action and push your local council to demand real accountability before they sign another Flock contract.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Fact this News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.