# Cops joke around while searching thousands of cameras

> Police officers are entering nonsense reasons into Flock surveillance systems, treating mass surveillance like a personal search engine.
- Title: Cops joke around while searching thousands of cameras
- Summary: Police officers are entering nonsense reasons into Flock surveillance systems, treating mass surveillance like a personal search engine. Police departments…
- Keywords: flock cameras, police surveillance, license plate readers, electric frontier foundation, privacy abuse, law enforcement oversight, mass surveillance, transparency, police accountability, ai surveillance, science, technology
- Source: Futurism — https://futurism.com/future-society/cops-nonsense-reasons-flock
- Author: Frank Landymore
- Published: 2026-09-18T14:30:42+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: flock cameras, police surveillance, license plate readers, electric frontier foundation, privacy abuse, law enforcement oversight, mass surveillance, transparency, police accountability, ai surveillance, science, technology
## Cops write joke reasons for surveillance searches
An Electric Frontier Foundation investigation found police officers entering "LMAO," "LOL," and keyboard mashing into Flock camera search justifications. One Lake County, Indiana officer searched 19,000 cameras with just "LMAO."

> LMAO
## Flock cameras need no warrants
Unlike traditional surveillance cameras, Flock's AI-powered license plate scanners are part of a centralized network accessible across 1,500 cities and towns without warrant requirements. This minimal oversight enables widespread abuse.
## Examples range from childish to completely random
Officers wrote "Hehe," "IDK," and "ghjhghjg" as search reasons. One Oklahoma officer's keyboard mashing justified searching 83,000 cameras. Others wrote "investigation," "test," or "f*** this new search engine."

> ghjhghjg
## Departments rarely disciplined officers
The EFF found that few police departments meaningfully punished officers for their flippant entries. Most departments offered excuses or at best "counseled" officers, showing little accountability for abusing surveillance access.
## Flock changed software to hide the problem
In late 2025, Flock replaced free-text reason boxes with dropdown menus of pre-made options. The EFF condemned this as reducing transparency rather than addressing the culture of abuse underlying the nonsense entries.
## Mass surveillance treated as personal search engine
The EFF concluded that police are using Flock to track everyday citizens for low level complaints and personal whims. The system enables surveillance abuse with virtually no oversight or consequences.

> This culture of abuse has allowed police to treat a mass surveillance network like their own personal search engine
## Key takeaway

Police departments face almost no consequences for abusing powerful surveillance tools, and software changes designed to fix the problem actually reduce transparency.