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The High Crime of “LMAO”: How Cops Are Treating Mass Surveillance As a Joke

Published September 14, 2026 · EFF Deeplinks

An EFF review of search logs from Flock Safety's automated license plate reader networks found officers accessing nationwide driver location records while entering nonsense justifications like joke acronyms or random keystrokes. With tens of thousands of cameras searchable and no warrant requirement or meaningful auditing, the analysis suggests ordinary drivers' movement histories are being queried without legitimate cause. EFF argues that Flock's newer dropdown menu of crime categories may simply disguise improper lookups rather than prevent them.

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