# Flock alters system tracking transparency while shadow of alleged misuse cases expands
# InvestigateTV — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjFR7Ywlyg

There's your guy right there.
Bob Sclara believes the government is
following him.
It's as if the government was tracking
you, put a GPS on [music] you, monitored
everywhere you went, when you went
there.
Not just around this small Indiana town,
but across the country. [music]
This is where the camera is.
Amid the rows of corn, license plate
reader cameras are cropping up,
connected to the nationwide Flock
[music] Safety Network.
Did you start to see the police in your
rearview mirror more than you would
expect?
Only one officer.
How are you?
I would come into town and all of a
sudden he would be there, like he was
waiting for me. It started to be more
than a coincidence. It just happened, it
kept happening more and more. I didn't
understand why or how he knew.
And then that's when I learned about the
Flock cameras.
Why are you out here patrolling in the
county?
Huh?
I don't know.
Or did you just come out looking for me?
No.
Is there any reason they would be
legitimately tracking you?
Not that I'm aware of.
So, how much is the budget going up?
Bob regularly criticizes the North
Manchester government and its police
officers.
You speak out at town council meetings.
I do.
Whether or not this is appropriate
conduct
for a town employee.
They've adopted official rules just
because of me.
Believing the police are following him,
He follows me out of town. He follows me
around town.
He started following them.
Keep driving.
Keep driving, bud.
I'm legally parked.
I have seen them on questionable traffic
stops and recorded it.
Please exit the emergency incident area,
otherwise you will go to jail.
Is it fair to characterize you, to use
the legal term of art, that you're the
town pain in the ass as far as the local
government's concerned?
I'm definitely one of them.
Are you allowed to park there?
Do something about it. Leave me alone.
Stop harassing me. Why do you keep
harassing me?
I'm just trying to see if this
Why do you keep harassing me?
Leave me alone. Right about a mile
outside of town is where this other
camera is.
Bob passed by a Flock camera and
wondered, is that how the police knew
where he was? Did you file a records
request for [music] the audit logs to
see if they were tracking you?
Yep.
What happened?
They did have an alert on my vehicle.
They didn't say what time period or
anything like that, and then refused to
identify the officer claiming officer
safety. [music]
He found the answer online.
haveibeenflocked.com.
Put in your license plate number [music]
and you can see if there are inquiries
on your license plate, and for mine, the
search count is 63. [music]
I put my license plate number in and all
these hits came up. That's scary. That
is [music] way scary. I was shocked,
emotionally distraught [music] when I
saw the level of surveillance that that
data revealed. Minimum number of devices
was 11,235, [music]
maximum 98,000. Almost 100,000 devices
around the country.
When an officer accesses the Flock
database, all the external departments
searched nationwide keep their own logs
of that search. That's how we were able
to confirm dozens of searches of [music]
Bob's tag. Public records from out of
state departments show multiple North
[music] Manchester officers and Wabash
County Sheriff's deputies searched Bob's
[music] license plate again and again
for at least a year.
Flock requires they put in a reason for
each search. What was their reason for
searching you?
One reason?
My name. Just Sklar. You know, a lot of
them were just locate locate locate
locate locate.
Locate isn't a crime.
Nope.
I have multiple inquiries under your
name
for my vehicle.
You're going to have to talk to somebody
else about that. Don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. And you don't know what I'm
talking about?
you're talking about.
You don't know what Flock is?
No, I know what Flock is. I don't know
what you mean by using it to track you.
Really? He's following my travel history
all over the country.
That's none of his business.
If Bob did decide to move away from this
tiny Indiana town and its three Flock
cameras, the North Manchester Police
Department could still track his
movements nationwide because it's
connected to more than 6,000 agencies in
49 states with tens of thousands of
cameras.
I remember having a conversation with
with this officer one time and he said,
"So, how was your trip to Philly?" And I
was like, "How would you know
that I was in Philly? That scares the
hell out of me."
Neither the officer nor his chief agreed
to interviews or to share their side of
the story. It's perfectly legal in
Indiana and most states for officers to
search the Flock database without
suspicion of any crime.
Nationwide, there's a growing pattern of
officers misusing license plate readers
that are meant to protect the public.
use these systems for personal reasons.
But we are tracking more than 70 cases
across the country.
Unauthorized use of a Flock camera.
of officers arrested for misusing these
cameras is mounting here.
Officers under investigation,
disciplined, fired, or arrested
[music]
for allegedly misusing Flock.
Officers have used them to stalk or
harass exes.
Including searches on personal
acquaintances and family members.
If they can do that to them, they can do
it to anybody, can't they?
Absolutely. And that's the scary part.
Now, there's things we can do and we
can,
you know, put some new guardrails
parameters, whatever it is. Let's have
that debate, but let's not say this
technology isn't helpful cuz it's it
clearly is.
Flock says its technology is catching
bad guys with or without a badge while
the company openly invites new
regulations.
And if there's some part of the city
doesn't like, they should just regulate
that stuff, outlaw it, make rules about
it, change it, and we're happy to abide
by those things.
Nobody in Indiana is releasing their
records voluntarily as far as I know.
So, the only reason we know about this
is because [music]
these three departments had metadata
showing that he made that search.
That's where have I been flocked.com
gets most of its data. Network audit
logs showing external agency searches of
a department's cameras. Flock [music]
recently changed those logs to withhold
the names of police officers and tags
[music] searched saying officers asked
for their names to be kept out of public
records.
Police officers can track you with no
warrant, no reasonable suspicion, no
probable cause.
But, you can't track them tracking you.
You can't find out who's tracking you.
That's scary. That's where where we have
a a secret police state now?
Bob Skolnik now takes the long way home.
Little out of the way, but it avoids
[music]
triggering the camera.
Do you feel safer because of Flock
[music] in your town?
No.
Because I've seen the abuse. That
doesn't [music] make me feel safe at
all. It actually makes me scared.
Bob is trying [music] to put all of this
in his rearview mirror, but says he
still sees officers [music] behind him.
There's nowhere to hide.