Search Logs Showed Officers Nationwide Typing 'ICE' Into the Reason Field

Every search of the Flock network asks the officer to state a reason. That field is the accountability mechanism: it is what a supervisor, an auditor or a journalist would later read to understand why a citizen's movements were pulled up.

404 Media obtained those logs through a public records request to the Danville, Illinois Police Department. Because Danville's cameras can be searched by agencies elsewhere, the logs captured searches run by departments across the United States. For an independent overview, see EFF, automated licence plate readers.

In the reason field, officers had written 'immigration', 'ICE' and 'ICE+ERO'. The reporting identified more than 4,000 incidents connected to immigration enforcement access.

The route matters as much as the volume. This access did not arrive through an agreement between a federal agency and the towns whose cameras were being searched. It came through local police departments, which is why the communities that installed the cameras had no particular reason to know it was happening.

Subsequent reporting found that ICE, the United States Secret Service and the United States Navy had each obtained some form of access to the network.

The records and the full analysis are at 404 Media.

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For independent background on this topic, see EFF, automated licence plate readers, and review the full source list below. This is a summary of published reporting, not original reporting, and criminal charges are allegations until a court decides otherwise.