What the Flock? Indiana Police Officers Caught Using Flock Cameras Inappropriately

To absolutely no one’s shock, it appears that flock cameras in Indiana have been misused by law enforcement to be creepy.

According to Fox 59, “IMPD has announced that five officers have been charged after allegations that they misused Flock cameras to track romantic partners, spouses and random citizens.”

Ah yes, it is almost like letting the government put cameras everywhere is a bad idea or something.

Fox 59 reports:

The allegations against the officers involve the misuse of automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, that are commonly known as Flock cameras. These devices use camera technology to track cars on public roads throughout the state.

Mears said during his press conference that most of the allegations against the five officers involve a romantic partner or spouse being tracked illegally. However, in Schultz’s case, prosecutors believe he used the technology to track down women he met in the community.

You think that is bad? Oh, it gets worse.

The article continues:

While the other four officers are accused of just fraud and official misconduct, Officer Schultz is also being charged with stalking. This is because it is alleged that Schultz would use ALPRs to track random women he met in public and then use their whereabouts to create “chance encounters” that were, in reality, a result of stalking.

Our own Angela Ganote has spoken with an alleged victim of the stalking, who said that Officer Jonathan Schultz followed her for months.

So that’s terrifying.

This is one of many examples of why the Fourth Amendment was put in place. The government has no right to monitor you for merely existing. Flock cameras are a huge breach of privacy. There is zero question as to if they will be abused—they already are. These are just five officers who got caught. I am sure the actual number of stalking instances are much higher.