How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking
Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.
JEFFERSON, Ga. — Marci Bakely couldn’t understand how her ex-boyfriend always seemed to know where she was.
When she went to buy groceries or on a date or to the doctor, he’d text her about it, sometimes within minutes, despite working 15 miles from her home as a police chief in a small town in the Atlanta suburbs. One day in 2024, when he incorrectly suspected that she’d gone to see a man against his wishes, he messaged her, “I didn’t think you would slip up,” according to texts she shared with The Washington Post.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance
Related Knowledge Center: State surveillance
While government monitoring of personal digital communications has traditionally been associated with authoritarian regimes such as China, the Trump regime has moved to use citizens’ personal information in unprecedented ways.
Digital privacy and data security | FISA — Section 702