The Investigation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained and analyzed audit logs covering more than 12 million search queries run by roughly 3,900 law enforcement agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. Every Flock search requires an officer to type a reason into a mandatory text field — EFF's analysis of those reason fields is what exposed the pattern. Confirmed
What it found: officers routinely bypassed any real compliance check by entering single-word justifications — "protest" being the most common — to unlock searches across the entire national database. No case number. No individualized suspicion of a crime. Just the name of a demonstration. Confirmed
More than 50 federal, state, and local agencies queried the network specifically in connection with political protests. Confirmed
Specific Protests Targeted
"No Kings" (June & October 2025)
At least 19 separate law enforcement agencies monitored these anti-surveillance, anti-overreach marches. On June 15, 2025, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office in Washington searched 95 camera networks under the reason "no kings," looking for any "work van," "bus," or "box truck." The same day, Beaumont, Texas police ran six nationwide queries spanning 1,774 networks labeled "KINGS DAY PROTEST." The Tempe Police Department in Arizona — Arizona being where this site is written from — searched 425 networks for any red vehicle under the reason "ATL No Kings Protest." Confirmed
"50501" (February 2025)
Demonstrations opposing the Department of Government Efficiency were monitored by Nevada's Carson City Sheriff's Office, which queried 178 networks under the reason "protest." Confirmed
Direct Action Everywhere (Animal Welfare)
In March 2025, Delaware State Police ran nine queries explicitly labeled "DxE Protest Suspect Vehicle." In May 2025, California Highway Patrol logged dozens of searches targeting a "DXE Operation" to monitor activists at an annual convention. Confirmed
"Hands Off" (April 2025)
Nationwide anti-intervention rallies were monitored by multiple regional departments querying their local camera footprints. Confirmed
Campus Activism
Audit logs from Emory University show its police department queried the national network for a "Protest" on April 24, 2023 — corresponding to a peaceful "Stop Cop City" demonstration on campus. Confirmed
The Legal Question Nobody Has Fully Answered
In February 2026, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Armendariz v. City of Colorado Springsthat the Fourth Amendment doesn't support broad, exploratory searches of protesters' digital devices and records. Confirmed But that ruling was about devices — automated vehicle tracking near protests continues with no general warrant requirement, because courts are still working out whether the "mosaic theory" of surveillance (the idea that enough small, individually-legal observations add up to an illegal search) applies here. We cover this further in the constitutional framework.