‘I don’t remember the case number leave me alone': US cops ignore Flock camera oversight, probing nationwide surveillance network with bogus reasoning
Others saw the reasoning given as “Hehe,” “WEIRD KID,” and “robbery I don’t remember the case number leave me alone”.The ‘reason’ box is one of the only oversights deployed on the US automated license plate reader (ALPR) network that makes up 82,413 cameras across the country. The ALPR network requires no warrant to use, but can be used to track almost any vehicle without giving a reason. After EFF confronted numerous police departments about the bogus reasons, officers were “counseled” rather than disciplined.
- ▪Others saw the reasoning given as “Hehe,” “WEIRD KID,” and “robbery I don’t remember the case number leave me alone”.The ‘reason’ box is one of the only oversights deployed on the US automated license plate reader (ALPR) network that makes
- ▪The ALPR network requires no warrant to use, but can be used to track almost any vehicle without giving a reason.
- ▪After EFF confronted numerous police departments about the bogus reasons, officers were “counseled” rather than disciplined.
TechRadar publishes from United Kingdom and files mainly under tech. We currently carry 2,396 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
inspect →
Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/i-dont-remember-the-case-number-leave-me-alone-us-cops-ignore-flock-camera-oversight-probing-nationwide-surveillance-network-with-bogus-reasoning |
| Publication time | Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:05:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-17T20:13:44.397Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-17T20:13:44.397Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | F7ke2Mt-h6Hq · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Pro Security ‘I don’t remember the case number leave me alone': US cops ignore Flock camera oversight, probing nationwide surveillance network with bogus reasoning News By Benedict Collins Published 17 September 2026 Flock really isn't popular, and the cops aren't helping When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter US ANPR system is being used with spurious reasoning provided by copsAlmost half of US citizens are opposed to Flock camera installationsHackers cracked open a Flock camera and used it to…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechRadar.
Discussion
0 commentsMore from TechRadar
