Doug MacMillan

Corporate accountability reporter @washingtonpost. Formerly @WSJ @Bloomberg @BW. Same thing we do every night, Pinky 🐭 Signal: douglasmac.02

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

Police departments are not regularly auditing how their officers use Flock, a powerful surveillance network -- so we did it for them. Three cops are now being investigated and one was arrested as a result of our inquiries.

Here's how we did it... 🧵

[Christopher Ingraham🦗 @_cingraham]

Lot of eye-opening details in this new Post story on how Flock's lackadaisical attitude toward security -- the company didn't require 2FA until this August -- has allowed unauthorized people to access sensitive data https://t.co/L7w8AgNiwF

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

New: We found cops who kept using Flock to spy on women after they left the force.

One used it for five years after retirement, spying on his wife during a custody battle.

Another ran searches while he was suspended (and later fired) after killing a 15-year-old boy.

🧵

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

The story is the part you see. This is the journalism behind it. We take you inside our investigation into the misuse of Flock Safety’s nationwide network of license plate readers. We are Relentless.

Read more: https://t.co/Fvdtwo7IAx

[Scott Nover @ScottNover]

Very cool @washingtonpost campaign highlighting the incredible reporting on police misuse of Flock cameras by @drewharwell, @dmac1 and Aaron Schaffer, shepherded by @SobelFitts. https://t.co/TAA1TBqKVw

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

Our Flock reporting just got five cops arrested.

The Indiana cops were just criminally charged for spying on women. @aaronjschaffer, @dmac1 and I found suspicious searches and got their agency to investigate. How many bad cops are still getting away?

https://t.co/s5nPwvDOEJ

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

Five cops in Indianapolis were just criminally charged with abusing Flock to spy on their ex-wives, their wives' ex-partners and women they met on duty. Audit was triggered by us at the @washingtonpost, the prosecutor said. Story incoming.

[Rebekah Allen @rebekahallen]

The gov's action on Flock cameras comes as @a_y_denrunnels was preparing to publish this investigation into how a state agency appointed by Abbott has used an auto insurance fee increase passed by #txlege to massively expand the Flock network across Texs
https://t.co/SLSI3H9rQ9

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

New: Americans' feelings toward Flock & license-plate readers have completely flipped since last year.

More Americans now oppose police use than support it, saying the cameras don't make them feel safer and that they don't want any near their homes.

What the new polls show: 🧵

[Robert Frommer @Robert_Frommer]

Wow! Recent polling shows that pretty much every American demographic group views Flock unfavorably. Proud to see that privacy and security is something we can all get behind!

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

.@GovRonDeSantis cites the case of the Florida cop we first found misusing Flock data, says license plate readers are "out of control" and could lead to a “surveillance state”: "What the hell’s going on with this? ... People are right to be concerned" https://t.co/5xVrTfdkbU

[Rob Poggenklass @rpogge]

This type of public review—which resulted in three investigations and one arrest—is not even possible in Virginia because of a massive freedom of information act exemption in the 2025 law purporting to regulate law enforcement use of ALPRs.

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

These cops misused your service for years and went undetected by their departments, who never did audits. They only took action after journalists read the audit logs and flagged the suspicious use to the departments. Which part of catching these cops is Flock taking credit for?

[Rahul Sidhu @rahul]

You're going to see more stories about Flock catching bad cops misuse the database. We're the only company in the industry with this level of auditing at scale. If the others had this level of auditing, you'd see a lot more stories about cops abusing DMV data, etc.

[Robert Frommer @Robert_Frommer]

In IJ's Norfolk, Va.'s Flock lawsuit, we learned that for 2 years no one at the NPD reviewed the audit logs (history of who searched for what). Even after we sued, they didn't start until after they lost their motion to dismiss. It turned out to be one guy in a basement.

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

@_ianwatts_ 3 months could be an eternity for a stalking victim / target of abuse. why wait?

and when even audit assistance becomes mandatory for everyone, there's no certainty departments will act on the information.

[Peener Cetera @jaigbaig]

@dmac1 Takes a lot of air out of the argument that cops getting caught & 'punished' shows the system working how it should when this is what it takes to catch them

[Drew Harwell @drewharwell]

A sheriff's office in Louisiana just fired a Flock-misusing deputy known as DJ Bulletproof (the media outlet was us, btw) https://t.co/BhS1Sdz0r7

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

Gift link to full story with @aaronjschaffer @drewharwell here: https://t.co/ljlfxmmfqv

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

Police departments are not regularly auditing how their officers use Flock, a powerful surveillance network -- so we did it for them. Three cops are now being investigated and one was arrested as a result of our inquiries.

Here's how we did it... 🧵

[Doug MacMillan @dmac1]

Other departments took swift action, too. Indianapolis police chief Tanya Terry suspended an officer without pay after my outreach. She acknowledged her agency wasn't doing regular audits prior to this incident. (Grace Hollars/IndyStar/USA Today/Reuters)