The account sat in the typed reason

A Flock search joins a plate, a time and a place across a network. In the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 14 September log read, the account for entering that network sat in the reason box. Lake County Sheriff's Department typed LMAO there in July 2025. More than 30 agencies ran more than 6,300 searches with TBD; Priceville Police logged 1,954 of them. LOL, Hehe and idk sit in the same field. I do not read that box as a literary joke. The typed string was the one later-readable trace.[1]

Richmond Police said the officers in the Hehe and idk searches were counseled. Manteca Police said TBD has not been accepted since early 2026 and that an older TBD line should not, by itself, be read as the absence of a law-enforcement purpose. The foundation left that point open: TBD is evidence that the reason was left blank, not a document of an unlawful search. A warrant is also missing from these logs. EFF wrote that the system does not require one.[1]

The list took the place of the sentence

Flock said in late 2025 that it would replace required free-text reasons with a dropdown of offence types. The examples EFF quotes are Traffic infraction and Other. The selection takes half a second. The foundation counts that as a loss of transparency because a packaged label replaces the typed sentence and does not prove that the chosen type matches the true purpose. The counter-reading is in the same piece: Flock Safety claims the crime list improved the system. I read that claim as a filing convention, not as a closed gap.[1]

Fewer jokes are not a cleaner search

EFF wrote that the joke lines it highlights fell sharply from early 2026, and that the dropdown may explain the drop. The drop can be two things. Officers may now type a serious reason. Or the joke may now sit under Traffic infraction. The retained log does not rule the second out; Flock's own claim is that a crime list improved filing. If agencies do not publish offence-type counts, the evidence from the LMAO period stays in the old free-text window. My scepticism here is professional: I do not accept that a change in the form of the log is a change in the purpose of the search.[1]