Cops Are Making Fake Flock Cameras and Amazon Packages

0:00The Wired newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:57and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist-centered company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404media.co. Also, do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes. Subscribe at youtube.com slash at 404media.co. Another reminder that 404 Media has turned three years old. Well, that's pretty crazy.

1:43And we're having two events to celebrate. The first is on September 3rd, and that's like a live podcast recording of the abstract. We're going to talk about data center stuff as well. And then on Friday, September 4th, we have an open bar party. You can buy tickets at the link below. Or if you are paying for a full media subscriber, you get them for free. This is at Freeze Brewing in New York City, one of those locations. so these tickets will probably sell out quite soon this is very very this is on horizon this party so do get your tickets in now if you want to secure your spot. You did save yourself in the end but all of you, all three of you keep talking about the party without mentioning the city that it's in until like the end where it's like New York is not the center of the universe there's other places Los Angeles is also a place and we're doing an event Thursday, September 10th in Los Angeles, if you're in Los Angeles, with our friends at The Intercept.

2:52We're going to be talking about Flock and Palantir and other surveillance things. There will be an RSVP in the show notes for that. But it's going to be at The Loved One in Los Angeles. So there are at least two cities on planet Earth. Apparently. So, I mean, this story we're going to focus on is obviously a specific incident and it is about Flock and we'll get into that. But there is sort of a broader thing here about really elaborate and stupid police stings. So the headline for this one at the moment is man charged with free felonies for breaking 3D printed decoy Flock camera. So we've had a lot of flock vandalism across the country, Jason.

3:39People are breaking cameras, obviously. They are crashing trucks into them. They are apparently shooting them. They are pulling them down or whatever. This is now a, to be charitable, novel way of cops combating it. To be less charitable, fucking batshit and stupid way for cops to combat it. and shows how at least one police department is trying to go about it. So what happened in this Florida town with this decoy flock camera? Yeah, so this was in Oviedo, Florida, which is a suburb of Orlando. And like some cities across the United States, their flock cameras were vandalized and stolen in late July and early August.

4:28and while the police department is waiting for replacement cameras, someone at the police department had the idea of making a decoy camera. The details here are like we've been able to suss out over time. I've been like battling with the city's police department on some public records requests I filed. There's also been good local reporting on this. And then also the mayor has been posting a lot on Facebook and I've been emailing back and forth with the mayor. So basically, everything I'm about to say comes from a mix of police reports beefing with this city over a public records request and emails and social media posts with the mayor.

5:11Basically, it sounds like one individual cop in his free time downloaded a 3D model of a flock camera at home on his 3D printer and printed out this camera, not a camera, just a plastic shell of a camera. Actually did multiple of them. There was at least two of these decoy cameras. And then they hung it on the poles where the flock cameras used to be. The police then watched these cameras all night. So they had human beings sitting and watching these cameras between Sunday of last week and Thursday night when this man was arrested. He was arrested like shortly after midnight. And basically, this man had garden shears, like hedge clippers, and he knocked one of the fake cameras off the pole and destroyed it.

6:06And then he was arrested. And very interestingly, he was charged basically with attempted grand larceny. So he was charged with three different felonies, despite the fact that these fake cameras are worth a few dollars at most. 3D printing plastic filament is quite cheap. And the mayor actually told me that the camera was, quote, free. And so he destroyed a free thing. And so it's one, like a very interesting policing tactic that shows the escalation of this sort of like cat and mouse game between flock vandals and police trying to catch them. But then it also is like a super interesting legal question because how is this going to play out?

6:52Yeah, so just to summarize before I ask one of those legal questions, this cop, as you say, apparently on their free time, made a fake decoy flock camera, put it up as bait, essentially. They did a stakeout waiting for somebody to come vandalize it. This person, Evan Mayer, allegedly did that, came and chopped it down with their hedge clippers. They then arrest this person and charge him with a variety of crimes. And one of those is alleged property damage of more than$1 ,000. How can you charge someone with alleged property damage over$1 ,000 if the property was a very, very cheap, essentially free, fake camera?

7:41Like, have the police or the authorities justified that at all? Because that's the most obvious question. Yeah. And then just loop this in there. He was also charged with property crimes against computer equipment. Is this computer equipment? It's like a non-functional piece of plastic, literally. But basically the way that it's described in the arrest report is, here's a quote. It says, when asked how much he believes the camera costs to replace, he stated approximately$1 ,000 to$5 ,000, proving that Meyer knew it was an expensive, real piece of equipment and not a fake replica. So one, it wasn't a real expensive, real piece of equipment.

8:18But basically, it's like because they're arguing that because he thought that it would cost more than$1 ,000 to replace, that they are allowed to charge him with this like bigger grand larceny, attempted grand larceny crime, as well as this criminal mischief of more than$1 ,000 crime, which is also super interesting because they say in the police report that the actual cost to replace our flock camera is$800, which is less than$1 ,000. And then also it's like we have seen a bunch of flock documents. I've been reporting on this. We haven't published a bigger article about it yet. But flock often charges$300 to replace these.

8:55It's not$800. So I don't know. that raises all sorts of questions for me. I think that I've seen a mix of public sentiment on the town's Facebook page where a lot of this discussion has been happening. A lot of people are furious at the police that they did this. A lot of people are saying that the police should have told people that they were putting up a fake camera, which is, I guess, defeats the purpose of doing a sting like this, then other people are like, well, cops pose as child traffickers all the time and cops, or sometimes at least, and cops sometimes do sting operations with drugs and things like that.

9:42I really don't know how to think about this because the thing that he destroyed is essentially worthless. Yeah. You bring up the drug example, and that was the parallel that immediately came to me, which is that when you go through court records and a new criminal charge or indictment or a criminal complaint or whatever, and you have these documents that explain how the investigation came about, a ton of those are undercover bodies by, I don't know, DEA or ATF or even like local police. or something like that. And what will often happen there is that the cops will go to a dealer and they will pose as a buyer and they will buy drugs and they'll do what they call a controlled buy.

10:34What is happening there is that they're getting real drugs. So that sort of sting operation is much, much clearer. Now, cops do sometimes use fake drugs. I've seen it where they'll intercept a shipment of real drugs, they'll replace it with fake stuff, they'll ship that over to the people, and they'll still arrest them based on the intent to source real drugs. But the cops still got the real drugs in the first place. And then finally, there are some cases where cops will try to sell fake drugs, but I feel like anecdotally, just in my experience from reading a ton of drug cases, that is rarer because that's just going to be a harder thing to stick, right?

11:19I think you can say, based on the evidence available, this person intended to vandalize a flock camera. Sure, whatever. I don't know if these charges line up with that necessarily, right? There's that. And then also the mayor, who's this woman, Megan Sladek. I didn't know that. I guess this is a thing in many places, but the mayor is a part-time job. So she's like, I'm an attorney also. And so she's like, I'm very interested. She told me in this email I sent her back and forth that she's interested in the legal. ramifications here. First of all, she said she was totally surprised. She had no idea the cops were doing this.

11:54And she was quite concerned that they were doing this. And then she was like, oh, it didn't cost us any money. Great. And then she said, well, I'm really interested in the legal thing here. And then she and the cops both seem to imply that they think that perhaps this guy also did the earlier vandalism of the actual real Flock cameras. And of course, there's no evidence of that to our knowledge. That's not mentioned in the police report at all, other than the fact that they were previously stolen. But the mayor sort of was like, well, if he tried to steal this one and our cameras were stolen a month ago, is it the same person?

12:44it sounds like they want to make that argument in some way. Like not only did he, is this a crime, but like perhaps he did earlier crimes. And, you know, there's no indication at this moment that that's actually the case. So that makes it a bit different from like a drug buy as well, where they're like, oh, maybe we can like investigate earlier crimes based on this. And then also the mayor argued to me that this is art. And so he has destroyed art, which is a crime, obviously. I mean, she's like, well, destruction of any property is a crime. And this is art, and therefore, it's a crime. And it's not that that is terribly relevant here, but I'm curious, throwing this to the art historians here, is downloading a 3D printed model off of a free 3D model website and printing it art when done by the police?

13:40To be fair, the cop was doing this in his spare time. So maybe it was a nice little art project. You know, like after work, he clocks off and I'm going to make a little flock camera. It actually wasn't for a bust at all. Just really, really likes flock, you know. Dude, the whole thing is a performance. Right. And I think it's literally priceless. But the guy is part of it and he should like benefit from this beautiful happening. Oh, the guy who put it down. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's obviously a participant in this. Everyone played a role. Yes.

14:18You said that, you know, this is based on your conversations with the mayor and then public records, the police report. Well, partly public records because it sounds like the police either don't really have a paper trail on this at all because a cop was doing it in his spare time or they don't want to give it to you or it's a bit of both. How weird and secretive and vague are the cops being to you around this? Yeah, so I've been extremely aggressive here because I think it's nuts. The whole thing is pretty nuts because, again, the community is like, how did this happen? The mayor is like, how did this happen?

14:57Who approved this? How was this made? That sort of thing. So there's questions as to how this went down. And the police have described this as, separately, a pretty intense investigation that was approved by the police chief, where multiple police officers spent multiple nights sitting in their cars staring at these things. Right. That's not done by a cop in his spare time. Maybe they made the camera in their spare time, but the stakeout is obviously official police business. Yes. And so the cops are arguing that anything having to do with this decoy camera is part of the investigative record and therefore exempt from being released to the public and that they can't even talk about it.

15:45which is also notable because there's a meeting about getting rid of Flock in Oviedo in a few days. And so this town is already considering getting rid of Flock. And the mayor is like, we need to know more about all of this so that we can make an informed decision about how people feel about Flock, how the police are using Flock, whether we want to get rid of it or not. She says that it's relevant. The police are like, we won't talk about it. And then they are refusing to release the records to me. I filed various formal freedom of information requests in Florida. They're saying that anything having to do with camera is related to this investigation.

16:31I then was like well if this was made by a cop in his free time prior to any of this happening that shouldn't be part of the investigation that should just be a public record and then they basically argued like he did this as a private citizen and then donated it to the police and therefore any records of how he made this where he downloaded it from text messages, conversations about it are not releasable, which I think is fake. I don't think that's right. And I think that it is something that I'm going to keep challenging because using your personal phone or your personal computer, if it ultimately is for taxpayer-related business, is a public record and should be a public record.

17:25and it either is a public record that they can then argue as exempt or it's not a public record. Basically, I'm just in this argument with them about... And then they are alternately claiming that one, there are no records. They're saying there's no records. And then I'm like, how are there no records for this multi-day, quite involved thing? How is that possible? And they're like, Like, all the records are exempt and you're not getting them. Oh, wait, wait, wait. So the records, they don't exist, but also they exist and they're exempt. Okay, sure. Thank you for clearing that up, the police department.

18:04So just briefly, this is very much like some of these fake Amazon package stings we covered back at Motherboard. Just run us through, like, what did cops do there and were they effective at all? Yeah, so while we were reporting on Ring, our former colleague Caroline Haskins filed a bunch of Freedom of Information requests about Ring partnerships with police. And for a while, and I guess still to this day, Amazon was pitching Ring as a solution to a package theft problem, like Porch Pirates, where Amazon would deliver a package and then someone would steal it. and Amazon would have to send another package.

18:49And it costs them a lot of money. It still costs them a lot of money. And so what some police departments did was they set up these sting operations where they took empty Amazon packages, put them on people's porches, and then staked out those porches waiting for someone to steal them and then wanting to arrest the person who took the empty boxes. And they did this in, I think, at least three or four cities that we're aware of. and this resulted in zero arrests, like no arrests whatsoever. But we were able to get public records about essentially the police interactions with Amazon about how these were set up and then police records about like, oh yeah, here's the plan, operational type stuff.

19:34That to me suggests that some of how this was set up should be released. But it also shows that like cops have been interested in this decoy situation for years at this point. And it's now escalated to the point where, one, it has resulted in this arrest in Florida, but also maybe this is something that other cops are going to try throughout the country. I suspect that they will, just because this flock vandalism problem has become such a big thing. Like we did reporting showing that cops all around the country are being warned about it. There's now dozens of cities where this has happened. I know that some cities have set up patrols where they are monitoring the cameras 24-7.

20:25Some places have definitely put up other video cameras, like surveillance cameras to surveil the flock cameras. And so this idea that they can put decoy cameras out and then arrest people for them, I think that that is something that we're probably going to see more of if it's not already being done. Yeah, totally. All right, we'll leave that there. When we come back after the break, we spoke to Darth Vader. We'll be right back after this.

20:56I have way too many hoodies for somebody who basically wears the same one over and over. There's hoodies that are comfortable but way too heavy. There's some that look good but aren't warm. And then there's the ones that somehow lose their shape after you've worn them for a while. Paka has pretty much solved that problem for me. Paka's best-selling hoodie is made with alpaca fiber, one of the world's most sustainable natural fibers. It's softer than cashmere, warmer than wool, and still breathable, which makes it incredibly versatile. It's also thermoregulating, odor-resistant, durable, and made to last.

21:27So instead of having a different sweatshirt for sitting around the house, traveling, or heading outside, this is one I keep grabbing no matter the situation. What also makes Paka different is how they're made. Every hoodie is made start to finish in Peru, and each one has an Inca ID handwoven by artisans honoring generations of knowledge and tradition. More than 250 ,000 people have already picked one up. I got a Paka hoodie last fall and I've been wearing it all through spring, even summer nights when it gets chilly here in Los Angeles. It's desert, so I do grab it. And I'm looking forward to wearing it basically every day over the fall and winter.

22:02To grab your Paka hoodie, go to www.pakaapparel.com. That's www.pakaapparel.com. p-a-k-a-apparel.com. So for fun, I googled myself last week and found my home address, my phone number, and a relative I'm fairly sure I've never met, all on directory sites I never signed up for. That's the data broker economy. They scrape your info, package you up like a trading card, and sell you off to whoever's paying, which is exactly how identity thieves go shopping. Bad luck when your entire job is not getting doxxed. So we use Incogni. Instead of you spending hundreds of hours filling out opt-out forms across 40 browser tabs, Incogni gets to work by sending legal removal requests to over 420 harmful data broker sites.

22:47It's independently verified by Deloitte, resubmits requests every 30 to 60 days as brokers try to quietly relist you, and you can track every request right from the app. On the unlimited plan, the exposure scanner digs up the weirder stuff across the wider web, like old forums, random blogs or obscure directories. It surfaces all your exposed profile links right in your dashboard, where you can simply select links to get taken down. And Incogni's team of human privacy experts will handle the manual corporate takedowns for you. Take back control today. Go to incogni.com slash 404media and use code 404media for 60 % off an annual plan.

23:25That's incogni.com slash 404media, promo code 404media. Risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

23:40And we are back. The headline for this one is the man behind Antiflock Darth Vader mask wants to know, when will this end? So I think a lot of people may have seen this go pretty viral and we'll get to that virality in a minute. but Sam, Anthony Ralph's this person. He says he's done all of the right things. What does he mean by that exactly? Yeah, so Anthony, who is the guy who's behind the mask in this like Vader stunt that I'm sure people have seen and we can play a clip of it also. The Emperor is a fan of Flock. I should not have had to wear this Darth Vader outfit in order to get your attention.

24:21I think we know who the bad guy is now. He has been going to San Diego City Council meetings for about a year now. The first one he went to, it was like a really big, noisy meeting where there was a bunch of groups, a bunch of organizations, a bunch of privacy and surveillance organizations. Hundreds of people showed up in person and online to oppose Flock in San Diego, which has had a deal with San Diego City since 2019, but they were trying to oppose it getting renewed. So he's been going and showing up and feels passionately about this as just a person who wants better privacy rights in San Diego for a long time.

25:02And, you know, has been coming in with all of his papers and like his case law and like citing the Constitution, citing previous cases and dresses like you would if you're going to like a government meeting. he's someone who like took it very seriously and has been very frustrated by the fact that you show up and you do all that and you do it like right quote unquote correct and still end up getting ignored or you know like they over and over the city council votes against what the constituents overwhelmingly say they want no they just say okay we hear you we're not listening um is is the the impression that he's getting from these elected officials so yeah he he got sick of it and he said, I'm going to show up in a really blatant metaphor.

25:48Yes. And I mean, you mentioned how prepared he was and he absolutely was. Like early on in this story, you mentioned that he brought up a specific Supreme Court ruling which challenged the constitutionality of geofence warrants. We had that recently. It was a Google geofence warrant And that was where law enforcement would go to Google and say, we want details on all of the phones that were in this particular location across this stretch of time. And they can be really, really broad and invasive and sweep up lots of innocent people. That was a really interesting ruling recently that says you actually do have an expectation of privacy, potentially over sort of digital location data.

26:35so the idea that it could be applied to flock is something that people are exploring and like that's a pretty sophisticated thing to bring I think to a city council meeting but as you said and as he told you that doesn't work exactly so obviously as people have heard and seen the clip he comes dressed as Darth Vader and starts saying stuff like the emperor loves Flock and all of that sort of thing. This goes massively viral, right? Like we clip it and we post it to our socials. But like how much this spreads? Because it kind of broke containment a little bit. Although that's hard to say with Flock now because kind of Flock is everywhere.

27:21Yeah, I mean, I was looking at it. So we published this late last week. I think it was maybe Friday, Thursday or Friday. But the appearance was on the 19th. and he uh obviously went viral uh in large part because we had clipped it uh we wrote about it and i was like oh you know like we write about these kind of city council like stunts for lack of a better word pretty often i was like you know probably like the people who write about flock will write about this and then i looked on monday morning and it was every outlet on the planet like had written about this uh stuff like you know it was everything from like yahoo to the hill to like um i think it was it was a couple like other um countries like it was translated to arabic and spanish um the straight times which is in singapore wrote about it it just like captured people's attention in the way that i think a lot of other coverage of flock and city council hasn't i think because it is this like really strong visual uh you know symbol and he's getting up and saying, I love Flock.

28:29Flock is something that the emperor is so interested in. It's something I think people are immediately like, yeah, I get what this is saying without reading too much into it. So he does that. It obviously goes viral. He gets, I imagine, a bunch of interview requests, including from us. Does he have any sort of indication or insight or information about whether it was effective. I mean, and I guess there are two... Was it effective at convincing the city council or effective at raising the issue? Because the latter seems obviously true. Like it went massively viral. But what does he think about the effectiveness of what he did?

29:15So I don't think there's anything big to be done as far as the city council members until next month. They're going to have another meeting about this. But I would say he considers it effective just because it's something that he's been trying to raise awareness about in San Diego and beyond for such a long time. And now it finally, like, clicks. It finally is something that people are talking about. I think because, like you said, the wave of, like, everything is flock all the time now on social media. Like, everyone is talking about flock and protesting flock and, you know, like, cutting on cameras and stuff like that.