A Naperville police officer turned a statewide camera grid into a personal tracking app, ran a man’s plate about 150 times, and then retired like the file never existed.
The story serves as yet another example of how the burgeoning mass surveillance grid is being abused on a regular basis.
Patrick Dowhen was not a suspect. He was the ex. After Officer Oscar Maldonado started a relationship with Dowhen’s fiancée, Flock became the shortcut. No warrant. No case number that mattered. Just a badge, a login, and a national lattice of plate readers that can reconstruct where you went, when you went, and how often you go there.
“Anywhere I went in the country, I was being tracked,” Dowhen told ABC7 Chicago’s I-Team. “It was scary, it was really scary.”