None of these searches were run by anyone in East Moline. They did not have to be.
Flock’s network lets an outside agency run a single search across thousands of connected camera networks at once. East Moline’s cameras were among the ones searched.
Every Flock search is logged: the agency, the user, the time, the number of camera networks the search reached, an optional case number, and a free-text box where the officer types why they are running it. That log is a public record.
We asked East Moline for its log. The department told us a single month's full audit runs to several hundred thousand searches, far too many to produce in full, so we filtered our request to searches whose stated reason mentioned immigration, ICE, CBP, border, abortion, care or protest. The word “care” returned nothing. Our request covered more than a month; what we show here is one month of it, May 2025.
That is why the number is 152 and not something larger. This is what we found, not every instance.
The request, in plain terms
We will provide the full records, unaltered, to any resident, councilmember, or reporter who asks. Email [email protected].
Nothing below is our characterization. This is the free text officers entered, verbatim, including the capitalization and the typos. It is the single most important column in the log, and it is the column that is disappearing. As of December 2025, Flock requires officers to pick a preset offense type and makes this free-text reason optional, so the candid line an officer once typed can now be left blank behind a tidy category.
| Reason as entered | Searches | Category |
|---|---|---|
| ICE | 41 | Immigration |
| ice | 32 | Immigration |
| Assist border patrol | 15 | Immigration |
| Immigration | 14 | Immigration |
| USBP Immigration Investigation | 11 | Immigration |
| Immigration Enforcement | 11 | Immigration |
| immigration violation | 5 | Immigration |
| Ice Op | 4 | Immigration |
| CBP+investigation+240474143 | 3 | Immigration |
| Protest | 3 | Protest |
| ice warrant | 2 | Immigration |
| protest | 2 | Protest |
| immigration · Immigration enforcement · ICe · ICE warrant · ICE WARRANT · ICE Op · ICE SUPPORT · 1080 from ICE | 8 | Immigration, one each |
| “had an abortion, search for female” | 1 | Abortion |
| Total | 152 |
Read that column again and notice what it is: officers writing down, in their own words, that they were running immigration enforcement through a small Illinois city's cameras. Nobody had to interpret anything. They typed it.
The one abortion search in the table above made national news. A Texas deputy in Johnson County searched more than 80,000 cameras across the country looking for a woman who had ended a pregnancy. The sheriff called it a missing-person welfare check.
The court records the Electronic Frontier Foundation later obtained told a different story: a death investigation opened over her self-managed abortion, with deputies asking the district attorney about filing criminal charges. The DA told them state law did not allow it.
And it only ever came to light because the officer typed the word “abortion.” Had he written “investigation,” no records request in the country would have found it.
On August 25, 2025, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias audited Flock Safety and found it had given U.S. Customs and Border Protection access to Illinois data through an undisclosed federal pilot program. That violated 625 ILCS 5/2-130, the state's license plate reader privacy law and one of the Illinois measures, alongside the TRUST Act, that limit how the state helps federal immigration enforcement. It bars using plate data to enforce immigration detention or out-of-state abortion laws, and requires a signed declaration from any out-of-state agency before Illinois data is shared.
East Moline's cameras were reachable through that access. Eleven days later the department told KWQC it had narrowed sharing to, in the chief's words, “pretty much” Illinois agencies.
But the capability never went away. An Illinois account can still run a search on behalf of a federal one, and those searches have not stopped. What changed is the paper trail: now that a preset offense type is all Flock requires, the next immigration search on East Moline's cameras need not spell out what it is.
“If they conducted a search on the system, their search could have gone to all the cameras.”
Chief Jeff Ramsey, East Moline PD · KWQC, September 2025
“The decision was to pretty much just limit it to Illinois agencies as far as sharing because we all follow the same law.”
Chief Jeff Ramsey, same interview
It was illegal then, and nothing has changed since.
Same cameras, same network, same sharing. The Secretary of State found a violation of 625 ILCS 5/2-130, not a misunderstanding. And it has not stopped: in September 2026 alone, Homer Glen suspended its program and West Chicago and Channahon placed officers on leave over improper searches.
“Illinois only” is not a small room.
East Moline’s own sharing list runs past 480 agencies; statewide it tops 500, from police to prosecutors to railroads. And an Illinois account can run a search on behalf of a federal one. That is exactly how U.S. Customs and Border Protection got in.
Nobody is reading a log this size.
The department says one month runs to several hundred thousand searches. 121 of our 152 carried no case number, and Flock does not verify the ones that do. An audit log nobody reads is not oversight. It is a receipt.
The filter did not end the searches. It ended the honest labels.
It reads what an officer types and never checks whether it is true. Auditors found searches labeled “hehehe” and, in one review of 11.4 million, more than one in seven saying nothing but “investigation.” Now the officer just types something else, and we can no longer read why.
It is happening in Illinois right now.
Operation Midway Blitz detained an estimated 4,000 people in the Chicago area over 68 days, and immigration arrests continued through 2026. Our records show the camera’s end of it: Assist border patrol, ICE warrant, reaching cameras in East Moline. Flock halted its federal pilot, but the capability remains and the reason field can no longer be trusted to reveal it.
Illinois already had a law here. It was broken anyway.
Austin had “some of the strongest ALPR guardrails in the nation” and cancelled regardless: “guardrails are not going to work.” In Iowa, Coralville’s own policy blocking immigration searches was ruled illegal by the state, so it cancelled instead. A policy on top of a broken law is not a safeguard.
The answer is not better safeguards or a different vendor. As the national ACLU put it: “Switching to another provider won't necessarily improve anything.” The one thing that works is ending the contract.
That does not happen on its own. It happens when enough residents tell the council they know what is on these logs and they are not okay with it. There are two ways to make yourself heard.
Option 1
Email or call them about your concerns, and ask three questions: Did you know these searches were happening on our cameras? Are you okay with them? What are you going to do to stop them?
Their contacts are below. In East Moline, agenda items are set through the mayor and city administrator, so ask them to bring it forward.
Option 2
Standing up in a public meeting is not a small thing to ask, and that is exactly why it carries weight. You do not need to be on the agenda to be heard.
Council meets the 1st and 3rd Mondays at 6:30 PM at City Hall, 915 16th Avenue.
East Moline mayor and city council
One alderman represents each ward. Contacts are from the city's official website. Find your ward.
Neighbors are already pulling out
In September 2026 the Moline Police Department paused its Flock program and began deactivating all nine of its cameras. On August 31, 2026 the Henry County Sheriff's Office ended its Flock contract, reporting no indication anyone had misused the cameras locally, and Galva did the same a week later. Nobody was disciplined, nothing was covered up, and no crisis followed.
Tell your city council: end the contract with Flock, and do not replace it.
Reaching out about your concerns is how this changes. The more residents who speak up, the harder it is for the council to look away.
The contract. East Moline Police Department Flock Safety order form: 16 cameras, $217,650, 60-month term, signed December 31, 2023 by Chief of Police Jeff Ramsey. Obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Reproduced at gettheflockoutqc.com/cities.
Moline’s pause. Moline Police Department announcement, September 2026, deactivating all nine of the city’s Flock cameras.
The log itself. East Moline Police Department Flock Safety network audit, obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Our request covered more than a month; the records shown here are May 1 to 31, 2025. Plates and vehicle images redacted by the department.
East Moline’s sharing list. Provided by the East Moline Police Department under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act; more than 480 agencies.
The state audit. Illinois Secretary of State, August 25, 2025; Capitol News Illinois, August 27, 2025.
Chief Ramsey's statements. KWQC, September 5, 2025.
The Texas abortion search. 404 Media, May 29, 2025; Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 2025.
Illinois agency count. Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, August 27, 2026, “more than 500 in Illinois.” Capitol News Illinois counted more than 461 in August 2025.
The reason-field failures. The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon) on Medford PD; 404 Media on junk search reasons; EFF on 11.4 million searches.
Illinois departments halting Flock. Chicago Sun-Times, September 1, 2026 (Homer Glen, West Chicago, Channahon).
The offense-type dropdown. Flock Safety, December 10, 2025.
Flock does not verify case numbers. MIT Technology Review, August 17, 2026.
Immigration enforcement in Illinois. Chicago Sun-Times, September 8 and July 9, 2026; WTTW, September 8, 2026; ABC7 Chicago and Block Club Chicago, July 9, 2026.
Everything else, including Pflugerville, Routt County, Austin, Coralville and Henry County, is cited in full at gettheflockoutqc.com/facts.
Corrections. This page is compiled in good faith from public records and published reporting. If any figure here is wrong, email [email protected] and we will correct it in public and say what changed. We will also provide the complete records, unaltered, to anyone who asks.