Podcast: Cops Are Making Fake Flock Cameras and Amazon Packages

Read the original at 404 Media ↗
Cite

Cox, J. (2026, August 27). Podcast: Cops Are Making Fake Flock Cameras and Amazon Packages. 404 Media. https://www.404media.co/podcast-cops-are-making-fake-flock-cameras-and-amazon-packages/

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

404 Media · collected 2026-08-27 · by Joseph Cox

Quick Summary

A cop allegedly created a fake Flock camera to catch a vandal, raising questions about how someone can be charged with destroying property if the camera wasn't real. The article does not provide specific details on when or where this incident occurred. There is no mention of key numbers. This appears to be a discussion-based podcast that presents an analysis and critique of law enforcement tactics rather than a straightforward news report.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-08-27, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Evan Meyer, a man from Oviedo, Florida, was charged with three felonies after he cut down and destroyed a 3D-printed "decoy" camera produced by an officer at home using their personal 3D printer. The police department had created the fake camera to "bait" potential vandals, monitoring it for days before making the arrest. Megan Sladek, the mayor of Oviedo, said she was "speechless" over the sting operation and claimed she had no knowledge of its existence. Meyer was charged with attempted larceny/grand theft, property damage worth more than $1,000, and crimes against computer equipment supplies. The fake camera was reportedly made from inexpensive materials, such as plastic filament, but police are treating it as a serious offense.

Written for “Fake Police Surveillance Devices” on 2026-10-16, grounded in this article and the 1 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Fake Police Surveillance Devices
Crime & Law · 2 article(s) covering the same event. See how they differ ↓

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 0% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
404 Media
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 7% hedged 3 of 43 📰 publisher trust 95
“Both articles report on the same incident of a man being charged with destroying one of the police department's 3D-printed 'decoy' Flock cameras in Oviedo, Florida.”
Reason
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 7% hedged 3 of 43 📰 publisher trust 94
“Article A describes a YouTuber attending a police convention in Atlanta and running his own surveillance, while Article B mentions a cop making a fake Flock camera to catch a vandal, but does not mention the same specific event or location”
Reason
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 29% hedged 7 of 24 📰 publisher trust 94
“Article A describes a specific incident involving a police officer making a fake Flock camera, while Article B discusses the public backlash and contract cancellations against Flock Safety, but does not mention the specific incident”
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
7
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
0%
0 of 7 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
95/100
404 Media's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
2
Crime & Law
Same framing elsewhere
2
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-08-27 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

404 Media · 136 article(s) · 0 correction(s) detected
No corrections detected for this publisher. That may mean careful reporting, or simply that nothing has been checked.

Who wrote this

Joseph Cox
25 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction
🔮 A letter written by Telegram, and providing a specific user’s phone number, user ID, and IP address, reads: Dear Sir or Madam, For this particular case, the following information was available: User #7149269705 : +201155664529 [Mahmoud Almohtadi] IP 184.186.72.239, 8 Oct 2025 2:08:12 We hope this information will be helpful in your investigation. Kind regards, The Telegram Team The letter says Telegram provided the data “voluntarily” and that by providing it, Telegram is “not conceding that we are subject to U.S. jurisdiction for this or any other request or any purpose.”
🔮 This is pretty normal in the advertising world, but I seriously doubt that when most of ChatGPT’s many, many users see an ad, they realize that might be because someone, somewhere, uploaded their phone number into OpenAI’s systems.
2026-10-15 · assertive framing · ChatGPT Ads Target Your Phone Number, Email
🔮 Multiple Democrat, Republican, and Independent lawmakers have introduced new pieces of legislation that, if passed, would dramatically curb federal agencies’ access to Flock cameras, with the lawmakers referencing reporting by 404 Media in their explanations for why the legislation is needed.
🔮 Although any potential damage will be less if ShinyHunters doesn’t publish the data publicly, the theft happening at all still presents much of those same national security risks, with the data providing granular insight into how the FBI operates. “Since the very beginning we had made our decision that we would never publish this data.
🔮 What is different in this latest Copilot episode, and 404 Media’s reporting on contractors at other AI companies like OpenAI, is that the content humans are reviewing are prompts and uploads that chatbot users may assume are private, and that the contractors are not looking at this material to train the models to filter out offensive images or for some other safety concern.
🔮 And the ALPR Hostlist Management Audit report details changes made to alerts the agency may receive.
🔮 Georgia State University has rescinded a job offer given to a high profile activist who is currently fighting a case in which he allegedly wiped a security-focused Android phone before Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could search it.
🔮 The prompts these people review can include whole conversations between users and the chatbot, conversations that most of ChatGPT’s more than 900 million users probably don’t realize may be read by actual people.
🔮 Apparently over the cross of that source and interviewer relationship, Biden “asked if he could use our mailing list whenever he launched a new product,” according to a statement posted by Channel 5 to X on Monday.
🔮 Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found.
Also by Joseph Cox
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 25 articles by Joseph Cox →

Topics

404 Media Apple Podcasts Flock Spotify YouTube

Subjects

404 Media ORG · 1× Apple Podcasts ORG · 1× Darth Vader PERSON · 1× Jason PERSON · 1× Sam PERSON · 1× Spotify ORG · 1× Transistor PERSON · 1× YouTube ORG · 1×

Narrative

If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version!
framing: assertive · carried by 2 article(s) · first seen 2026-08-27
2026-08-27 · 404 Media
Podcast: Cops Are Making Fake Flock Cameras and Amazon Packages · assertive framing
2026-09-16 · 404 Media
Podcast: Humans Are Reading Your ChatGPT Conversations · assertive framing

Claims (7 extracted, 0 hedged)

We start this week with Jason’s piece on a cop making a fake Flock camera to catch a vandal. asserted
cop → start → vandal
How can you be charged with destroying expensive property if… the camera wasn’t real? asserted
camera → charge → property
After the break, Sam tells us about how Darth Vader loves Flock. asserted
Vader → tell → Flock
In the subscribers-only section, we talk a bit about three years of 404 Media. asserted
we → talk → Media
If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! asserted
you → become → version
You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. asserted
You → add → episode
The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. asserted
email → contain → version
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