# Federal LE Data-Sharing Pipeline The set of mechanisms by which **federal LE agencies access state and local ALPR data through the Flock Safety platform**, without per-query court process, without per-relationship MOU, and without state/local-elected-body authorization at either end. Conway PD's production documents the pipeline with two anchor artifacts: the [[Federal Searches CSV]] (5,929 federal-officer plate lookups touching Conway data in a two-month window) and the [[SharedNetworks 2025-12-17 Snapshot]] (the topology that enables it). ## How it appears in the corpus **Mechanism (operational):** 1. A federal LE agency (FBI, USPIS, NPS, etc.) is onboarded to the Flock platform under the `[Federal]` org-prefix convention. 2. Flock's platform admin UI lets agencies on either side toggle bidirectional or unidirectional sharing. 3. Once a relationship is configured, any plate read in Conway PD's network becomes searchable by the federal agency's authorized users — without per-query Conway approval, without notice to Conway, without warrant. 4. Each search is logged in Flock's audit system; Conway PD can request an export of federal searches that touched its data. The corpus contains one such export: the [[Federal Searches CSV]]. **Volume (corpus-confirmed, March 1, 2026 – April 21, 2026):** | Agency | Searches | Share | |---|---:|---:| | US Postal Inspection Service | 3,502 | 59.1% | | Federal Bureau of Investigation | 2,385 | 40.2% | | Natchez Trace Parkway NPS | 42 | 0.7% | | **Total** | **5,929** | **100%** | **Notable absences (March–April 2026 window):** - ICE / Homeland Security Investigations - DHS / Customs and Border Protection - DEA / ATF / US Marshals - Arkansas State Police (state-level analog) These absences are *information*, not evidence of non-access — a different window or a non-`[Federal]`-prefixed login (e.g., JTTF officer with state-police credentials) would not appear in this export. ## Stakeholders - **Federal LE agencies** — the data consumers. The "Org Name" field in audit logs identifies them via Flock's `[Federal]` convention. - **Local LE (Conway PD)** — the data provider, by sharing-relationship configuration. - **The vendor (Flock)** — the platform operator that mediates the relationship, records the activity, and generates the exports. **Flock is the choke point**: relationships exist only inside Flock's product; activity exists only because Flock's platform enables cross-organizational queries. - **The public** — receives notice only through FOIA productions like this one. There is no proactive disclosure regime. ## Timeline - 2025-12-17 — Flock platform cutover; [[SharedNetworks 2025-12-17 Snapshot]] dated. - 2026-03-01 → 2026-04-21 — [[Federal Searches CSV]] window: 5,929 federal lookups. - 2026-04-17 — Joshua's FOIA filed. - 2026-04-23 — Conway PD completes production including the Federal Searches export. ### In PDFOI-2026-1874 (LRPD Flock emails) The Little Rock PD production surfaces the vendor-side controls that govern this pipeline, but — unlike Conway — produced no Federal Searches export to quantify it. Flock's February 2026 newsletter announces "Agency-Level Control for Federal Data Sharing," a toggle letting an agency "decide, at the agency level, whether they receive data-sharing requests from federal partners," alongside a year-end "Federal Opt-In capability" ([[Federal Data-Sharing Controls and Federal-Access Posture]], Emails 36-63.pdf pp. 305, 565, 573, 656). That an opt-in/agency-control feature was newly added implies federal requests were a default-on channel before 2026. The same corpus carries Flock's ICE-does-not-use-Flock messaging — a vendor claim, not an LRPD fact — relayed via an East Palo Alto official "confirming ICE does not use Flock for immigration enforcement" ([[Federal Data-Sharing Controls and Federal-Access Posture]], Emails 36-63.pdf p. 523), and a new CJIS login disclaimer outlining authorized-use requirements "including immigration and reproductive care laws in certain states" (Emails 36-63.pdf p. 521). Critically, **no Federal Searches CSV was produced for LRPD** — the LRPD production contains the policy artifacts (the federal-access toggle, the disclaimers, the vendor denial) but lacks the volumetric audit anchor that makes the Conway pipeline measurable. That absence is itself notable: the LRPD record establishes the federal-access mechanism exists and is configurable, without quantifying whether or how federal agencies queried LRPD-touching data. ## Notes - The most policy-significant findings are: 1. **Default-on bidirectional sharing** — federal-LE access exists by configuration, not by warrant or MOU. 2. **Search reasons** — FBI uses "Other - Not Applicable" uniformly; USPIS uses "Financial Crime (Embezzlement/Fraud) - Inspections" which does not require ALPR access to mail-handling premises specifically. The reason field is auditable but not gating. 3. **Volume scale** — ~116 federal lookups per day touch one Arkansas city's local ALPR data. At scale across the 1,384-org sharing network, the per-federal-officer total reach is in the thousands of networks. 4. **Vendor centrality** — Flock generates, controls, and can theoretically modify these records. The pipeline does not exist without the vendor. - See [[Federal Searches CSV]] for the specific data anchor and the open questions about other windows, non-`[Federal]`-prefixed federal logins, and missing agencies. - External sources that could provide further context include 404 Media coverage of Flock-federal access, EFF analyses, ACLU testimony on ALPR-federal-sharing, and any DHS/DOJ OIG reports.