Mammoth Lakes Flock Records

Change log

What has changed

This brief is a living document. Corrections, additions, and other changes are listed here by date, and each changed finding is marked on the findings page. Corrections and suggestions: transparentmammoth@protonmail.com.

Corrected

  • Item 29: the audit section of MLPD’s policy cites “section 462.5(e).” The brief had called that a section that does not exist. It is a typo for 426.5(e), the case-number-or-reason rule, carried into the 2026 version where the rule is now 435.6(e). The description now says so.

Site

  • The site moved to transparentmammoth.com. Links to deflockmammoth.com redirect here, and the content is unchanged. The contact address is now transparentmammoth@protonmail.com. Changing the address altered the posted web copies of emails and tables, so their fingerprints in SHA256SUMS.txt were regenerated. Their content is unchanged.

An independent reviewer with experience in records analysis went through the posted files and sent a written report. Every count and quotation in it was re-checked against the records before anything below was published. Nothing required retraction. The reviewer's work added material this brief had not used, listed here.

Added

  • Item 38: what outside agencies typed as the reason for their searches, including searches naming federal immigration and customs agencies and two labelled as protest-related, with a note explaining the LA HIDTA drug task force.
  • Item 39: the Chief's May 2026 description of a 4–6 month “suspension,” set against department logs that show searches continuing.
  • A note on California's license-plate reader law (SB 34, Civil Code §§1798.90.5–.55) and the Attorney General's 2023 bulletin, at the top of “How the system was used,” with each related finding framed as a question.
  • A short explanation of the NCRIC fusion center in item 21.
  • Counting notes on the Documents page: duplicate rows, how “out-of-state” was assigned, and a note on image checksums.
  • The 29 web-page records (hospital emails and tabular views) are now included in the download bundle and listed in SHA256SUMS.txt.

Amended

  • Item 1: the staff report's statement that plate data is “entirely anonymous,” beside the order form's vehicle-description search.
  • Item 2: the order form lists State and Nationwide Network features that section 4.1 opts out of; the auto-renewal conflicts with section 7.1; the contract text was carried over from Truckee's, with a Nevada County venue clause and a reference to a nonexistent section.
  • Item 4: the hospital IT manager's October 2024 understanding of the system, including facial recognition, labelled as his understanding.
  • Item 7: the 2024 staff report promised a recommendation on whether to continue; the 2025 update made none.
  • Item 14: the MOU is silent on search limits, retention, FERPA, and HIPAA; the IT director signed Appendix A as authorizing agent.
  • Item 21: the 834,823 outside searches are now split into the one-day out-of-state group and the 13½ months of California statewide sharing; adds the contract's “shall not share” sentence and four more top users. “About 690 outside organizations” is replaced by the two counts.
  • Item 22: four Oklahoma City searches citing a CBP case.
  • Item 29: the published policy is the 2024 draft renumbered; it allows release to any “authorized and verified” law-enforcement agency and says reasonable suspicion is not required.
  • Item 30: the Chief's May 19, 2026 statement that no deletion confirmations had been received since implementation; Flock's answer that deletion is an AWS lifecycle rule; the retention-schedule clause; the litigation case name and number.
  • Item 31: the district's “ears only” description.
  • Item 32: the order form's promise to “proactively monitor the health of your device network.”

Added

  • A new section, Flock successes: the October 2026 stabbing arrest (36) and the successes MLPD reported to the Council in 2025 (37).
  • Statements from the official Council meeting recordings, with times, for June 5 and July 17, 2024, and February 5, September 3, and December 3, 2025, and March 18, 2026. They appear in items 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 22, 24, 30, and 31.

Amended

  • Item 2: the renewal terms were in the Council's July 2024 packet. Flock told the Council in June 2024 that renewal could be decided a year at a time, and no one mentioned the term before the vote.
  • Item 8: adds what the Council was told about sharing at the September 2025 update.
  • Item 22: adds Flock's July 2024 statement to the Council that plate data is shared only within California.
  • Item 30: adds the Council's questions about deletion in 2024 and 2025 and the follow-up presentation that has not appeared on an agenda.
  • Item 31: adds a news report of the Chief's description of Raven audio and the Town camera policy's exemption for police installations.

Corrected

  • Item 22: the out-of-state searches happened in one three-hour window on the afternoon of July 29, 2024. The earlier wording said “first days.”
  • Item 3: the Council heard in June 2024 that police were exploring a partner-funded gunshot system. The earlier wording implied the idea first came up after the vote.
  • Item 5: the Council was told about the partner network in February and September 2025, though it never voted on it.
  • Item 24: the Council was shown the closed sharing settings on September 3, 2025. The earlier wording said the public was not told about the change at all.

Removed

  • The downloadable PDF brief and one-page summary. This website is now the current version of the brief.

Site

  • The change log moved to its own page, linked as “Changes” at the top of every page. Adding that link changed the posted web copies of emails and tables, so their fingerprints in SHA256SUMS.txt were regenerated. Their content is unchanged.

  • First published: 35 findings and 77 cited documents.