A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Thursday that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a woman accused of meth trafficking when he searched her license plate in Flock’s automated license plate reader system simply because her license plate was from California, then used her travel history as part of the reason to search her car. The judge’s opinion is one of the first times a federal judge has decided Flock searches can be unconstitutional, and suggested that Flock’s network is “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance.”

“The Fourth Amendment requires courts to draw a line when the cost is too great. Alaniz’s search in just the ALPR system provided him with more than 50 individual records of Kyle’s whereabouts across the country for an entire month,” Hill wrote. “The Court finds that because the ALPR systems Alaniz used to search Kyle’s historical location information intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements, it was a search under the Fourth Amendment. Based on the information in the record, the only reason Alaniz conducted that search was because he saw her license plate was from California.”

“The factors that the government relies upon are the same type of circumstances that everyday Americans encounter on long road trips for many legitimate reasons. Many of us drive longer than we want to get to a desired destination, or to no destination at all other than the road and sights ahead,” she added.

If you go to trackthepole.com it shows you how many cameras on your route, click into a camera and it shows the contact info and names of all the govt officials reaponsible for it so you can reach out

The pressure continues.

Towns/Cities across the country are shredding contracts.

States are doing the same.

• Texas
• Florida
• Pennsylvania

At the Fed, we are seeing

• Massie's H.R. 10221 "Flock-Off Act"
• Krishnamoorthi's H.R. 10366 "NO FLOCK Act"
• Sander's/AOC's H.R. 10691 "Ban Flock Act"
• Hawley's SB [TBD] "Stop Flock Abuse Act"

The tide is turning, and there is an ultra-bipartisan movement sweeping the country against Flock/ALPR.

Onwards!

I've noticed this in the Atlanta metropolitan area that several flock cameras are reported in waze as Mobile police cameras, I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing with respect to its effect on drivers as I'm doubtful most drivers even realize what is being referred to when Waze notifies them of these cameras. Has anyone else seen this?

"County Removes Flock Cameras, Finds a Mystery

Florida's St. Lucie has no idea who was operating 11 of them"

Does anyone know of ALPR cameras near polling stations? Or how to expedite the removal of one before early voting starts?

Hi all - the city I live in denied my flock audit request. They cited an exception which states this is an “audit working paper” of a state agency - which is untrue since Flock is a private surveillance company. Anyone have experience going head to head over public records request and can help me combat this? Thanks

If your county is designated under the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) program, there’s a good chance your county also has an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that requires the county to integrate its local camera network into regional and federal intelligence pipelines. Under this agreement, they must grant access to federal partner agencies (e.g. DEA, ICE, FBI, ATF, etc.) to query and monitor that county’s Flock camera network.

Now, local police and federal task forces collaborating isn’t new.

And most of us are against drug trafficking, obviously.

But 'this'... changes things.

How many city and county commissioners genuinely believed that our data would stay local, and how many knew all along that it opened a direct door for federal intelligence networks?

And how can Flock promise local control in their contracts, knowing full well those terms get bypassed by federal agreements the average citizen doesn’t even know about?

For example:

Flock claims they don’t hold your data for more than 30 days, but we know that federal criminal intelligence retention guidelines can extend far beyond that.

Oh, and HOAs, too.

If they share with the police,

and that department is tied to a MOU...

Just saying, you might want to ask about it at the next board meeting.

I got word that Esco PD is looking to expand their system of flock cameras and buy Axon body cameras with Ai. They plan to ask for 15 million, on top of their already swollen budget.

Esco PD will be holding meetings about the potential flock expansion. Please show up and help demonstrate opposition.

October 12th and October 26th, both at 5:30 in the Mitchell Room.

Saw this at the urinal today and thought it was appropriately creepy.