Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional
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Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.

Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.

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.”

  • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
    113·
    1 month ago

    Not really.

    “Alaniz then pulled his vehicle on the highway to follow the Mazda for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate. Alaniz also ran a query on the Flock system for the California license plate number on the Mazda SUV,” Hill wrote. Alaniz then ostensibly pulled Kyle over for changing lanes without a turn signal.

    …

    “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.”

    All this ruling means is that they’ll need to come up with a minor traffic violation to pull you over for first, and do the database search second once they have “probable cause.” The ruling doesn’t say they can’t use Flock, just that they can’t use it without some sort of offense being investigated. If this cop had waited until she did a lane change without signaling before doing a Flock search, then it seems like this judge would be okay with it.