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2026-10-11 -Land of the Free
A Federal Judge has ruled Flock Cameras Tag Tracking is a warrantless search and violate the Fourth Amendment
[GeorgiaRecord] An Oklahoma federal court has ruled in a new case that a warrantless search of Flock Safety license plate data is a Fourth Amendment violation. The judge called the system "a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance."

A Tulsa sheriff's deputy was found to have had no warrant and "no apparent reason" to look up a woman's license plate number other than that she had a car with California license plates, reports TechCrunch, citing reporting by 404 Media. Her travel history was then used to justify searching her car, where 91 pounds of methamphetamine were allegedly found. All evidence obtained after the Flock search "must be suppressed as the fruit of a poisonous tree," ruled Judge Sara Hill.

Hill's findings went beyond the single stop. As she noted, the tracking of people moving about in public becomes "constitutionally problematic when law enforcement can indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time and then use that information for any purpose whenever convenient." She distinguished Flock from the targeted cell phone location request at issue in Carpenter v. United States, and her depiction of Flock is telling: she said it "is a tool that collects information about all vehicles that pass by any network-connected camera at all times, and it serves up the information to law enforcement on demand."

This ruling is not binding on other courts. However, TechCrunch notes that this is one of the first times a federal court has ruled that a Flock search was unconstitutional.

There is increasing pressure on Flock across the political spectrum. Local and state governments, including Florida and Texas, have said they will stop using the technology. On Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Block Flock Act, which would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers like Flock.

Flock CEO Garrett Langley is now seeking a middle ground between privacy and safety and apologized to the women stalked by police officers using the system. With customers cancelling contracts, Flock has reportedly offered voluntary buyouts to shrink its workforce, TechCrunch reports.
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Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-11 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| ||Comments [88 views ]  Top

1 

Flock has started laying off a lsrge number of employees.
Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-11 03:34||   2026-10-11 03:34|| Front Page || Comments   Top

2 
Due to Public Backlash, and court rulings, Flock is cutting 270 plus jobs
Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-11 05:49||   2026-10-11 05:49|| Front Page || Comments   Top

3 They'll be back. The Left Coast wants to tax the miles someone drives. Courts usually support various means of taxing.
Posted by Procopius2k 2026-10-11 07:24||   2026-10-11 07:24|| Front Page || Comments   Top

4 After this obvious Constitutional ruling the judiciary can get back to collectively thwarting Trump.
Posted by Super Hose 2026-10-11 09:19||   2026-10-11 09:19|| Front Page || Comments   Top

5 The lack of warrant and later seizure come under the heading Pretexting.
LE had intel, either from informants or cell phone captures, and need an excuse, a pretext, to make the stop. What they admitted in court, and what they didn't want to talk about shows what they deem valuable.
Posted by ed in texas 2026-10-11 11:28||   2026-10-11 11:28|| Front Page || Comments   Top

6 Consider the case of the Lobsterman.

Don't think they can have it both ways.
Posted by Skidmark 2026-10-11 13:48||   2026-10-11 13:48|| Front Page || Comments   Top

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