A federal judge ruled this week that a Tulsa, Oklahoma sheriff’s deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights when using Flock Safety to search for her license plate without a warrant. Judge Sara Hill stated the deputy should have obtained a warrant before searching the Flock database, as he had “no apparent reason” for the search other than the woman’s California license plate. The deputy used the woman’s travel history from Flock to justify searching her car, where he allegedly found 91 pounds of meth.
Judge Hill wrote that all evidence obtained after the Flock search “must be suppressed as the fruit of a poisonous tree.” She criticized warrantless Flock searches as “indiscriminate mass surveillance,” noting the system passively catalogs vehicle locations over time. Hill joined critics across the political spectrum, citing actions by Florida, Texas, and Senator Bernie Sanders, who introduced the Block Flock Act to ban federal use of automated license plate readers. Flock CEO Garretty Langley called for a privacy-safety compromise and apologized to women stalked via the system, while Flock reportedly offered employee buyouts amid cancellations.
Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing