A federal judge ruled that a Tulsa, Oklahoma sheriff's deputy violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights by using Flock Safety to search 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 fact that [the woman's vehicle] had a California license plate.' The deputy used the woman's travel history in Flock to justify searching her car, where he allegedly discovered 91 pounds of meth. All evidence obtained after the Flock search must be suppressed as the fruit of a poisonous tree.
Judge Hill took broader aim at warrantless searches of the Flock database, writing that tracking people's location 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 called this 'a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance' that collects information about all vehicles passing by network-connected cameras at all times.
Hill joins critics from across the political spectrum. The Block Flock Act, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers. Flock CEO Garretty Langley has called for a 'compromise' between privacy and safety and offered an apology to women stalked by law enforcement using the Flock system.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing