US federal court rules searching Flock's camera network unconstitutional "mass surveillance"
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Publication time restored from the build log. . Updated: .
SI plate-recognition cameras see the whole country while the law is still catching up: searching such a database without a warrant can now cost police their case, but the outcome of appeals is still unclear.
Judge Sara Hill (federal court in Oklahoma) ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment when, without a warrant, he ran a stopped female driver's California plates through the Flock license-plate recognition system, obtained more than 50 records of her movements over a month, and on that basis searched the car (91 pounds of methamphetamine were found). The court suppressed the evidence and called the Flock network a step toward "indiscriminate mass surveillance," close to a "dragnet practice." It is one of the first federal rulings of this kind: the judge noted that earlier courts had relied on outdated precedent.
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