The Flock Cameras Story Continued. Previously, a small camera startup out of Atlanta grew into a multi-billion-dollar company. Then they ran straight into a wave of misuse scandals. In addition, six-figure city contracts became a long list of cancellations for the company.
Something to think about for anyone who travels regularly on road trips, commuting or work drives, catch this. Whether police need a warrant to track everywhere your car has been all year, this is still being decided in court, right now.
What’s the real question? Is any of this actually legal? Does the government even need a warrant to track your car this way? The laws are vague in this area. States aren’t waiting around for the answer. Who’s fighting on each side? Is the Fourth Amendment already being ignored? Is there something that you could do? Do “we the people” actually know what we can do?
Is This Even Legal?
Our question is, again – Does the Government even need a warrant to track your car with the cameras? The case came up because two Virginia residents sued Norfolk, saying that the camera network had tracked their every move without a warrant. One person was logged 526 times and the other was 849 times in about four months. The judge indicated in his ruling that the “system doesn’t track ‘the whole’ of someone’s life.” They have appealed. It’s in Federal appeals court, the Fourth Circuit. Whatever this court decides, it could set the ruling for the entire country. By the way, most states don’t require anyone to get a warrant before pulling the history from the Flock cameras.
The Fourth Amendment (ratified in 1791) applies to all 50 states. In everyday language, the government can’t search you, your stuff or track you without a good reason. If they want a warrant to do so, they have to convince a judge first. And, they have to have real evidence and not just a hunch. The fight in Schmidt v. Norfolk is whether constant camera tracking counts as a “search.” This case is in the Fourth Circuit court right now. Is this type of tracking legal?
States Write New Rules and Laws
This is a new area of concern. It seems to fall in the jurisdiction of the police. But, private companies are the ones that have the systems that the police would use. And, if you’ve read my other page, you realize that we are talking about video-taping the driving habits of individuals traveling the highways. Reportedly, it is to scan the license plate, but the application is much more thorough than just that. It is a full report on that vehicle. And, it doesn’t always get it right, either.
So, the states need to decide what is going to happen. 21 different states have some law on the books, but it regulates only police use, not the private companies that provide the cameras and keep the videos on file. Yes, Flock Safety has decreased the number of video days on file to 7 days, but it is a private company’s choice, not mandated by any laws.
Nola’s Note–I forgot to mention this. When you cross state lines, your camera history could be handled completely differently from one county to the next. Please be careful. I usually plan for gas stops, but haven’t worried about which states require a warrant for the ALPR information. (See below for that.)
Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Vermont are the states that require a warrant to look at the video. That type of footwork keeps the strongest protection in place. But there is still a gap and the current laws don’t answer our constitutional question. Is it legal? The states are looking at it as Plan B while the courts get to hear arguments and sort it out.
Two Sides of an Argument to this Story
This is definitely not a one-sided issue of the Flock cameras story. We have two groups, police and our public-safety groups can point to solved cases on both sides. The police point to missing kids found, stolen cars recovered and even real crime cases closed because of the usage of the Flock cameras.
Our public-safety groups point to the evidence of people harmed by misuse. In Milwaukee, WI, one officer, Josue Ayala, was charged with misconduct. He was caught because the victim searched her own plate on a public lookup site. Ayala had used “investigation” 179 times over about two months.
More than one employee was involved in the Savannah Police Department. There were four officers and two civilian staff. An internal audit found they had searched personal acquaintances and family members. Four of them had criminal charges brought against them by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. One of the officers was accused of allowing an outside agency “unauthorized access.” All six were fired in August 2026. In both situations, the needed warrant was missing.
A Third Side to the Argument
Here’s another angle that makes “the pot boil.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says the abuse isn’t just people/officers breaking the rules. It’s because the system can be used to target categories of people.
“Abuses stem from the architecture itself, not just how individual agencies use the technology” — EFF, 2025 review
Their argument is that it’s not just one or two rogue officers, it’s that Flock’s entire business setup links cameras into one gigantic, connected network. Flock is dependent on any department or group flipping their switch to join the network.
EFF’s findings included these groups being searched: protesters (Feb. 2025 “50501”; June/Oct. “No Kings”); discriminatory and harmful stereotypes that targeted Romani people; one query that had results from 6,809 networks and over 83,000 cameras nationwide; and searches of at least 10 Washington police department networks that hadn’t explicitly authorized federal access for the Border Patrol search.
Flock cameras can do this. Most of us barely blink and we wave it off. “Well, the government’s going to do what it wants anyway.” That attitude is exactly how a surveillance network gets this big without anyone noticing.
Want to Follow This or Get Involved?
Secure Justice is run by Brian Hofer based in Oakland, CA, and the group filed actual lawsuits over illegal data sharing with federal agencies. Another way is to support groups with money or time.
The Institute for Justice has two different urls. The first one is their main ALPR issue page and is the one they used to litigate against Norfolk. They do have a dedicated campaign site for people who want to sign up as activists or get involved locally.
The ACLU has as their campaign slogan, “Get the Flock Out.” It’s included within their url, also.
The last group is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which was used as a source in this article. It does research and has a possible membership for you.
The Pot is Still Boiling
Check out the Secure Justice site to find the cities that are dropping Flock contracts. You can also check the public notes from each of the cities local government transparency actions. It may be included in a “general” line item.
Note that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a friend of the court brief. They are a privacy-advocacy nonprofit, based in Washington, D.C., and focus specifically on digital privacy, civil liberties and technology policy. The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank out of Washington, D.C. Their focus is on limited government, individual liberty and free markets. Their brief supported the idea that there should be a required warrant. They both have a stake in this case and are interested in the outcome.
The Outcome is Up to the Fourth Circuit
This is definitely a free-for-all with courts, states and cities moving at once. The cities try to have relevant laws, the states try to define this vague area and the courts have the final say.
This one’s worth watching. What the Fourth Circuit decides here won’t stay in Virginia. It’ll shape what privacy looks like for all of us in a digital world that is in conflict with personal freedom.
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