Cities in 36 states have cancelled Flock contracts
Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, introduced a bill Friday that would require federal agencies to obtain judicial warrants before they could buy, operate, access or share data with networked license plate readers. The Facilitating Liberty and Accountability for Flock Observations Act, or Flafo Act, would also make U.S. Department of Justice grants to local police conditional on those departments adopting similar warrant requirements.
Although the legislation covers any company that makes the technology, it is aimed at Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based firm that operates about 120,000 license plate readers (with thousands more planned) across every state except Alaska and accounts for more than 80% of the market, according to the company’s website. Flock’s cameras photograph passing vehicles and log their plate numbers, make, model and location into databases that police in other jurisdictions can search.
Steube’s bill is the third measure introduced in Congress in September targeting Flock cameras, and arrives as a wave of local governments have moved to cancel their contracts with the company amid documented cases of police misuse of the data.
“Americans should not be tracked everywhere they drive without a warrant,” Steube wrote in a statement. “The government has no business tracking law-abiding Americans.” Steube pointed to investigations in Florida, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that found officers had misused the license plate reader databases.
Steube’s proposal follows two earlier September bills. On September 2, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, introduced the Flock-Off Act, which would prohibit federal money from being used to buy, install, maintain, operate or upgrade license plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras. That bill drew co-sponsors from both parties, including California Democrat Ro Khanna and Republicans Chip Roy and Lauren Boebert.
Two weeks later, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, and Rep. Michael Cloud, a Texas Republican, introduced the No Flock Act in response to reports of officers using the technology to stalk former partners. That bill would give states two fiscal years to limit the cameras to five approved uses or lose 10% of certain federal transportation funding.
The Republican critics are at odds with Donald Trump, who told reporters aboard Air Force One this month that he liked the cameras because of their value to law enforcement. “Some people don’t. They think it’s an infringement,” Trump said. “I like them.”
The cross-party interest in Washington reflects dissatisfaction nationwide. Anti-surveillance watchdog Secure Justice’s Flock Termination Tracker found that cities in 36 states from Florida to Colorado have cancelled their Flock contracts so far, with Santa Cruz becoming the first California city to drop the company in January and more than a dozen others in the state having followed. In Indiana, Fort Wayne and several counties have voted in the past month to cancel or not renew their contracts.
Steube’s home state has already moved. At the start of September, Florida’s transportation department revoked all permits for local police to operate license plate readers on state roads, ordering existing cameras removed within 30 days. The week before, Texas Governor Greg Abbott halted state funding for the cameras, pre-empting a Texas Tribune investigation that a state agency had spent at least $30 million building out the state’s Flock network.
In Arizona, Chandler ended its contract after an investigation found an officer had misused the system. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm, says it has documented more than 200 cases of abuse stemming from automated license plate readers, including stalking and wrongful stops.
Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.