A Florida Republican has introduced a bill that would bar US federal agencies from using Flock Safety’s licence plate cameras and similar systems without a warrant, amid a nationwide backlash against the surveillance company.
Greg Steube’s Facilitating Liberty and Accountability for Flock Observations (Flafo) Act, introduced on Friday, would require a judicial warrant before federal agencies could buy, operate, access or share data with networked licence plate readers. It would also make US Department of Justice grants to local police conditional on their adopting similar rules.
“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.”
Although the bill covers any company that makes the technology, it is aimed squarely at Flock. The Atlanta-based firm operates about 120,000 readers (with thousands more planned) across every state except Alaska, according to its website, and accounts for more than 80% of the market. Its cameras photograph passing vehicles and log their plate numbers, make, model and location into databases that police in other jurisdictions can search.
Steube pointed to investigations in Florida, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that found officers had misused those databases.
His proposal is the third of its kind in a month. On 2 September, 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 licence plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras. The bill drew co-sponsors from both parties, including the California Democrat Ro Khanna and the Republicans Chip Roy and Lauren Boebert.
Two weeks later, Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, and 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,” he said. “I like them.”
But the cross-party interest in Washington reflects the displeasure 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 have followed. In Indiana, Fort Wayne and several counties have voted in the past month to cancel or not renew their contracts.
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.
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 $30m building out the state’s Flock network.
Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
