re: Why are you against flock?

US. v. Jackson,
Which also cited US v. Jones and US v. Carpenter.


Part A analysis:

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Thus, under current guidance from the Supreme Court, Defendant does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his license plate or in his movements on roads which would make the actions of the police in using the Flock System to capture pictures of his license plate violative of the Fourth Amendment.

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Part B:

I’m going to post more snippets of B just because it directly relates to the question you raised about cell phone searches

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Contrast these two clear examples of widespread mass surveillance with the limited surveillance of the Flock System in this case. It is true that the Flock System captures photographs of any car that passes a camera; however, the limited number of cameras means that the amount of data collected is incomplete and does not track the totality of an individual’s movements. As persuasively noted by Judge Ambrose in the Western District of Pennsylvania, “[u]nlike the all- pervasive cell-site location data collection in Carpenter, and its ‘all-encompassing’ and ‘near- perfect surveillance’ of a cell phone user's comings and goings, the ALPR technology at issue captures only the public movements of vehicles that happen to pass by locations on a public street in view of an ALPR camera . . . Even in the aggregate, the ALPR cameras [sic] ‘capability to capture multiple shots of a single vehicle and/or store historical data does not approach the near- constant surveillance of cell-phone users’ public and private moves that so concerned the Court in Carpenter.” United States v. Bowers, No. 2:18-CR-00292-DWA, 2021 WL 4775977, at *3 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 11, 2021). Judge Milazzo in the Eastern District of Louisiana agreed, noting, “the data collected by the ALPR system is far more limited than CSLI. A person must actively pass by one of the cameras for any data to be collected and even then, only a small amount of information is collected and retained. Individual snapshots in certain locations at specific times ‘hardly rise to the level of persistent, unceasing public surveillance that the courts found troublesome in Carpenter.’” United States v. Cooper, No. CR 23-131, 2025 WL 35035, at *6 (E.D. La. Jan. 6, 2025) (citing United States v. Martin, 753 F. Supp. 3d 454, 473 (E.D. Va. 2024)). The above reasoning convinces the court that the amount of information currently obtained by the Flock System in Wichita is not the pervasive and continuous gathering of information with which the Supreme 17 Court was concerned in Carpenter and Jones, but rather is the limited sort of information that augments law enforcement’s natural abilities in Knotts. Ultimately, “the Constitution does not forbid the government from using technology to conduct lawful investigations more efficiently.” United States v. Gregory, 128 F.4th 1228, 1235 (11th Cir. 2025).

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Second, Flock cameras do not capture images of people, but rather the Flock System is limited to capturing only pictures of vehicles. As a result, data obtained from Flock cameras is very different from data obtained from cell phones. At the hearing, Mike Molina testified that the Flock System may be able to gain some information about the passengers in a vehicle if they are sticking their hands out the window at the time a photograph is taken by a Flock camera. However, the Flock System cannot identify any biographical or biological information which would allow law enforcement to track individuals instead of just their vehicles. Ultimately, the Flock cameras “exposed no details about where [Defendant] traveled, what businesses he frequented, with whom he interacted in public, or whose homes he visited, among many other intimate details of his life.” United States v. Brown, No. 19 CR 949, 2021 WL 4963602, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2021). Instead, a search of the Flock System “only reveals when, where, and in which direction a certain vehicle was driving—information of limited value, and data from which it is difficult to discern an individual’s familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.” United States v. Jiles, No. 8:23-CR-98, 2024 WL 891956, at *19 (D. Neb. Feb. 29, 2024). Given that the Flock System does not capture any biographical details of any individuals apart from incidental details to driving on a public road, using the Flock System to track a vehicle is not the same kind of personal search that the Supreme Court critiqued in Carpenter.

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They also said this regarding the potential of further Flock usage:

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Nevertheless, the fact that the Flock System does not presently violate an expectation of privacy does not foreclose the potential for Flock to one day rise to the level of dragnet search with which the Supreme Court has voiced concern. Indeed, the court can easily see how the more widespread and pervasive deployment of Flock cameras (or cameras connected to the Flock System) could eventually rise to the level of systemic and continuous tracking with which the Supreme Court took issue in Carpenter. As was noted by Judge Carlos Bea of the Ninth Circuit, “I understand that ALPRs may in time present many of the same issues the Supreme Court highlighted in Carpenter. ALPRs can effortlessly, and automatically, create voluminous databases of vehicle location information . . . In retrospective searches, detailed and potentially private information may be exposed.” United States v. Yang, 958 F.3d 851, 863 (9th Cir. 2020) (Bea, J., concurring). Undeniably, the use of automatic license-plate readers to generate a pretext for stopping drivers is something which is not new. See United States v. Ellison, 462 F.3d 557, 564 (6th Cir. 2006) (Moore, J., dissenting) (noting that an officer running a license plate number through a computer database search without any heightened suspicion could raise Fourth
Amendment concerns); see also United States v. Lurry, 483 F. App'x 252, 255 (6th Cir. 2012)
(Moore, J., dissenting). However, the court is not convinced that the use of the Flock System in
Wichita has yet risen to an insidious level such as would warrant the drastic and remedial action
of invoking the exclusionary rule in this case.12 “This Court must rule on the facts as they are and
may not speculate about what the future may hold for Flock's capabilities.” United States v.
Martin, 753 F. Supp. 3d 454, 476 (E.D. Va. 2024).

With the rise of new technologies, courts are left to apply aging Fourth Amendment
doctrines in an era of increasing government surveillance. Increased computing power, when combined with artificial intelligence, allows the government to process vast amounts of data on nearly all its citizens. We live in a constitutional republic, not a burgeoning authoritarian society.

Many Fourth Amendment carveouts and doctrines were crafted in an era where there was no capacity to replace human surveillance with computer surveillance. This presents unique challenges, since aggregated data on actions and movements can now be cross referenced to create individual profiles once suspicion has become centered on an individual. As the Supreme Court in Carpenter noted with regard to CSLI information, “the retrospective quality of the data here gives police access to a category of information otherwise unknowable. In the past, attempts to reconstruct a person's movements were limited by a dearth of records and the frailties of recollection . . . this newfound tracking capacity runs against everyone. Unlike with the GPS device in Jones, police need not even know in advance whether they want to follow a particular individual, or when.” Carpenter, 585 U.S. at 312.

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definitely Orwellian.

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Yes and no.

Do people behave better when they are being watched? Yes. Can that be described as Orwellian? Sure.

Is this a fear of the truth? Or fear of not propagating lies? I would argue that cameras create fear of truth. That isn't exactly the message of Orwell.

There is a podcast where a gangster claims that flock cameras prevent drive by shootings.
1) a vehicle reported as stolen gets immediately flagged
2) there is almost no where to hide when flagged. The cops will be there soon and from all directions

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The cell phone supreme court decisions are different than the public street privacy decisions.

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Again. After the last again. The problem isn't the fact the camera is in view of pubic. It's the aggregation of the data and the ability to search you location and history of locations... nationwide...with information stored indefinitely... any grand ole time.

If the equation to "street cameras" is relevant... then why aren't local governments saving money and using DOT cameras? What's the difference?

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There are carved out exceptions to bypass warrants for cell phone data. Those extreme circumstances are routinely used to tap into flock AI.

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Except "extreme circumstances" aren't being used for searches. And warrants are not required for flock searches nationwide... at all. Are they?

So no. It's not "the same"

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You lie when you say "any time they desire"

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I am??? Well what's the reason that cops are being fired for using them for stalking?

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That would be a violation of the flock terms of service. And the law

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So is there one single department that has lost access for violating these terms? Any cops using it for stalking been prosecuted?

One?

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That would be a violation of the flock terms of service. And the law


So is there one single department that has lost access for violating these terms? Any cops using it for stalking been prosecuted?

One?

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Do you know specifics about the abuse?

I dont.
I know men. They see things and like to play with them to figure out how they work, how effective/efficient they are, and to know the limits.

It wouldn't shock me if most of the abuses of the terms of service were playing with new technology. That sounds like men.

With flock outing the abuses themselves, that will get shut down pretty quick (just like playing with firearms and tasers have become).

Flock just outed these officers. If there is anything more than unpaid suspensions, it may take a minute for a DA to pick up the reigns and move forward.

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Is it constitutional to use private companies to go around the constitution?

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I don't know if that matters. Someone else might could answer that. But, when facing a charge that was caught on camera, aren't you always able to meet your accuser? I know Sheldon fought a ticket and defended himself in court (The Big Bang Theory). He went to jail though when he told the Judge that he sits at the kiddy table in his profession (traffic court). But when it comes to catching illegals, they shouldn't lack the understanding where they. I don't need a camera to find them. The cameras might be good to catch criminal illegals with face recognition but not sure how works.

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What is the liberty given up on a public stree

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That is too simplistic.

The flock cameras are a system of cameras and as it grows the ability to surveil and track a person's every single move becomes simple.
This is not the case with CCTV cameras in businesses and ring cameras in homes. To surveil an individual with those tools would require a very large amount of police work. Going to individuals and asking to see the footage. Over and over and over . . . .
Flock allows that to be done almost instantly. That is a qualitative difference and crosses a line, imo.

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There should only be one answer. Because they are illegal according to the Constitution. Simple as that.

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Claiming flock cameras are unconstitutional is exactly the same as saying the constitution supplies a fundamental right to an abortion.

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It wouldn't shock me if most of the abuses of the terms of service were playing with new technology. That sounds like men.

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No. It’s people abusing their position for personal reasons which will (and always has) always occur regardless of tech.

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That. And they don’t share data with ICE.

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I did not know that. frick them, then. I hope vandals tear all of them down.

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You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public.

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quite literally constitutional law