Federal Judge Rules Flock License Plate Search Was 'Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance' and Unconstitutional
404 Media · rss · 2026-10-03
An Oklahoma federal judge, Sara Hill, ruled that a deputy's Flock ALPR search — run solely because the driver had a California plate, then used to justify a car search that found 91 pounds of meth — was an unconstitutional warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment. It's among the first federal rulings finding Flock searches can be unconstitutional, calling the network 'a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance.'
- A single ALPR query surfaced 50+ location records spanning a month, intruding on a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of a person's movements; all evidence was thrown out
- Audit logs show over 100,000 warrantless Flock searches per month
- Hill argued prior rulings leaning on the 1983 United States v. Knotts case ignored the scale of automated dragnet surveillance
- The decision undercuts Flock CEO Garrett Langley's claim that the product is constitutionally sound; it sets no binding precedent and similar cases are pending nationwide
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