Going to the doctor, casino, or a lawyer’s office is nobody’s business but the American who is doing it, an Oklahoma judge has declared.
The judge said that when a police officer used the Flock Safety system to track a woman’s cross-state movements, he went too far.
‘The government cannot go snooping through our personal lives.’
U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill granted a motion to suppress evidence in a drug case last week after declaring that a Tulsa County, Oklahoma, deputy searching a woman’s license plate through the Flock systems violated the Fourth Amendment by way of unconstitutional search.
The officer had access to at least two automated license plate reader systems, court documents revealed, Flock and VehicleManager, which were used to observe 50 sightings tied to the license plate in question.
“These two systems have different capabilities, but they serve the same essential function: gathering and organizing historical data about a vehicle’s whereabouts on public roadways for use by law enforcement across the country,” the documents read, per CBS12.
Judge Hill said that the technology does not have the right to reveal sensitive information about a person’s whereabouts, even if it does not provide the same precision in location as a cell phone.
“It could track and log a couple struggling to start a family at the fertility clinic. It could show how often someone visits a liquor store or casino. It could show which doctor someone goes to or what lawyer’s office someone visits,” the document stated.
The judge went on, “This leaves the question of why is it the government’s business where everyone goes all the time? The government cannot go snooping through our personal lives and business without an adequate basis to do so.”
The court found that police cannot use a vast network of cameras to collect such vehicle data and then track a person’s movements without probable cause and a warrant.
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In this case, the documents stated, when Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff Freddie Alaniz searched ALPR databases for a Mazda SUV under the queries “traffic violation” and “investigation,” all he knew “was that the vehicle had a California license plate.”
The deputy sheriff used the ALPR data to track the car’s movements across several states, which he later said raised suspicion on his part as to why the woman was making short trips.
Alaniz said he suspected the woman of possible drug trafficking, due to the length of her trip, her nervousness, and her use of a rental car. For those reasons, and others, Alaniz eventually detained the woman before having a K-9 search her car.
While the legality of the search and length of stop are argued by both parties in the document, the judge declared that the “use of the ALPR Systems was an Unconstitutional Warrantless Search.”
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The decision comes after Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (R) revealed his plans for sweeping legislation against ALRP companies through his proposed Stop Flock Abuse Act.
Also, Florida recently banned the use of Flock cameras and other license plate readers on roads that are part of the state highway system.
In the Oklahoma case, the judge wrote that motorists can still have a reasonable expectation of privacy when driving, in that “the whole of their physical movements” should not be readily available for search.
The ruling does not stop police from using the cameras and does not declare a single use of the camera (a scan) to be unconstitutional.
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Flock, Oklahoma, Fourth amendment, Tech
