🚨 Flock sells access to its location database to law enforcement.
The short version: A defense attorney explains to fellow lawyers how Flock's ALPR database enables location tracking that raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns.
Our Take
When criminal defense attorneys start building continuing legal education courses around a technology, you know it's become a real problem in courtrooms. Gerry Morris breaking down Flock Safety's capabilities for NACDL members isn't just inside baseball for lawyers — it's a signal that ALPR data is showing up in cases often enough that defense bar needs a playbook for challenging it.
The core issue Morris is pointing at should worry anyone who cares about privacy: this isn't a single camera catching a single plate. It's a networked system that can reconstruct where you've been, who you travel with, and how often, all without a warrant in most jurisdictions. That's the kind of retrospective movement-tracking the Supreme Court flagged as constitutionally troubling in cases like Carpenter, yet Flock's business model runs on selling broad, cross-agency access to exactly that kind of data.
We're glad to see legal professionals treating this as a live Fourth Amendment fight rather than settled law. If you want to see how dense this surveillance net has gotten in your own area, check out our camera map, and if you'd rather push back than just document it, our take-action page has concrete steps. Credit to NACDLvideo for putting this in front of the attorneys who'll actually be litigating it.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NACDLvideo, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.