Flock Around and Find Out. A Lawyer's Case Against Plate Readers

Our Take

Attorney Marc Lopez isn't a privacy activist by trade — he's a criminal defense lawyer who sees Flock Safety data show up in case files and wants the rest of us to understand what that means. When a cop can pull up months of your car's movements with "just a login," as the video puts it, we've quietly replaced the warrant requirement with a database query. That's not a technicality. That's the Fourth Amendment getting routed around entirely.

What makes this video useful is the courtroom-eye view. Lopez isn't speculating about hypothetical abuse; he's describing how this evidence actually gets used against defendants, often without the kind of judicial oversight that applies to wiretaps or cell-site data. Courts have been slow to apply landmark rulings like Carpenter v. United States to ALPR networks, and police departments know it. Until a case forces the issue, the legal gray zone stays wide open — and departments keep expanding coverage.

This is exactly why documenting camera locations matters as much as the legal fight. Check our camera map to see what's logging plates in your area, and head to our take-action page if you want to push back at the city council level before the next contract renewal.