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Does Chatrie Put Flock Cameras on Constitutional Thin Ice? · Commentary - TJ Meadows

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  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court's recent decision in Chatty versus United States
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  Speaker 1: wasn't about Flock safety cameras. It was about Google. But
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  Speaker 1: don't let that fool you. If you read the opinion,
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  Speaker 1: it raises serious constitutional questions about government operated license plate
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  Speaker 1: reader systems, including flock cameras, now being installed in communities
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  Speaker 1: across West Virginia. The Court ruled that people have a
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  Speaker 1: reasonable expectation of privacy in the record of their physical movements.
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  Speaker 1: Justice Elena Kagan warned that the Fourth Amendment exists to
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  Speaker 1: protect Americans from what she called quote A two permeating
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  Speaker 1: police surveillance. Now, Flock supporters correctly point out these cameras
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  Speaker 1: don't identify drivers. They photograph license plates and vehicle descriptions,
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  Speaker 1: at least in terms of how they're being used in
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  Speaker 1: West Virginia. They generate alerts when a vehicle matches a
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  Speaker 1: law enforcement hot list in the case of Bond County,
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  Speaker 1: and in many jurisdictions, retain data only for a limited time.
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  Speaker 1: Those safeguards matter, but the Court also made clear that
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  Speaker 1: the constitutional question isn't simply what information is collected, it's
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  Speaker 1: what technology allows government to do with that information. The
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  Speaker 1: opinion warns that modern surveillance tools can reconstruct a person's
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  Speaker 1: movements quote at the click of a button, and that's
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  Speaker 1: where the debate over flock cameras becomes much more complicated. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: your license plate is visible on a public road. Courts
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  Speaker 1: have long recognized that, but Chattery suggests the Fourth Amendment
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  Speaker 1: may also protect against government systems that aggregate thousands of
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  Speaker 1: public observations into a searchable database capable of revealing where
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  Speaker 1: you've been, who you've visited, and patterns of your daily life.
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  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean flock cameras are unconstitutional. No appellate court
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  Speaker 1: has ruled that they are. But it does mean the
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  Speaker 1: old argument you're on a public road, so you have
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  Speaker 1: no privacy may no longer be enough. With the Fourth
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  Speaker 1: Circuit now considering the Schmid case, and armed with fresh
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  Speaker 1: guidance from the Supreme Court via Chatrey, local governments would
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  Speaker 1: be wise to proceed cautiously before expanding these systems. At
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  Speaker 1: a minimum, law enforcement should first seek a warrant from
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  Speaker 1: a judge before placing anyone on a hot list, before
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  Speaker 1: retaining any images from day to day, and before reviewing
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  Speaker 1: those images. The technology may be new, but the Constitution
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  Speaker 1: is still asking the same old question, and rightly so,
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  Speaker 1: how much government surveillance is too much? Considering what the
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  Speaker 1: Court said in Chattery, the best answer seems to be
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  Speaker 1: that Flock indeed goes too far.