Citizen rights group sues to require warrant for Flock database searches

Waukesha County and its municipalities have installed over 120 Flock cameras in their jurisdictions and granted police officers permission to search past, present and future movements without warrants.WAUKESHA, Wis. (CN) — Civic group NoCams Muskego has filed suit against Waukesha County and 11 individual municipalities, asserting Flock camera use violates the Fourth Amendment.“Flock cameras and the Flock location database make possible a level of surveillance that has never before existed… Whether plaintiffs are going to the grocery store, work, church, court, to take their children to childcare or school, or even to vote, to protest, or to the gun range, their movements are tracked with precision,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint.Flock Safety is a surveillance technology company that sells and rents cameras and cloud-based software to law enforcement agencies, local governments, homeowners’ associations and other private customers.The cameras are solar-powered and are typically installed on highways, intersections and parking lots.They record images of all vehicles and license plates, which are uploaded to a searchable database using artificial intelligence and marketed as a “vehicle fingerprint,” according to the plaintiffs.Any Flock customer can query the database in a variety of ways, including law enforcement.In the lawsuit filed late Wednesday night, the group asks the court to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing the Flock location database, which keeps data on individuals’ past, present and even potential future movements captured by the cameras.The named municipalities have installed over 120 Flock cameras in their jurisdictions, according to the civic group. These cameras record movements near homes, gun stores, Home Depots and voting places in the Waukesha area.The plaintiffs assert each municipality named in the complaint allows police officers to query the Flock database and use other Flock tools without a warrant or probable cause.NoCams Muskego is joined in the suit by Citizens Defending Liberty and Donavan Haidinger, a resident of Waukesha County.They bring their suit against Waukesha County and the cities of Muskego, Oconomowoc, New Berlin, Waukesha, Delafield and Brookfield, as well as the villages of Mukwonago, Hartland, Menomonee Falls, Elm Grove and Pewaukee.None of these defendants require a warrant for law enforcement to search the Flock database, according to the plaintiffs, and only some specify as part of the policy that the program only be used for legitimate law enforcement business.They say this violates the Fourth Amendment because citizens have a reasonable right to privacy on public roads. U.S. Supreme Court precedent supports their claim.The high court held in Chatrie v. United States that acquiring Google location history is a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant or exception in most cases. While the Flock technology may be relatively new and rapidly spreading across the country, it is not beholden to different precedent.Police credit the technology as an important crime-fighting invention that has helped locate missing people and track suspects in violent crimes. However, increasing public backlash over privacy concerns and law enforcement abuse has forced many cities to take the cameras down.In August, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said product changes are on the way to make once-optional guardrails mandatory for users.Starting Jan. 1, law enforcement customers will have to implement an audit tool that’s intended to flag abnormal search behavior. If it detects such abnormal behavior, the user will be locked out pending review.This would address one concern raised in Wednesday’s complaint: a pattern of abuses by police officers using the technology for personal reasons.For example, former Milwaukee Police Department Officer Josue Ayala was charged in February with misconduct after apparently running Flock searches on a person he was dating 124 times and that person’s former partner 55 times.The Milwaukee detective assigned to investigate his case was charged with the same thing. The internal affairs detective assigned to the case was also accused of misusing the Flock database, logging improper searches as “training” or “test,” according to the civic group.The cameras are also prone to errors, sparking a congressional investigation led by Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri.“To be sure, I want law enforcement to have tools to catch offenders and keep the public safe. But Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school or go to church,” Hawley said in a letter to Langley.The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty represents the civic groups and has said it does not want to see Flock cameras gone entirely.“Flock cameras essentially place the public under constant surveillance. Our lawsuit will not result in their removal or the end of their use, but it will ensure their use is accompanied by reasonable safeguards that will balance the needs of law enforcement with the public’s right to privacy,” WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said.Flock cameras are getting the boot across Wisconsin as opposition grows. The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee announced Thursday it would remove Flock from its campus.With midterms around the corner, the issue is likely to feature heavily in Wisconsin’s governor race.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads