When does a Flock search need a warrant?

Granbury publicly reports a 26-camera Flock Safety network capable of retroactive vehicle searches and retaining detections for 30 days.

Now, a new federal court ruling has intensified a question that could eventually matter to every law-enforcement agency using automated license-plate readers:

When does checking a license plate become tracking a person’s movements?

A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled October 1st that one warrantless search of historical automated license-plate-reader data violated the Fourth Amendment.

The decision does NOT mean all Flock searches are unconstitutional.

It does NOT control courts in Texas.

But the facts behind the ruling illustrate the increasingly important distinction between a camera recording a vehicle on a public road and law enforcement using a large network of cameras to reconstruct where that vehicle has traveled.

WHAT THE OKLAHOMA COURT RULED

In United States v. Kyle, a Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy queried automated license-plate-reader systems after noticing a California license plate.

The resulting search produced more than 50 historical records showing Melisa Kyle’s vehicle at locations across the country over approximately one month.

The deputy used that travel information while investigating Kyle and later searching her vehicle.

Authorities ultimately discovered approximately 91 pounds of methamphetamine.

U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill concluded that the historical ALPR search intruded upon Kyle’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements.

The judge suppressed the Flock-derived evidence and evidence obtained from the subsequent vehicle search.

Flock disputes the ruling. The Washington Post reported that a company spokesperson characterized the decision as inconsistent with existing legal authority and said Flock expects it to be overturned.

WHY TEXAS IS DIFFERENT

For Granbury and other Texas agencies, another case matters considerably.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — the federal appellate court governing Texas — decided United States v. Porter.

That case involved a much smaller license-plate-reader system in Gautier, Mississippi.

The Fifth Circuit held that the use of the LPR system in that case was not a Fourth Amendment search and therefore did not require a warrant.

But the court emphasized the limited nature of the technology before it.

The system involved roughly 10 cameras and produced periodic observations when a vehicle passed particular locations. The court distinguished that information from technologies capable of creating a comprehensive record of someone’s movements.

That creates an important legal distinction.

A limited network telling police that a vehicle passed a particular camera is one thing.

Searching a much larger network and reconstructing weeks of a vehicle’s travels may be another.

GRANBURY REPORTS 26 CAMERAS AND 30-DAY RETENTION

That distinction brings the national debate directly home.

Granbury Police Department’s official website continues to direct the public to its Flock Safety transparency portal.

The portal’s last publicly indexed update, dated July 26th, reported:

26 cameras.

30-day data retention.

323,444 vehicle detections during the preceding 30 days.

151 search sessions.

4,097 hotlist hits.

Granbury also publicly states that it uses Flock both for real-time alerts and retroactive searches after crimes have occurred.

Those numbers establish that Granbury operates substantially more than an isolated roadside camera.

But they do not answer the most important questions raised by the developing court cases.

Can a Granbury officer search only Granbury’s cameras — or a much larger regional or national network?

Can an officer reconstruct weeks of a vehicle’s movements?

How geographically broad can a search become?

What justification must an officer provide?

When is supervisory approval required?

And does Granbury policy ever require a search warrant before accessing extensive historical ALPR information?

Those questions remain unanswered.

HOOD COUNTY TOOK A DIFFERENT PATH

Hood County previously operated its own separate Flock system.

County commissioners ultimately terminated that agreement and, on August 11th, authorized the three county cameras to be covered and unplugged while awaiting removal.

County officials also sought approximately $126,000 from Flock in connection with the terminated program.

Granbury’s system is separate from the former county deployment and remains publicly represented through the city’s Flock transparency portal.

CONGRESS IS ALSO MOVING INTO THE DEBATE

The courts are not addressing these questions alone.

H.R. 10366 — the bipartisan NO FLOCK Act — was introduced September 14th by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, with Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, as its original cosponsor.

The bill remains before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. No subsequent committee action or floor vote is reflected in the official House record as of October 3rd.

As introduced, the legislation would require states to limit ALPR use to specified purposes — including toll enforcement, stolen vehicles, missing or endangered people, felony warrants and felony investigations — or face withholding of 10 percent of certain federal surface-transportation funding.

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism also held a September 23rd hearing titled “Always Watching: Flock’s Nationwide AI Surveillance Network,” hearing testimony from law enforcement, cybersecurity, civil-liberties advocates and a driver identified by the committee as having been wrongfully accused.

WHAT HCE WILL EXAMINE NEXT

The emerging legal picture is not as simple as “Flock is constitutional” or “Flock is unconstitutional.”

The Fifth Circuit approved the comparatively limited LPR use before it.

An Oklahoma federal judge has now found that a far broader historical-location search crossed the Fourth Amendment line.

The unresolved local question is where Granbury’s system falls between those two factual situations.

Hood County Express will pursue records and written responses concerning Granbury’s current Flock configuration, historical-search capabilities, access controls, data sharing, audit safeguards and policies governing when officers may search past vehicle movements.

Until those facts are established, HCE will not assume Granbury’s system operates like either the limited network approved by the Fifth Circuit or the broader historical search rejected by the Oklahoma federal court.

That distinction could become one of the most important questions surrounding automated license-plate readers in Texas.