October 8th, 2026AD
Granbury police officers can search automated license-plate data from cameras shared with the department across several states, and the department does not require a warrant before officers conduct historical Flock Safety searches, according to detailed written answers provided to Hood County Express by Police Chief Mitch Galvan.
Galvan says those searches are not unrestricted.
Before conducting a retroactive Flock search, Granbury officers must identify an offense, enter a Granbury Police Department case number tied to an opened report and provide a written reason for the search. The department also conducts monthly audits of system use.
The answers provide the clearest picture yet of how Granbury’s 26-camera Flock network operates as courts, lawmakers and communities across the country wrestle with how far automated license-plate surveillance should be allowed to reach.
They also sharpen a constitutional question raised in HCE’s earlier reporting:
At what point does observing a license plate on a public road become reconstructing someone’s movements?
GRANBURY HAS 26 CAMERAS — BUT OFFICERS CAN SEARCH BEYOND THEM
Galvan confirmed that the City of Granbury currently operates 26 Flock Safety cameras.
Data remains in Flock’s system for 30 days. If information is used in an investigation, it can be removed from the Flock system and placed into GPD’s records-management system, where it follows the retention requirements of the associated criminal case.
But Granbury officers are not restricted to those 26 local cameras.
Galvan said officers may search cameras that other law-enforcement agencies have shared with GPD.
That shared network extends across several states.
Granbury does not describe its access as an unrestricted nationwide search, but Galvan said officers can search all cameras that participating departments have shared with the agency.
The department says Flock records cannot be searched beyond the system’s 30-day retention period.
Officers can also narrow searches to particular geographic areas, dates and times.
They are not required by department policy, however, to impose a particular geographic or time limitation on every search.
Galvan said narrowing searches is common practice because it produces more accurate results.
WHAT AN OFFICER MUST DOCUMENT
Granbury requires officers to enter three pieces of information before conducting a retroactive search.
First, the officer selects an offense type from a list that includes crimes such as kidnapping, vehicle theft, assault, robbery and other offenses.
Second, the officer must enter a Granbury Police Department case number.
Galvan said obtaining that case number requires an actual report to be opened in the department’s records-management system, and that report must document why the search is being conducted.
Third, the officer must type a brief explanation of the reason for the Flock search itself.
Those requirements distinguish Granbury’s stated procedures from a system in which officers could simply type in a plate and search without leaving an investigative record.
Outside-agency requests receive an additional level of review.
Galvan said only supervisors may conduct searches for agencies that do not have their own Flock access. The requesting agency must have an active case, a supervisor must determine the request is reasonable, and GPD opens an agency-assist case documenting both the request and the search results.
NO WARRANT REQUIRED
Granbury PD does not require officers to obtain a search warrant before performing an ALPR search.
Galvan said the department’s position is that courts have held motorists do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in license plates displayed in public places.
That principle itself is not particularly controversial.
The developing legal fight concerns what happens when technology takes thousands of separate observations made in public and aggregates them into a searchable record showing where a vehicle has traveled over time.
That distinction was central to two federal cases HCE previously examined.
In United States v. Porter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — whose decisions govern federal courts in Texas — held that the comparatively limited license-plate-reader use before it did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search.
The court emphasized that the system produced periodic vehicle sightings from approximately 10 camera locations and did not provide the type of comprehensive movement history involved in other location-tracking cases.
Then came United States v. Kyle.
On October 1st, a federal judge in Oklahoma found that a warrantless search of ALPR records violated the Fourth Amendment after investigators obtained more than 50 sightings documenting approximately a month of a vehicle’s travel across several states.
The ruling described that use of the technology as a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance and suppressed evidence resulting from the investigation.
Kyle does not control courts in Texas.
Galvan emphasized that point in his response to HCE.
He said GPD has not changed its policies specifically because of either Porter or Kyle and expressed confidence that Granbury’s policies, procedures and system settings prevent officers from conducting the type of search criticized in Kyle.
Galvan nevertheless described Kyle as a useful case to review because the Oklahoma court examined both the number of searches and their duration.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION ISN’T JUST ABOUT THE PLATE
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a professor at George Washington University Law School whose scholarship focuses on policing, surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, has argued that modern ALPR systems should not be viewed solely as cameras recording information exposed in public.
Following the Kyle ruling, Ferguson said the case was notable because the court treated Flock as a “tracking system” rather than simply a “fancy camera.”
He said the heart of the decision was the court’s conclusion that arbitrary searches of historical travel information can implicate a reasonable expectation of privacy and require judicial oversight.
Ferguson has made the same distinction more broadly in examining recent Supreme Court location-data jurisprudence.
He has argued that modern ALPR systems connect license plates to much larger collections of personal information and that recent decisions strengthening privacy protections for digital location histories also strengthen arguments against some warrantless ALPR searches.
That does not establish that Granbury’s system violates the Fourth Amendment.
It does explain why the legal question is more complicated than whether a license plate itself can be seen from a public roadway.
GRANBURY AUDITS SEARCHES MONTHLY
Granbury says it has safeguards aimed at preventing improper use.
The department conducts monthly audits of its Flock system. The Investigative Division sergeant performs those audits and reports the results to the deputy chief.
GPD also says it can determine when an outside agency searches Granbury-generated information, identify the agency, and see the date, time and reason entered for the search.
Galvan said the department has never found a Flock search that violated GPD policy or lacked an adequate law-enforcement purpose.
It has found administrative mistakes.
In some cases, officers entered incorrect case numbers. Galvan said those officers had their Flock access disabled until they were counseled on the error, after which access was restored.
GPD also prohibits individual officer hotlists that could privately notify a single officer whenever a selected vehicle appears in the camera network.
The department’s audit system flags repeated searches of the same vehicle for review.
Galvan said the only repeated-search cases identified by GPD involved officers actively attempting to locate a stolen vehicle or a person wanted on a dangerous felony warrant.
WHO CAN SEARCH GRANBURY’S CAMERAS?
Granbury says it has disabled out-of-state sharing of data generated by the city’s own cameras.
Only approved Texas law-enforcement agencies with their own Flock networks can directly access Granbury’s camera network.
Once approved, however, those agencies do not have to seek Granbury’s permission before each individual search. Galvan said searches must relate to offense categories specified by GPD.
At the same time, Granbury officers can search cameras shared with GPD by agencies located in several states.
That distinction illustrates how Flock’s network can extend far beyond the cameras physically installed by one city.
Recent reporting from Chicago provides another example.
Chicago police conducted more than 23,000 Flock searches from May through July even though the city did not have a direct active Flock contract. Officers were able to reach data shared by private camera owners or neighboring agencies.
The issue is also influencing decisions by governments elsewhere.
On October 6th, Henrico County, Virginia, announced it would terminate its Flock contract. County officials said they believed their own police officers had used ALPR information appropriately but remained concerned about the possibility that data could be misused by others elsewhere in the broader network.
FLOCK ITSELF IS CHANGING THE RULES
Flock has also announced changes to its platform amid the national backlash.
The company has said that beginning January 1st it will require additional safeguards for law-enforcement users, including case-number requirements, automated auditing designed to identify unusual activity and a reduction in the default retention period from 30 days to seven days.
Granbury already requires case numbers and conducts monthly audits.
Its current retention period remains 30 days.
MORE QUESTIONS PENDING
Hood County Express sent Galvan a short second round of questions Thursday seeking additional clarification before publication.
Among them: whether an ordinary GPD officer can conduct one search spanning the complete 30-day retention period across all multistate cameras shared with Granbury without supervisory approval; approximately how many states, agencies or cameras make up the searchable network available to GPD; whether an attorney has specifically reviewed Granbury’s present configuration against Porter and Kyle; and which Texas agencies currently have direct access to Granbury-generated data.
HCE requested those answers by 9 a.m. Friday.
The answers will help define how broad Granbury’s actual search capability is.
But the first round already establishes something the city’s public transparency page did not fully explain:
Granbury’s Flock system is not simply 26 cameras watching local roads.
It is part of a larger interagency network that gives Granbury officers access to vehicle detections beyond Hood County and across state lines.
Granbury says its case requirements, documented search reasons, restrictions on hotlists and monthly audits prevent that capability from becoming the sort of prolonged, unjustified tracking condemned by the Oklahoma court.
The developing constitutional question is whether those safeguards — and the scale of the searches they govern — are enough.
— Hood County Express
Est’d 1/2026 🚂
