The following is a letter to the New Prague Times, republished here, with minor modifications, with permission from LPMN member Joel Wollin.
I’m writing to discuss the New Prague City Council’s recent decision to purchase Flock Safety cameras to place the citizens of this town under 24/7 surveillance anytime they need to drive somewhere.
A Federal lawsuit has been filed by the Institute for Justice against the City of Norfolk, VA, challenging the city’s deployment of 172 Flock Safety Cameras…one camera per 1337 residents. The City of New Prague is installing 8 of these abominations, or one camera per 1030 residents. The Federal lawsuit alleges that these cameras constitute an unconstitutional, warrantless surveillance program that monitors every motorist, raising significant questions about digital privacy and government overreach. Flock Safety’s software and algorithm goes far beyond traditional ALPR cameras, capturing details such as vehicle make, model, color, and even bumper stickers. This aggregated data effectively creates a detailed historical geolocation record of every citizen, and greatly infringes upon our privacy, allowing law enforcement to effectively track the movements and activities of the residents of New Prague without individualized suspicion. It amounts to a General Warrant.
General Warrants were so concerning to the founders of this nation that the 4th Amendment is written in such a way as to expressly forbid them.
Further, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Jones (2012), ruled that it was unconstitutional for the government to attach a GPS tracking device upon a vehicle without a warrant from a Judge. Flock cameras aren’t any different, because they expand the original purpose of license plates, from their legal purpose of identifying vehicles and proving licensure, into a surveillance device attached to your vehicle. If the government isn’t permitted to attach a GPS device to a vehicle without a warrant, then, by expanding the use of license plates into a surveillance tag, the State effectively violates the legal opinions expressed in United States v. Jones. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this surveillance creates a legal argument that citizens have the right to remove their license plates entirely…following the logic expressed in Jones.
Besides Jones, there are numerous other SCOTUS opinions showing that the Court recognizes an enormous difference between the legal premise of having “no right to privacy when in public,” and “24/7 general surveillance without a warrant.”
The Institute for Justice does not make a habit of losing their cases. They have argued in front of the Supreme Court 12 times, with a record of 10-2 in their favor. Incidentally, one of those losses was the 2005 Kelo v. New London decision, widely regarded as one of the worst decisions to ever come out of the Court. Fortunately, just last month, the Institute for Justice filed a case asking the Court to overturn Kelo, in Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency. Given the IJ’s record of winning their Civil Rights cases, I wholly expect them to prevail against the City of Norfolk.
I have asked New Prague City Council reconsider their decision to bring this unconstitutional, intrusive surveillance system into our lives. The entire population of this City are not lawbreakers, and we don’t deserve to be subjected to 24/7 surveillance. I don’t believe they have the legal authority to do this to us, under the Constitution, and they should, at a minimum, delay deployment until the outcome of Schmidt, et. al. v. City of Norfolk, et. al. is known.
If you are on the wrong side of the Institute for Justice, you are on the wrong side of the people, and right now, the New Prague City Council is on the wrong side of the people.
Note: This was written by a member of the LPMN and does not necessarily reflect the views of our organization.
