Federal Judge Rules Warrantless Flock Search Unconstitutional and Excludes Evidence

A California license plate was not enough to justify searching a driver’s travel history in Flock’s camera network. Federal Judge Sara Hill ruled that a Tulsa County deputy violated Melisa Kyle’s Fourth Amendment rights by doing so without a warrant. She ordered both the Flock records and evidence from the subsequent car search excluded, according to 404 Media.

An out-of-state plate became a travel investigation

Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff Freddie Alaniz saw Kyle’s Mazda SUV pass on an Oklahoma highway in May. Hill found that he followed it and queried its plate in Flock for no apparent reason beyond its California registration. He later stopped Kyle, ostensibly for changing lanes without signaling.

During the stop, Alaniz questioned Kyle about her recent travels and compared her answers with the camera records. He treated her short stay in California as a sign of drug trafficking and used the travel history to help justify searching the SUV. Officers reportedly found 91 pounds of methamphetamine.

Hill also rejected the government’s interpretation of the travel patterns. She wrote that the circumstances it relied on were familiar features of legitimate road trips. Americans may drive long distances to reach a destination—or simply to enjoy the road and sights ahead.

The judge found that the database search lacked probable cause, as The Washington Post reported. Her suppression order reaches beyond the location records themselves: it also excludes evidence from the car search that followed. That makes the legality of the initial query central to whether prosecutors can use the resulting evidence.

A public sighting versus a month of movements

Flock’s automated license plate readers record vehicles passing network-connected cameras and make those records searchable by police. Hill wrote that Alaniz’s query returned more than 50 records of Kyle’s whereabouts across the country over an entire month. She found that this access intruded on Kyle’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements.

Earlier decisions allowing warrantless plate-reader searches have relied on United States v. Knotts, a 1983 Supreme Court case involving a tracking device in a chemical container. Hill acknowledged that people generally lack an expectation of privacy on public roads. But she distinguished that limited tracking from a network that continuously builds location histories for vehicles caught by its cameras.

It is a tool that collects information about all vehicles that pass by any network-connected camera at all times, and it serves up the information to law enforcement on demand.

Judge Sara Hill, in her opinion, quoted by 404 Media

Michael Soyfer, an Institute for Justice lawyer whose organization is litigating Fourth Amendment challenges to Flock, praised that distinction. He told 404 Media that earlier court decisions had given too little weight to the systems’ breadth. His concern was not just locating a car, but databases capable of revealing intimate details of people’s lives.

Flock disputes the ruling’s legal footing

Flock Safety, which was not a party to the case, told 404 Media that the ruling conflicts with the overwhelming weight of authority in similar cases, including recent Oklahoma decisions. The company expects an appeal and eventual reversal. That is Flock’s prediction, not an announced appellate outcome.

Hill’s decision does not create binding precedent. Flock says it is limited to this case’s facts and does not affect agencies’ continued use of the technology. The competing positions concern how to judge the search: Flock points to other courts’ approval, while Hill argues that older public-road reasoning fails to account for the breadth of today’s camera networks.