Across the nation, people are vandalizing Flock surveillance cameras at an alarming pace. A surge in such activity underscores the growing resistance to this police surveillance technology.
WHAT ARE FLOCK CAMERAS?
Flock Safety makes surveillance camera systems that record and analyze everything that passes them. The company sells its services as a crime-fighting tool, and some law enforcement agencies that have contracts with Flock use the cameras’ automated license plate readers to track or reconstruct movements of vehicles in criminal investigations.
According to the company, more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies use its technology. More broadly, there are more than 130,000 AI-powered automated license plate readers on American streets, according to DeFlock, an advocacy group that tracks the cameras.
Because Flock cameras are all connected, it creates a nationwide latticework of recorded activity. Across the majority of states, a police officer in one state can be alerted if a car they’re looking for pops up in another and can inform the local authorities.
WHY ARE PEOPLE VANDALIZING FLOCK CAMERAS?
An online movement called DeFlock is growing in popularity. DeFlock’s messaging claims that Flock cameras are a serious risk to your privacy and civil liberties. These systems continuously record your movements without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. Your driving history is rarely confined to the town or city where the cameras are installed. It’s typically shared with thousands of other agencies nationwide (secretly). DeFlock claims that once the data is out of your community, you have no control over how it’s used or what rules apply, leading to instances of misuse.
People have cut down Flock cameras with an electric saw in upstate New York, thrown paint on them in Oakland, California, and rammed a truck into them in Idaho. One man in Florida sits in a lawn chair holding up a piece of cardboard on a pole to block the camera’s view. City governments have joined in by deactivating the cameras or canceling contracts with Flock in Fort Collins, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Knoxville, Tennessee; Syracuse, New York; and Walla Walla, Washington.
ARE FLOCK CAMERAS IN WASHINGTON STATE?
Yes. DeFlock’s map currently shows more than 2,100 mapped automated license plate readers in Washington, with Flock Safety accounting for the large majority of mapped cameras. Another independent Washington ALPR inventory lists 2,187 mapped cameras in the state and says 1,912, or 87.4%, are attributed to Flock Safety.
CAN FLOCK CAMERAS BE USED TO TRACK PEOPLE?
404 Media reported that a Flock capability called “FreeForm” allows users to search camera records based on what someone was wearing, their tattoos or even their race. The site also reported that, despite Flock not sharing data with agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, police officers have been performing searches to aid in immigration sweeps.
IS IT ILLEGAL TO DISARM, BLOCK OR VANDALIZE FLOCK CAMERAS?
In short, yes. Damaging a Flock camera can result in criminal charges. However, the specific charge depends on the circumstances.
Washington’s malicious-mischief laws make certain types of property damage a felony. Second-degree malicious mischief is a class C felony when someone knowingly and maliciously causes more than $750 in physical damage or creates a substantial risk of interruption or impairment of public service by damaging certain public property. First-degree malicious mischief is a class B felony under circumstances including damage exceeding $5,000 or certain interruptions of public service.
DO FLOCK CAMERAS VIOLATE THE FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHT AGAINST UNLAWFUL SEARCH & SEIZURE?
No. Courts, such as in cases like United States v. Martin, have held that license plates and vehicle characteristics displayed on public roads carry no reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment, because motorists knowingly expose them to public view.
Nevertheless, the debate rages on. Civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argue that networked, mass-surveillance databases aggregate data in a way that mimics continuous tracking—drawing parallels to Supreme Court rulings on cell phone location data (Carpenter v. United States) and GPS trackers (United States v. Jones) that do require search warrants. Because of this aggregation concern, ongoing lawsuits and lower court appeals are actively challenging these deployments
WHAT ARE MY CHANCES AT TRIAL?
Probably not great, but not impossible, either. In June, a grand jury in Ohio refused to bring felony charges against a Clermont County man accused of destroying a Flock automatic license plate reader (ALPR). The prosecution’s case seemed iron-clad: according to Cincinnati’s Local12, police identified the man using surveillance footage from multiple nearby cameras, combined with info gleamed from a credit card and a customer rewards account. Despite the evidence against him, the jury declined to indict him, resulting in all charges being dropped.
Clearly, the public lacks the will to prosecute these crimes. Also, observers and commentators on social media suggested the grand jury’s refusal to indict acted similarly to jury nullification – where a panel rejects clear legal guilt because they disagree with the law or the tool being protected.
Please review my Search & Seizure Legal Guide and contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime involving the use of Flock Cameras. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.
