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"I don't think judges understand the country is now blanketed with these things and they're all interconnected." That is Sid Thaxter of NACDL's Fourth Amendment Center in The New York Times on Flock's creepy license plate cameras. They read your plate everywhere you drive. And they never forget.

Flock is a private company valued at $8.4 billion. Its cameras are spreading fast. What makes them different is that they are all connected, forming one vast, searchable national network. Most people never learned their own town signed up.

This is not hypothetical. A Texas officer used Flock cameras to track a woman across state lines, suspected of self-managing an abortion. Officers around the country have abused their access to track romantic partners. Some were disciplined or fired.

Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio recently suspended their Flock contracts to keep immigration authorities from reaching the camera data. Thirteen states now require audits of these systems to catch officers who abuse them. The rules are still catching up.

@NACDL.org's Fourth Amendment Center helps defenders challenge dragnet surveillance like this. When the government can retrace everywhere you have been, with no warrant, that is a Fourth Amendment problem. Judges need to see the full picture, not one camera.

The full New York Times investigation is worth your time. Read it free here: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/u...

Thank you for the gift article.