When Flock Comes to Town: Why Cities Are Axing the Controversial Surveillance Technology

Flock Safety surveillance equipment is appearing in neighborhoods across the country. I spoke with experts about the tech, laws and privacy issues at play.

CNET
I'm surprised Garrett Langley still has a job, he seems wildly out of touch. For instance he really believes that his Panopticon as a service is the reason crime is down in cities, conveniently ignoring crime rates prior to COVID.

He won’t for long. The backlash is just getting started. Left or right, no one wants their whereabouts subject to constant surveillance.

His only advantage is that the cops are on his side and won’t let go of these cameras without a fight.

I'm very in favor of speed & redlight cameras and don't have a particular problem with license plate trackers. I think we partisan-ize far too many things nowadays, unfortunately.
Maybe you're also in favor of some light reading
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/
U.S. Constitution - Fourth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

The original text of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

you think speed cameras violate the 4th amendment?

No but license plate requirements pretty clearly violate the 4th and/or 1st amendment, IMO. And without being required to have your license plate searched (registration 'papers' forced to be displayed) at all times without even an officer presenting RAS or PC of a crime, these cameras become a lot less useful.

I don't see how removing the cameras is compatible with the first amendment, but if you have the right of "speech" to record me in public chasing every place I go in a manner that is the envy of any stalker, I ought to have the right of "speech" not to "say anything" (compelled speech of showing my plate).

It really doesn't seem like the courts agree that you have a right to travel via car without a visible plate.

The courts made polygraphs submittable legal evidence used to convict people, and still use them on people under supervision (because lesser standards apply).

Precedent is often crap and wrong until someone can find a good case paired with good lawyers to rectify.

I agree with you generally but taken to the extreme this argument very easily goes to "precedents I agree with should be venerated because they're precedents and precedents I disagree with are wrong" silliness.

"Precedent is often crap" isn't really the basis for any cohesive judicial philosophy or legal thought process.

I'm not aware of any precedent anywhere that approaches "ALPRs violate 4A" territory, it's when other stuff happens that's beyond simply "$lp_id was seen by $camera on $datetime" that I've seen courts start to talk about reasonableness and privacy.