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4 articles, grouped into stories

Federal judge rules warrantless searches using automated license plate readers as unconstitutionalA federal judge in Tulsa, Oklahoma ruled on Oct. 1 that a sheriff’s deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a woman’s license plate in Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader system without a warrant, marking one of the first federal court rulings to declare such surveillance unconstitutional. The case involved Melisa Kyle, whose…
Bipartisan Ban Flock Act targets federal use of license plate surveillance networksA new bipartisan bill, the Ban Flock Act, has been introduced in Congress to prohibit federal agencies from using automated license plate reader (ALPR) data. The legislation would block federal funding for state and local governments that continue using ALPR systems. Private data brokers and homeowner associations would be covered under the ban on…
FBI Director Defends Surveillance Partnerships at Senate Judiciary HearingFBI Director Kash Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 15, 2026, defending the bureau’s access to license plate reader data and its expanding partnerships with private technology companies. The hearing, which lasted several hours, examined the FBI’s use of data collected by private companies and municipalities, queries conducted…
Twenty-five years of “temporary”: how 9/11 built a surveillance state Americans never voted forThe towers fell in a single morning, but the government that rose from the rubble never stopped growing. A quarter-century after September 11, 2001, the emergency measures that the federal government swore were only temporary have calcified into a permanent architecture — an alphabet soup of agencies, a legal doctrine of pre-emption, and a surveillance…