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Latest reporting

Investigative reporting from footnote4a.org

• New Castle, PA put Flock in its only Majority-Minority Neighborhood

  May 18, 2026

  Nearly three years of Flock event logs show New Castle, Pennsylvania concentrated all 31 of its surveillance devices in the city's only majority-minority census tract, and shows a group of officers running scores of…

• Never For General Patrol: Flock's Drone Proposition

  May 11, 2026

  Flock's November 2024 drone demo showed exactly what its 2026 product page denies. The Supreme Court already ruled on this in 2001.

• Thornton PD Investigated Itself and Found no Wrongdoing

  May 5, 2026

  Focusing only on the overall search count, not the substantive issues, Thornton PD cleared itself of wrongdoing.

• We Have to Treat Everyone

  May 2, 2026

  In this webinar, a Flock sales lead tells hospital customers to add fired and laid-off healthcare workers to the watchlist.

Legal and constitutional

• Carpenter v. United States (2018)

  The Supreme Court held that long-term collection of cell location data is a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant. Advocates and courts have applied this reasoning directly to ALPR data retention.

• Commonwealth v. McCarthy (MA, 2020)

  Massachusetts' highest court ruled that retaining ALPR data beyond 48 hours requires a search warrant. One of the few state-level rulings specifically addressing ALPR retention periods.

• Schmidt v. City of Norfolk (E.D. Va., 2026)

  Active federal case challenging Flock Safety on Fourth Amendment grounds. Litigated by the Institute for Justice. Outcome may directly affect how other cities can legally operate ALPR networks.

Investigations and reporting

• "When license plate readers get it wrong"

  CBS News, July 2025

• "One sleepy Virginia town, nearly 7 million hits"

  Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism / WHRO, September 2025

• "The Nationwide Revolt Against Flock Safety Cameras"

  New Republic, February 2026

• "Why some cities are canceling Flock contracts"

  NPR, February 2026

• "Police camera" investigation

  The Marshall Project, March 2026

• "Flock camera installations broke laws in at least five states"

  Forbes, February 2024

• "Police have used plate readers to stalk romantic interests at least 16 times"

  Institute for Justice, May 2026

Data and research

• "Data Driven: Explore How Cops Are Collecting and Sharing Our Travel Patterns"

  EFF / Maass & Lipton, 2021. An interactive tool mapping how police departments share vehicle location data across the country. Shows the national scope of ALPR networks.

• ALPR Audit Report

  Virginia State Crime Commission, January 2026. State audit documenting how many times Virginia's Flock networks were queried by outside agencies. The primary source for the nearly 7 million searches figure.

Organizations working on this

• Electronic Frontier Foundation Digital rights. Publishes ALPR research and tracks surveillance policy.
• ACLU Civil liberties. Has challenged ALPR deployments in several states.
• Institute for Justice Litigating Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, the active federal ALPR challenge.

Printable materials

Free downloads from deflock.org/store. Print and share.