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Why did a federal judge call Flock's cameras 'indiscriminate mass surveillance'?

By Adam Neely · Oct 4, 2026
Quick answer: On Oct 3, a federal judge ruled that Flock's nationwide network of automated license-plate cameras amounts to "indiscriminate mass surveillance" — the legal reasoning being that always-on cameras logging every passing vehicle build a searchable location history of everyone, not just suspects.

On Oct 3, a federal judge ruled that Flock's nationwide network of automated license-plate cameras amounts to "indiscriminate mass surveillance" — the legal reasoning being that always-on cameras logging every passing vehicle build a searchable location history of everyone, not just suspects.

On Oct 3, a federal judge ruled that Flock's nationwide network of automated license-plate cameras amounts to "indiscriminate mass surveillance" — the legal reasoning being that always-on cameras logging every passing vehicle build a searchable location history of everyone, not just suspects. Separately, on Oct 2, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to bar federal agencies from using Flock at all. WHY it matters beyond one company: it's the courts drawing a line between targeted investigation and dragnet data collection — the same tension behind phone-location tracking cases.

Factual and neutral: report the ruling and the bill, not a verdict on policing.

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