Hawley probes Flock's 120K-camera network as Texas cities ditch surveillance tech over privacy fears

Senator Josh Hawley opened an investigation this week into Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company that operates more than 120,000 automated license plate reader cameras across 49 states. The cameras scan roughly 20 billion vehicle movements every month, creating what amounts to a searchable national database of Americans' driving patterns—accessible to law enforcement without a warrant. Hawley, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley demanding to know who has access to this data and how it is being used.

The core constitutional problem, as Hawley framed it, is that Flock's network operates at a scale and with a reach that traditional surveillance tools never contemplated. Police can now search a person's complete movement history retroactively, pooling data from thousands of cameras into a single query. "Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school, or go to church," Hawley wrote, citing Supreme Court precedent that distinguishes between casual public observation and comprehensive tracking of a person's whereabouts over time. The technology captures license plates, vehicle descriptions, locations, and timestamps—all logged and cross-referenced across state lines.

Robert Frommer, director of the Institute for Justice's Project on the Fourth Amendment, told Fox News Digital that the most urgent reform would require police to obtain a warrant before searching historical movement data. He acknowledged that law enforcement should retain the ability to act immediately in genuine emergencies—missing persons cases, imminent danger—but argued that most criminal investigations unfold over days or weeks, leaving ample time for judicial review. "You don't need to be keeping this gigantic database on everybody's movements," Frommer said. The concern extends beyond Flock itself; any interconnected license plate reader system poses the same constitutional risk, whether made by Axon, Motorola, or another vendor.

The investigation arrives as multiple Texas cities are severing ties with Flock. On Tuesday, the Pflugerville City Council voted unanimously to disconnect all 28 of its automated license plate reader cameras and disable access to the system. The city had used Flock's technology since 2020 and was considering a new two-year contract with updated privacy policies, but officials said they had lost confidence in the company's ability to meet their data protection standards. Mayor Doug Weiss stated that public safety and public trust must move together, and recent revelations about Flock's system had eroded the community's confidence. Police Chief Willie Richards acknowledged that the cameras had proven valuable in critical incidents but said the department could no longer trust that the safeguards it had configured were actually functioning as intended.

Flock's response acknowledged an error in its statewide sharing network. The company had mistakenly categorized two out-of-state agencies as Texas agencies, allowing them access to Pflugerville's data through a broader sharing arrangement. Flock said the error had been corrected months earlier and that agencies receive monthly emails detailing their data-sharing relationships. The company also noted that Pflugerville had participated in Texas's statewide sharing network since 2024, a feature that allows agencies to search across the system using a full license plate number. But Frommer cautioned that technical controls over data sharing offer false reassurance when the reality has repeatedly shown that data spreads far beyond what agencies anticipated.

In Hood County, Texas, the Commissioners Court voted to end its relationship with Flock and directed that the county's three cameras be disconnected and covered. Constable John Shirley, who carried out the order, posted photos of the unplugged cameras and wrote on Facebook that the day marked a victory for freedom. "These cameras were constantly scanning and recording regular folks just going about their day," he wrote. "That kind of permanent, warrantless tracking doesn't belong in a free society." Shirley later clarified that he supports technology that helps solve crimes and locate missing people, but he insisted that public safety cannot justify unlimited government surveillance. "We can have good policing and still insist on boundaries," he said. He told Flock to remove the equipment from his county.

Tempe, Arizona, has also shut down its Flock system and will not renew its contract. The city cited recent misuse of automated license plate reader systems elsewhere in Arizona and the country as raising unacceptable risks. Tempe police found no misuse of their own Flock cameras, but the city decided the technology's potential for abuse outweighed its investigative benefits. Flock will remove the cameras, and data collected by the system will be automatically deleted after 30 days unless it is tied to an active case.

The pattern emerging across these jurisdictions reflects a deepening tension between law enforcement's operational needs and constitutional limits on government surveillance. Police departments genuinely value license plate readers for solving crimes and locating missing persons. But the scale at which Flock operates—pooling data from 120,000 cameras into a searchable national database—has crossed a threshold that elected officials and privacy advocates believe requires judicial oversight. Hawley's investigation will likely shape whether Congress moves to impose warrant requirements on historical movement searches, a reform that would preserve law enforcement's emergency capabilities while restoring the Fourth Amendment protections that traditionally governed police investigations.