Legal Battle Over License Plate Readers in Waukesha County
The use of Flock Safety’s license plate reader cameras by several municipalities in Waukesha County has sparked a legal challenge. A conservative law firm, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), has initiated a lawsuit, claiming that police departments are accessing the camera database without proper legal authorization.
The lawsuit, filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court, targets 11 municipalities, including the City of Muskego, City of Oconomowoc, City of New Berlin, and others, along with Waukesha County itself. The firm argues that the Fourth Amendment requires a search warrant for accessing such a database.
Dan Lennington, managing vice president and deputy counsel for WILL, stated, “And that a warrant is required under the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment, to search this database, which is a really powerful database that tracks your daily movements, just like a lot of other technologies do.”
The data collected by the cameras is also accessible to other law enforcement agencies (source). Lennington expressed concerns over instances of misuse in Wisconsin and nationwide, emphasizing the need for judicial oversight to prevent abuses.
The legal action coincides with moves by some local governments to sever ties with Flock Safety (link). Privacy and data sharing concerns have fueled opposition, yet some officials view the technology as beneficial for public safety (source).
Despite the lawsuit, WILL is not demanding the removal of the cameras. Lennington clarified, “We’re not asking that the cameras be taken down. We’re asking that the constitutional standard be applied.”
Details of the Complaint
According to the complaint, Waukesha County hosts over 120 Flock cameras. The cities and the county have permitted police officers to access the surveillance network, which traces individuals’ movements, allegedly infringing on Fourth Amendment rights.
The complaint describes the Flock database as a comprehensive record of individuals’ movements, containing data from over 1,500 cameras statewide and around 120,000 nationwide. It claims that searches occur without warrants or probable cause.
In Muskego, the database was reportedly searched over 300 times in a month, with nearly 900,000 additional searches involving Muskego cameras by other agencies. NoCams Muskego, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, echoes the call for warrant requirements, drawing parallels with search protocols for cell phones and digital data.
Pete Karas, co-founder of NoCams Muskego and a Green Party candidate, stated, “If the government wants to search your cell phone, they need to get a warrant, or your Google history, they need a warrant. But in this case, they can monitor and track you, and no warrant is needed.”
