Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said he’s planning on taking legislative action against Flock Safety cameras after having a personal experience with law enforcement aided by the license plate readers.

“I just don’t like where we’re going with Flock cameras. I think that it’s invasive, as you said. It’s too big government,” Stutzman told the Just the News, No Noise television show on Friday.

“You know the law enforcement folks would argue that they can use these as a tool. You know they can be where you can’t have a human police officer in its place,” he continued.

“For example, I pulled into my driveway, and all of a sudden, a police officer pulls in behind me. I said, you know, ‘Can I help you? Did I do something wrong?’ And he said, ‘Well, your car’s registration has expired,'” Stutzman explained.

“So I looked, and it was in my wife’s name. I somehow missed it. Of course, we got it taken care of. But you know, he recognized my car because the Flock cameras relayed the information that you know we had driven into town, and it was under the jurisdiction of these Flock cameras, and it just, to me, I felt very uneasy about it,” he added.

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Stutzman explained that he and other Congress members are discussing legislation to limit the use of the controversial cameras.

“I think that this is a step too far. There has to be boundaries. There have to be controls in place. You know, of course, you can always argue. Well, we’re able to catch the bad guys, but you know what? There’s 95% good people out there doing the right thing. We would have taken care of that registration one way or the other. We didn’t need a police officer following us to our house to remind us,” Stutzman said.

“Several of us are going to start looking at some legislation to rein these in to be sure that it’s not crossing the line and invading people’s privacy,” he added.

Watch below:

Just the News shared further:

Some cities in Illinois have chosen to end contracts with Flock Safety, even as police departments have said they’re a useful tool in law enforcement.

In Springfield, aldermen were at odds in recent weeks over an ordinance to renew their contract with Flock for two years, costing taxpayers half a million dollars.

The city council passed the measure while allowing for more transparency and regular public reports on the cameras’ effectiveness.

“It’s some simple things, and I’m just asking that to be standard and be given to us on multiple things. Transparency, equitable – making sure that these things are fair – and also reporting back to us so we as a council can, come budget time, look to address these things,” Alderman Shawn Gregory said.

Gregory was opposed to renewing the contract, but he said he was able to draft a plan for transparency based on guidance from organizations like the ACLU.

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The council negotiated changes with the police department during the meeting, and passed it with two members opposed to any stipulations.

In contrast, the Madison, Wisconsin, area recently ended their partnership with Flock over data privacy risks and outside access.

Several other House Republicans have shared the same sentiment in recent weeks regarding Flock Safety cameras, including Reps. Thomas Massie and Tim Burchett.

“I’ll soon be introducing a bill to withhold all federal funding for cameras used to track American citizens,” Massie said on Friday.

Burchett previously said he introduced legislation to “eliminate federal funding” and “federal agencies purchasing” Flock Safety cameras.

“It’s called the ‘Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act,’” Burchett said.

“It prohibits federal agencies from purchasing or contracting automated surveillance systems. These things violate our constitutional rights,” he continued.

“It violates the Fourth Amendment. I’ve consistently opposed these warrantless surveillances and policies, and they’ll weaken our privacy rights,” he added.

“Draconian” – GOP Congressman Wants To “Ban” Flock Safety Cameras

POLITICO has more:

Communities across the U.S. are cutting ties with Flock Safety, one of the country’s leading producers of license plate readers and other surveillance systems, over concerns around mass surveillance and data privacy — and fears over how data could be used in immigration crackdowns.

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Residents have swarmed city council meetings in states where Flock cameras have cropped up to urge elected officials to cancel contracts or deactivate Flock cameras — arguing that the technology could be used to track people traveling to places of worship, medical care centers, political protests and other sensitive locations.

“It was a bipartisan issue within our community. We had work boots and Subarus in our parking lot and they were united in their position against the Flock cameras,” Josh Young, a Republican commissioner of Macon County, North Carolina, said in an interview.

Over 20 local jurisdictions either stopped using Flock cameras or began the process of doing so in July, according to a tracker maintained by DeFlock, an activist group that has been mapping the company. It’s the highest amount in a single month since they began tracking in 2021.

The pushback against the surveillance technology — which caught fire in some liberal towns last year amid fears of data collection related to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — runs parallel to sprawling fights over the future of technology in American life, including the rise of increasingly advanced artificial intelligence tools and the construction of massive data centers needed to power them.

 

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