TL;DR: On October 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge Sara Hill in Tulsa ruled that a Tulsa County deputy's warrantless search of a rental car's license plate in the Flock automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system was an unconstitutional warrantless search. The driver, Melisa Kyle, had 91 pounds of methamphetamine in the vehicle. Hill suppressed all of the Flock evidence and all of the evidence from the subsequent vehicle search. 404 Media obtained the bodycam and in-car video and published it on October 8. The opinion is one of the first federal rulings on the books that says a Flock lookup can be a Fourth Amendment violation.
The Stop: California Plates and No Probable Cause
On a May day in 2026, Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff Freddie Alaniz was parked along an Oklahoma highway when a Mazda SUV with California plates drove past him [1]. Alaniz "pulled his vehicle on the highway to follow the Mazda for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate," U.S. District Judge Sara Hill wrote in an opinion handed down Thursday, October 1, 2026 [1].
Alaniz then "ran a query on the Flock system for the California license plate number on the Mazda SUV," a rental car, Hill wrote [1]. Over a five-day period the vehicle was scanned more than 50 times by 11 different law enforcement agencies operating ALPR cameras across Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona [2]. Cameras owned by a Lowe's hardware store in Missouri, Texas state police, the New Mexico State Police, and the Kingman police department all logged hits [2]. Alaniz's search returned more than 50 ALPR records covering roughly a month of travel, with 79 total hits recorded on the plate [2].
Alaniz pulled Kyle over for changing lanes without a turn signal ("I got her for a lane violation," he told colleagues on the footage) and kept reviewing her ALPR history [2]. After Kyle said she had been visiting family in California from Missouri for a few days, Alaniz told her: "I know from my training and my experience that people who do very short trips to California and come right back are transporting large amounts of drugs" [2]. Kyle refused consent. Alaniz searched the car anyway and described what he found on bodycam as "a motherlode" and "a shit-ton of meth" [2].
The Ruling: "Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance"
Hill suppressed the lot of it. The deputy's "use of the ALPR Systems was an Unconstitutional Warrantless Search," she wrote, "and was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant in violation of [the defendant's] Fourth Amendment rights" [1].
The premise is unflattering to the entire ALPR industry. Hill wrote that "this is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance": "by virtue of how ALPR technology works, Alaniz and other officers using these systems have access to a continuously updated location history for all vehicles caught on ALPR cameras within the network" [1].
Hill distinguished the 1983 Supreme Court precedent in United States v. Knotts, which earlier decisions upholding warrantless ALPR searches have leaned on. Knotts found that a person travelling on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements. "That language exists in the context of the facts presented in the case," she wrote. "Rather than a large-scale, dragnet-type surveillance system like the ALPR technology in this case, the Court in Knotts was confronted with much less sophisticated technology" [1].
She framed the search as something almost any American could be subjected to: "The factors that the government relies upon are the same type of circumstances that everyday Americans encounter on long road trips for many legitimate reasons" [1]. The list of ordinary things she pulled into the opinion reads like a vacationer checklist: "drive longer than we want… travel for myriad reasons… cross state lines, pack too much, buy too much, smoke cigarettes, and rent cars" [2].
Why This Ruling Matters
404 Media reported in October that audit logs it reviewed show Flock's nationwide network is being queried for warrantless plate lookups more than 100,000 times a month [1]. 404 Media called the opinion one of the first times a federal judge has decided Flock searches can be unconstitutional [1].
The decision lands in the middle of an active litigation wave. The Institute for Justice is litigating several ALPR cases on Fourth Amendment grounds, including a federal class action by three San Jose drivers challenging the city's license plate cameras [3]. Earlier the same week, a jury in a separate Institute for Justice case found unconstitutional a traffic stop scheme involving license plate reader scans by a U.S. Border Patrol predictive policing unit [1]. Senators Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced the federal Ban Flock Act [4].
Michael Soyfer, an Institute for Justice attorney, said Hill's opinion "recognizes one thing that courts ignore which is the sheer breadth of these systems, that they collect so much information about so many people" [1]. Flock CEO Garrett Langley had told The Drive in July the constitutional question was "pretty cut and dry" [1]. A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media the company "was not a party to this case" and that the ruling "goes against the overwhelming weight of authority… we expect it will be appealed and ultimately overturned" [1].
Hill's decision does not set a binding precedent, and several other cases around the country are considering the legality of warrantless ALPR searches [1].
What to Watch
The appeal. Flock has signaled it will fight. Watch the Northern District of Oklahoma docket and the Tenth Circuit for the first filings.
San Jose and the federal class actions. Watch whether the Institute for Justice cites Hill's opinion in its pending San Jose class action, and whether state bills limiting ALPR retention and sharing, such as Kentucky HB 58 and Washington SB 6002, pick up her reasoning [5][6].
Cities canceling contracts. Verona, Wisconsin put bags over its Flock cameras after the vendor would not remove them [7]. Watch whether any city council invokes Hill's opinion as grounds for non-renewal in 2027 negotiations.
Sources
- 404 Media: "Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was 'Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance' and Unconstitutional" (October 2, 2026)
- 404 Media: "Watch Footage of the Flock Search a Judge Ruled Unconstitutional" (October 8, 2026)
- State of Surveillance: Institute for Justice San Jose ALPR Federal Class Action
- State of Surveillance: Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, Merkley File the Ban Flock Act
- State of Surveillance: Kentucky HB 58 Would Limit License Plate Reader Data to 90 Days
- State of Surveillance: Washington SB 6002 Driver Privacy Act and Flock ALPR Data Sharing
- State of Surveillance: Verona, Wisconsin Pulls Flock Cameras After Public Pressure