# City Places Flock Camera Facing Family’s Driveway
# Steve Lehto — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNMTTYBN0H0

Welcome once again to Leato's Law.
Here's Steve Leato.
Got a fascinating case here sent to me
by Dan King at the Institute for
Justice. And this is a press release.
They send these out. So, if you follow
them, you can subscribe to get these
kinds of notices. But here's a case
they're working on. Uh they've called on
a city in Arkansas to remove
surveillance camera from in front of an
innocent family's home. And they've also
suggested that maybe the city should not
renew its contract with the camera
company, but that'd be another step. So,
the Institute for Justice sent a letter
to city officials in Greers Ferry,
Arkansas, demanding they remove a
license plate reader camera that was
installed directly in front of the home
of this couple that contacted the
Institute for Justice. The latter also
calls on city officials to not renew
their contract with the automated
license plate reader that uh the company
that makes these things when the initial
terms expire and it's flock safety.
We've talked about flock cameras before
and a lot of cities are installing these
cameras and and the cameras will be
like, you know, imagine an intersection,
Main Street and First Street, okay? Or
or something big intersection. They put
cameras there and it records everybody
who goes through the intersection. Well,
number one, uh that doesn't record
everybody in town. It's just people who
went through that intersection. And uh
you know, it's traffic, right? But if
they put this camera in front of your
house, aimed at your house, while it
does get cars that go by your house, it
also gets you every time you come and go
from your house.
Last year, the city of Greer Ferry
entered into the contract with Flock
Safety to install five Flock Safety
Falcon license plate reader cameras
around the city. These cameras
photograph every vehicle that drives by
and analyzes the license plate number
and the vehicle features. Then the
cameras upload the photos to a server
where the technology can analyze vehicle
trends. For example, how often a certain
vehicle is spotted at a certain
location. Hey, we figured out these
people live here cuz we put a camera in
front of their house and and a car
leaves in the morning and comes back in
the afternoon. That's useful. The uh
family cannot enter or leave their own
driveway without the city's camera
capturing a picture of their movements,
says Joshua Windham, a senior attorney
at the J. He co-directs their project on
the Fourth Amendment. He says, "Simply
put, the cities put the family under a
state of constant surveillance where
they're effectively being treated as
criminal suspects even though they've
done nothing wrong." So, in case you're
curious, the couple the uh husband
retired from two decades as a police
officer and the wife retired from her
career as a teacher and they moved to
Greer's Ferry hoping to be nice and
quiet and peaceful, you know, small town
life. In May of 2025, the city installed
the cameras and put one of them directly
across from the this family's driveway
and the camera is facing their property.
Smile. You're on candid camera. As
positioned, the camera captures their
driveway and a good chunk of their front
yard. After the camera was installed,
the husband reached out to the police
chief to express his concerns, was told,
"It's not moving."
The following month, the couple sent a
letter to city council raising fourth
amendment concerns and asking officials
once again to consider moving the
camera. Then in July, the husband
appeared before the city council to
reiterate his concerns. At that meeting,
city officials doubled down and an
attorney told the man, "If you want the
camera moved, my suggestion would be to
get a court order." And the police chief
added, "We have no plans to move the
camera." Now, interestingly, when you
tell someone to go get a court order,
you got to be careful what you wish for
because there are people out there who
might try that. Try to go get a court
order. So, the man says, "Every time my
family, friends, children, or
grandchildren come to leave, play in the
yard, or try to enjoy our private
property, we're being photographed and
added to a database without consent or
violation of any law." So, they've done
nothing wrong
and they're being photographed. So, the
Institute for Justice letter argues that
Greer's very use of the flat cameras
poses two distinct Fourth Amendment
concerns.
The placement of a camera directly in
front of their home amounts to long-term
surveillance that can reveal their
comingings and goings. Two different
state supreme courts have ruled that
placing a surveillance camera in front
of a home for months without a warrant
is unconstitutional.
Making matters worse, Greers Ferry's
camera is located in front of this home
for an indefinite period, meaning
they're just putting it there and
leaving it there. And in the other
cases, they tried to make the arguments,
well, we just put it up for a while just
to watch this home without a warrant.
Second, even if the camera wasn't
located directly in front of these
people's home, the decision to place
several flock cameras throughout the
city may still violate the Fourth
Amendment. In Carpenter versus US, the
US Supreme Court ruled that using cell
phone location data to retrace a
person's past movements was a search
that requires a warrant using cameras to
capture the movements of every person
who drives through the city is also a
search that requires a warrant under the
Fourth Amendment, argues the Institute
for Justice. So, as part of its project
on the Fourth Amendment, the J filed a
first- of its kind federal lawsuit
against the city of Norfolk, Virginia,
over its use of automated license plate
readers. And in February 2025, a judge
ruled the lawsuit against the city could
move forward, saying a reasonable person
could believe that society's privacy
expectations as laid out by the court
and carpenter are being violated by the
flock system here. So, it's it's an
interesting case. And as with a lot of
these kinds of cases, number one, this
very well could work its way up and
someday someone's going to be asking the
Supreme Court to hear it. I I I have a
sneaky feeling what's going to happen.
Unless the city just decides, okay,
fine, we'll move that camera. But it
sounds like with or without that one
camera pointing at that one house, uh,
they might proceed with this anyway. But
getting back to the example of just a
busy intersection someplace, a lot of
those intersections been with stature
and already have cameras there. They've
got cameras to see if you run the red
light. They've got cameras to to see if
you're speeding um you know, all kinds
of stuff. And so if they're
photographing every single vehicle that
passes by in a public place, you know,
in in a place where if a police officer
was standing there, he could see your
plate or she could see your plate as you
went by. But there is something big
brotherish about putting some kind of
data gathering snooping device and just
having it hoover up everything that
passes by. And there's something creepy
about that. Now, I've heard of cases
before where there was a crime that was
committed and uh somebody called the
police and said, "Hey, crime got
committed and I can describe the vehicle
to you, but not the plate." And and the
vehicle went that way on such and such
road. And they happened to know that the
person probably drove by some flock
cameras. So, using a vehicle
description, they then matched it up
with a plate and went with that. And
yeah, it's a crime fighting device, but
just because something helps fight crime
doesn't mean it passes constitutional
muster. And that's always the concern.
And so I was kind of surprised. I
remember going to law school and
studying uh criminal procedure and so
on, a while ago,
last century. And um I remember reading
a lot of Fourth Amendment cases and and
seeing how these laws have evolved over
time. And it's not that the courts can't
get this stuff right. It's that
technology changes. And if you had said
to somebody back in the 1960s that
they're going to put a camera at an
intersection and photograph every single
car that goes by and the device will be
able to not only photograph the car and
get a clear photo of the license plate,
but also of the car itself, identify the
car using AI and then send all the
information to a central database that
can be searched almost in real time.
you go, "How would that be possible?"
Well, it's possible. And and that's the
problem. And so, like I said, it's not
the courts getting this stuff wrong.
It's that technology changes so rapidly.
So, we'll have to wait and see what
happens. But, you know, it's one thing
if you got the intersection downtown
covered in cameras. I'm not crazy about
it. But, when you put one at the end of
my driveway, but across the street
looking up my driveway and at my house,
that would be a problem. and I
understand they're being upset by this.
So Dan King, the IG communications
project manager, sent me this. Thank you
very much. This is uh of course from the
J. You can check them out at ig.org. I
will put a link uh to them in the
description below this video. They've
also got a YouTube channel and uh they
they put up videos from time to time
where they have people on there talking
about cases. I appeared recently on one
of their channel videos. It has not
aired yet. I believe it'll air this
week. So, when it does, I'll put up some
notes so you see that if you want to.
Um, and that was kind of fun. But, as I
always tell people, the Institute for
Justice is doing work that needs to be
done. Most people could never afford to
take on a case like this. And so, they
survive based on the generosity of their
supporters. They're a nonprofit. So, if
you can, please support them. Even if
you can't, check out their website,
check out their YouTube channel. I'll
put both in the description below the
video. and uh support them with moral
support, nothing else. It's always good
to know that people back what you're
doing, whether they're doing it
financially or not. So again, public
interest law firm calls in Arkansas City
to remove surveillance camera from in
front of innocent family's home.
Questions, your comments, put them
below. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.
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