# News conference: Federal lawsuit filed against use of Flock cameras in Norfolk
# WAVY TV 10 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoY96Te53Xo

thank you for everyone for being here
today my name is Robert fer uh spelled f
r m m r and I'm a senior Attorney At The
Institute for justice The Institute for
justice is a public uh nonprofit uh
public interest nonprofit Law Firm that
has fought for people's constitutional
rights for over 30 years and in fact we
sued the city of Norfolk when it
violated Central radio's First Amendment
rights and we won that case going all
the way up to the Supreme Court we
litigated in a number of areas free
speeches I mentioned economic Liberty
educational choice and what brings us
here today the right of private
property and no one can enjoy private
property no one can really uh benefit
from private property without feeling
secure in that property being able to
enjoy it without fear of being stalked
or traed and in fact that's such an
important principle of private property
that the federal court of appeals for
where we sit including Virginia Maryland
and other states ruled that Baltimore
flying a single plane up in the sky 12
hours a day to look down at the populace
and see what they were doing was an
unconstitutional search by contrast what
we have here in Norfolk is far more
egregious and far more unconstitutional
so for more on that let me turn it over
to my colleague Michael
soyer good morning as you've heard my
name is Michael soyer my last name is
spelled s y
fer I'm an attorney at The Institute for
justice techn technology is making
government surveillance easier cheaper
and more comprehensive than ever before
norfol shows how the police department
partnered with a tech company called
flock safety to blanket the city with
172 Advanced automated License Plate
Reader
cameras the cameras are everywhere and
you don't have to take my word for it
the chief of police has said it would be
difficult to drive any where of any
distance without running into a camera
and the city is planning to add dozens
more to it drag
net unlike a police officer posted at an
intersection the cameras never blink
they never sleep and they see and
remember
everything once they photograph a car
that picture is uploaded to a database
and flock converts it into what it calls
a vehicle finger print that includes not
just the license plate but also the make
and model of the car and other
distinctive like a bumper sticker for
instance once the police have that they
can use the vehicle fingerprint to track
the cars movements across the city for
30 days no warrant
needed up until a few decades ago that
type of tracking was so resource
intensive that it was reserved for the
most serious crimes and the most
notorious
criminals now Norfolk has Unleashed it
on everyone who drives through the
city this problem is bigger than just
Norfolk flock says it has cameras in
over 5,000 communities across the
country it even lets its customers pull
their data and track people across
different
jurisdictions it brags that it has
something like 1 billion license plate
reads per
month our clients are ordinary people
who don't want to live their lives in a
fishbowl knowing that the government is
always watching everything they do
everywhere they
go that's why they've partnered with the
institute for justice to bring this
lawsuit and restore the rights of people
like them who drive through norfol every
day thank you with that we'll take any
questions yeah we understand the Norfolk
PD has good intentions they want to
reduce crime they want to solve crimes
and catch
criminals um but our constitutional
rights don't work like that it's not a
balancing test we have these rights and
and uh even if there are good intentions
behind violating them it doesn't
matter absolutely um a search uh you
know it's a common everyday word what's
a search it's investigative conduct it's
looking for something to discover
something and that's what the police are
doing they've put 172 cameras through
throughout the city to track people as
they move around so they have this
database that they can use to solve
crimes beyond that the Supreme Court has
said we have a reasonable expectation of
privacy in our day-to-day movements um
and it's upheld that in a number of
cases now and these cameras violate that
expectation of privacy
L
specifically
asence they did suffer an injury they
lost their fourth amendment rights our
client Lee um has multiple flock cameras
just outside his neighborhood they see
him every time he leaves his
neighborhood if he goes one way they can
infer he's picking up his daughter from
school if he goes another way they can
infer that he's going to church or to
the Shooting Range Crystal drives
through the downtown tunnel every day
she drives around norfol visiting
friends and family um she is a home
health care provider she drives elderly
patients around Norfolk sometimes to
sensitive locations frankly like
doctor's offices all of that is being
captured on camera all of that is being
logged in a government database and all
of it is available for any police
officer on the force to access at any
time without a
warrant yes that's that's correct we're
asking for an injunction that requires
the police department to stop operating
the cameras and to delete all of the
data that they have collected to
date there is an expectation of privacy
in the whole of your movements people
random people have cameras they might
film something you do here or there you
might get caught on a security camera at
the grocery store and then one across
town at a parking garage those are all
kind of separate pieces What's Happening
Here is a single system operated by the
government tracking people's movements
systematically and connecting them in a
database that any police officer can
access at any time to go back in time
and see where you were over the last 30
days and that's different from just
these isol at ated uh you know public
recordings on surveillance cameras or uh
phones
of course uh red light cameras are
different a red light camera only snaps
a picture when you go through a red
light it doesn't snap a picture of every
car that goes past and
atase that lets them track movements
they're not used to track movements
they're just used to enforce a traffic
law at a single intersection they take a
picture if you pass the red light they
send you a ticket and it's it's
over I I don't think overwhelmingly is
correct frankly uh Virginia state judge
suppressed evidence holding that the
system was a drag net the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court has actually also
explained how License Plate Reader
cameras can become a drag net that
violates people's Fourth Amendment
rights there are cases going the other
way but we think we're on the right side
of this and frankly we think the fourth
circuit's decision in leaders of a
beautiful struggle about Baltimore's
aerial surveillance means that we have
to win this case norfol is trying to do
from the ground what Baltimore was doing
from the air and it's if anything even
more invasive because in Baltimore all
the city was capturing was uh single
pixels little blobs or blurred Dots here
Norfolk is creating a vehicle
fingerprint so that it can track people
and store their movements in a
government database that violates the
Fourth Amendment
I'm not aware of any specific cases
involving flock um other than I believe
uh the a Virginia Court suppressed
evidence in a criminal case because it
held that the flock cameras in norfol
were a draget search in violation of the
Fourth Amendment
um nothing has been scheduled um you
know we anticipate that the defendants
will probably file a motion to dismiss
and that will be briefed um we are
hopeful that we'll win that and then the
case will move on to
Discovery we we can't say at this point
we don't know if it could be resolved um
in a motion submitted to the court or if
it would have to go to
trial excuse
me we have two clients we have two
clients but this is on behalf of
everyone in the city you know we're
trying they both signed up because they
all want this for themselves anyone
else all right well okay well thank you
for coming to the press conference uh
we'll be available to for one-onone
questions if you'd like thank you you