News conference: Federal lawsuit filed against use of Flock cameras in Norfolk

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