Federal judge calls Flock ‘indiscriminate mass surveillance’

联邦法官称 Flock 为“无差别的群体监控”

A federal judge ruled this week that a Tulsa, Oklahoma sheriff’s deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights when using Flock Safety to search for her license plate without a warrant. As reported by 404 Media, this ruling does not create a binding precedent, but it is one of the first times that a federal judge has ruled that a Flock search is unconstitutional. 本周，一位联邦法官裁定，俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨市的一名治安官副手在未经搜查令的情况下，使用 Flock Safety 系统搜索一名女性的车牌，侵犯了该女性的第四修正案权利。据 404 Media 报道，虽然这一裁决并未构成具有约束力的先例，但这是联邦法官首次裁定 Flock 的搜索行为违宪。

In this case, Judge Sara Hill said the deputy should have obtained a warrant before searching the Flock database for the woman’s license plate, as he had “no apparent reason” for the search “other than the fact that [the woman’s vehicle] had a California license plate.” The deputy then used the woman’s travel history in Flock as part of the justification for searching her car, where he allegedly discovered 91 pounds of meth. But Judge Hill wrote that all evidence obtained after the Flock search “must be suppressed as the fruit of a poisonous tree.” 在此案中，萨拉·希尔（Sara Hill）法官表示，该副手在搜索 Flock 数据库以查找该女性车牌前本应获得搜查令，因为他除了“（该女性车辆）挂着加州车牌”这一事实外，对搜索行为“没有明显的理由”。随后，该副手利用 Flock 系统中记录的该女性行踪作为搜查其车辆的理由之一，并声称在车内发现了 91 磅冰毒。但希尔法官写道，在 Flock 搜索之后获得的所有证据“必须作为‘毒树之果’予以排除”。

Judge Hill also took broader aim at warrantless searches of the Flock database, writing that tracking people’s location — even when they’re in public places — becomes “constitutionally problematic when law enforcement can indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time and then use that information for any purpose whenever convenient.” 希尔法官还对 Flock 数据库的无证搜索提出了更广泛的批评。她写道，追踪人们的位置——即使是在公共场所——一旦执法部门能够长期、无差别且被动地记录你的行踪，并随时随地出于任何目的使用这些信息，就会产生“宪法层面的问题”。

“This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance,” Hill wrote. “It is not targeted on a single individual, as in [Carpenter v. United States, a Supreme Court case focused on how government agencies access location data from cell phones]. It is a tool that collects information about all vehicles that pass by any network-connected camera at all times, and it serves up the information to law enforcement on demand.” “这是一种无差别的群体监控，”希尔写道。“它不像 [Carpenter 诉美国案，即最高法院关于政府机构如何获取手机位置数据的案件] 那样针对特定个人。它是一个随时收集所有经过联网摄像头的车辆信息的工具，并按需向执法部门提供这些信息。”

Hill joins a growing chorus of Flock critics from across the political spectrum. Numerous local and state governments, including Florida and Texas, have said they will stop using the technology. And on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders — a Democrat from Vermont — introduced the Block Flock Act, which would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers such as Flock. 希尔加入了政界各方对 Flock 日益增长的批评行列。包括佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州在内的多个地方和州政府已表示将停止使用该技术。周五，来自佛蒙特州的民主党参议员伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders）提出了《阻止 Flock 法案》（Block Flock Act），该法案将禁止联邦机构使用 Flock 等自动车牌识别系统。

Flock CEO Garretty Langley — who we’ll be interviewing on-stage at TechCrunch Disrupt — has called for a “compromise” between privacy and safety and offered an apology to women who have been stalked by law enforcement officers using the Flock system. And with all those cancellations, Flock has also reportedly offered voluntary employee buyouts as a way to shrink its workforce. Flock 首席执行官加雷蒂·兰利（Garretty Langley）——我们将在 TechCrunch Disrupt 大会上对他进行现场采访——呼吁在隐私和安全之间寻求“妥协”，并向那些被执法人员利用 Flock 系统跟踪的女性表示歉意。随着订单的取消，据报道，Flock 也已提供员工自愿买断方案，以缩减其员工规模。