Thursday changes everything.
A bipartisan amendment drops in the House committee markup. It targets the cameras. Specifically, the ones that read license plates automatically.
The rule is simple. No federal highway money? Then no ALPR usage for anything but tolling. That’s it. If you want the billions meant for roads, you scrap the surveillance network.
Representative Scott Perry is behind it. He’s a Republican. A Freedom Caucus member. Right next to him is Representative Jesús García. A progressive from Illinois. Two ends of the spectrum. Same worry about privacy.
Neither office answered calls. That’s typical.
A recipient of assistance under Title 23 may not use automated license plate readers only for tolling.
It’s one sentence. The reach? Massive. Title 23 pays for about a quarter of public road miles. It touches state highways, county arteries, city streets. Basically every jurisdiction taking federal cash. Almost all of them. They’ll have to pull the plug. Or restructure for tolls alone.
This isn’t theoretical. Look at Illinois.
Secretary of State Alexi Giannouolas ran an audit. He found Flock Group breaking state law. Flock operates the biggest ALPR network. Based in Atlanta. They were sharing Illinois plate data with Customs and Border Protection.
Giannouolas told them to stop.
Flock said they’d pause the pilot programs nationwide. Their CEO Garrett Langley claimed earlier public denials of these deals were just accidental errors. Awkward. Flock didn’t return calls either.
Why does this matter?
ALPR cameras sit on poles. Overpasses. Police cruisers. They snap photos. They log times. Locations. Data flows into searchable databases. Shared between agencies. Across jurisdictions. It’s quiet. Pervasive.
Privacy folks have screamed about this for years. It’s de facto warrantless tracking. The Brennan Center at NYU documented it. So did the EFF. Police fuse this plate data with social media monitoring. With other surveillance tools.
There was that deputy in Texas. Court records showed up in 404 Media. He queried Flock’s 88,00 cameras. To track a woman. His reason? She had an abortion.
Hajar Hammado from Demand Progress isn’t mincing words.
Flock cameras are easily abused… The country has become a mass surveillance dystopia.
She thinks this amendment is common sense. Many cities already banned the tech. Couldn’t keep data safe.
Then there’s San Jose.
The Institute for Justice sued them in April. A class action. Alleging 474 cameras violated Fourth Amendment rights. The database took 360 million photos in 2024. Police searched it 15,000 days? No. Per day. In late 2025.
The city hasn’t responded substantively yet.
Mayor Matt Mahan likes the cameras. He’s named as a defendant too. EFF and ACLU sued him separately last November.
Courts haven’t helped. They’re hesitant. Some judges say people have no expectation of privacy on the street. But the law is shifting. A Congressional Research Service report noted courts are wary. One judge hinted it might happen soon. Technology moves fast. Laws lag behind.
This amendment avoids the courtroom fight entirely. It uses the wallet. Like the drinking age laws. Like DUI standards.
States can say no to the money.
They usually don’t.
So what happens Thursday? Cameras blink off. Or the conversation about where they belong starts all over. 🛑
