Republican Florida Rep. Greg Steube introduced legislation Thursday to bar the federal government from buying, operating, or accessing Flock Safety cameras without a judicial warrant, according to the Daily Caller. The bill is titled the Facilitating Liberty and Accountability for Flock Observations (FLAFO) Act.
The Caller reports the bill would also make certain Department of Justice grants to local law enforcement contingent on agencies adopting similar privacy restrictions, citing bill text the outlet says it obtained.
What the FLAFO Act would do
Per the Caller, the FLAFO Act aims to limit warrantless surveillance by automated license plate readers (ALPRs) such as Flock Safety cameras by:
– Prohibiting the federal government from buying, operating, or accessing Flock Safety cameras without a judicial warrant.
– Conditioning some DOJ law-enforcement grants on local adoption of comparable privacy rules.
Why Steube says it’s needed
“The Fourth Amendment is not optional,” Steube told the Daily Caller. “Americans should not be tracked everywhere they drive without a warrant.”
He added: “Flock Safety’s surveillance network is too expansive, and we have seen several instances across the country where this technology is too easily abused. The FLAFO Act limits warrantless surveillance by ALPR systems because the government has no business tracking law-abiding Americans,” according to the Caller.
In an Aug. 20, 2026 post on X, Steube pointed to a Sarasota case he described as involving the alleged misuse of Flock and other databases, saying a police officer was arrested and fired. That claim was presented by Steube; Daily Allegiant has not independently verified it.
The fight over ALPRs
The source material notes ALPRs were originally used to flag vehicles of interest from locally collected data. Critics now argue the technology has grown into mass surveillance with access to potentially sensitive information. According to the same source, some ALPR systems—including Flock Safety—use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze vehicle data, enabling more detailed tracking.
A case cited by critics
The source also reports that a Florida woman, Lindsey Isaacs, was wrongfully accused and jailed after Flock Safety cameras allegedly misidentified her vehicle in a deadly crash. According to that account, Isaacs was jailed for over two weeks and spent three days in solitary confinement before the mistake emerged. “I was terrified,” she said in testimony before the Senate on Wednesday, per the source. “I was facing the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for a crash I knew that I had not been involved in. At my lowest point, I didn’t want to be alive.”
Details about the bill’s next steps, co-sponsors, or committee path were not included in the provided material.
