本周，一名联邦法官裁定：俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨市的一名警长副手在未获得搜查令的情况下，利用Flock Safety系统查询一名女子的车牌信息，此举侵犯了该女子依据《第四修正案》所享有的权利。
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.
据404 Media报道，这一裁决虽不构成具有约束力的先例，但却是联邦法官首次判定使用Flock系统进行信息查询属于违宪行为。
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.
在此案中，法官萨拉·希尔表示，该警长本应在搜查Flock数据库中查找这名女子的车牌号之前获取搜查令，因为他在进行搜查时“没有明显理由”，“除了该女子车辆悬挂的是加利福尼亚州车牌这一事实之外”。
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.”
随后，该警长将这名女子在Flock系统中的出行记录用作搜查其车辆的依据，据称他在搜查中发现了91磅冰毒。但希尔法官写道，在Flock数据库搜查之后获得的所有证据“都必须被排除，因为它们属于有毒之树上的果实”。
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.”
希尔法官还更广泛地批评了未经搜查令即搜查Flock数据库的做法。她写道，追踪人们的位置——即使他们身处公共场所——“当执法部门可以无差别地、被动地长期记录你的行踪，并在任何方便的时候将这些信息用于任何目的时，就会在宪法上出现问题”。
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.”
希尔写道：“这是一种无差别的全面监控。它并非针对某个特定个人，这与[某项最高法院案件不同，该案关注的是政府机构如何获取手机中的位置数据]。这是一种工具，它会持续收集所有经过任何联网摄像头车辆的信息，并根据需求向执法部门提供这些信息。”希尔加入了来自各政治派别、日益壮大的Flock批评者行列。
“This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance,” Hill wrote. “It is not targeted on a single individual, as in [, 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.”Hill joins a growing chorus of Flock critics from across the political spectrum.
包括佛罗里达州和得克萨斯州在内的多个地方和州政府已表示将停止使用这项技术。周五，来自佛蒙特州的民主党参议员伯尼·桑德斯提出了《阻止Flock法案》，该法案将禁止联邦机构使用Flock等自动车牌识别系统。
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.
Flock的首席执行官加雷蒂·兰利——我们即将在TechCrunch Disrupt大会上对他进行访谈——呼吁在隐私与安全之间寻求“平衡”，并向那些遭到使用Flock系统的执法人员跟踪骚扰的女性致以歉意。由于大量客户纷纷解约，据报道Flock还推出了员工自愿买断计划，以此来缩减员工规模。
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.