On Saturday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced he’ll soon sponsor “a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments” that deploy Flock-style cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens. He attached a Gadsden flag parody: a coiled rattlesnake wrapped around an automated license plate reader on a pole, over the words “don’t flock me.”
Rather than regulating or litigating the cameras, Massie’s bill would cut off federal funding to every city and police department that installs them. Flock’s business model runs on local government contracts across roughly 6,000 communities, so a funding-withholding bill aims directly at its customer base.
Third Strike In A Week
Massie’s bill is the third Republican move against Flock in a matter of days.
On July 21, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) filed H.R. 9800, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, which would bar federal agencies from purchasing, funding, or accessing automated license plate readers – Flock is named explicitly – along with biometric tracking tech covering fingerprints, iris, voice, and gait. Any data a federal agency obtained would have to be deleted within 30 days and would be inadmissible in court. Burchett’s pitch: “We gotta ban these dadgum things.”
Earlier this month, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) tried to attach an amendment restricting the readers in committee. It failed, and Perry responded that the fight wasn’t over: “STOP THE FLOCK.”
In April, Massie teamed with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on the Surveillance Accountability Act, which would require a probable-cause warrant before federal or local agencies surveil Americans, ban warrantless facial recognition in public spaces, block the government from buying its way around the Fourth Amendment via third-party data brokers, and make individual federal employees personally suable for violations. Boebert’s framing: the government is building a “digital footprint of your entire life” without a warrant or probable cause.
Hellbound and Down 