License plate reader in Manti poses danger to privacy

It is not a new debate, but it feels newly urgent on X (formerly Twitter) and other public platforms such as Facebook and Instagram: How much freedom should we trade for safety? Flock and other automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems are coming under intense scrutiny as cities across the country drop their contracts amid citizen outrage over warrantless tracking.

Our Founders had much to say about the safety-versus-freedom trade-off. In a letter to James Madison on Jan. 30, 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote (translating his Latin phrase), “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

These are the same men who helped secure the constitutional guarantees of liberty we still hold dear, including the Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Recent Supreme Court decisions clarify what counts as an “effect” and protect our movements. In United States v. Jones, the Court held: “It is beyond dispute that a vehicle is an ‘effect’ as that term is used in the Amendment.” In Chatrie v. United States, (decided June 29, 2026), the Court ruled that an individual’s cell-phone Location History data is likewise protected: “Because Mr. Chatrie’s Location History data is his effect, it is subject to the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions when the government searches it.”

The particular technology is not the point; the absence of a proper warrant is. As the Court explained in Chatrie (drawing on Carpenter): “[W]hen the Government accessed CSLI (Cell-Site Location Information) from the wireless carriers—thereby obtaining a ‘detailed log’ of where Carpenter had gone for seven days—it invaded Carpenter’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of his physical movements.” Taken together, these precedents make clear that when I am in my vehicle going about private business, the sheriff has no authority to track my physical movements daily—whether by GPS, CSLI, cell phone data, ALPRs, drones, or any future technology—without a warrant.

The argument recently advanced by Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper (and echoed by Sheriff Jared Buchanan after a Manti City Council meeting) is a familiar one: “Wouldn’t you want cameras tracking someone who killed or kidnapped your child?” Buchanan was surprised when residents replied, in substance, “No. Find them lawfully with a correct warrant that isn’t tracking everyone.” He indicated that if the majority of his county felt that way, he would remove the Motorola camera near Main Street Pizza and stop using his portable camera attached to a speed-reading sign.

The fact remains that this is not a majority-rule question. The Fourth Amendment declares that these rights “shall not be violated.” It is not a suggestion, not contingent on catching a bad guy, and not justified by the possibility that a kidnapper or drug runner might pass through Manti in the next six months. It is unlawful to gather location data on every citizen who travels Main Street at any hour.

The claim that being outside one’s house places a person entirely in the public domain, with no privacy interest, is incorrect. The Supreme Court has recognized a “reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of [our] physical movements.”

Justice Sotomayor observed in Jones: “Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse.” Daily news reports of officials fired for misusing Flock and similar ALPR systems illustrate how often that risk materializes.

Even if Sheriff Buchanan follows strict protocols today, we have no guarantee that future sheriffs will do the same. More fundamentally, the continuous collection of data on everyone constitutes an illegal search.