The Surveillance State is Now a Corporate Product

OPINION: For years, we have watched the infrastructure of our cities be quietly converted into a corporate data-mining operation. Now, the federal government is attempting to play catch-up to stop the bleeding of our civil liberties.

As first reported by Wired, a new bipartisan effort in Congress is targeting the proliferation of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), specifically those produced by the Atlanta-based company Flock. The proposed legislation, known as the No FLOCK Act—or Federal License-Plate Observation and Camera Keeping—seeks to force states to restrict how these surveillance tools are used. To enforce compliance, the bill authorizes the US secretary of transportation to strip states of 10 percent of their annual federal funding for bridges, roads, and highways.

According to Wired, the bill is cosponsored by Republican Michael Cloud and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi. The legislation would limit the use of Flock cameras to just five specific scenarios: identifying stolen vehicles, locating missing or endangered persons, enforcing toll systems, investigating vehicles involved in felony offenses, or identifying vehicles registered to individuals with felony warrants.

Crucially, the bill would ban the use of these cameras for more mundane, corporate-style data harvesting, such as conducting traffic studies or enforcing parking and speeding rules. This is a necessary, if belated, admission that these tools have drifted far from their stated purpose of public safety. As Michael Cloud noted in a statement cited by Wired, these cameras enable the mass surveillance of Americans and infringe upon the Fourth Amendment, arguing that taxpayers should not fund the erosion of their own liberties.

However, the gaps in this legislation are as wide as the surveillance nets themselves. Wired reports that the bill does not ban Flock systems entirely—a primary demand of global protesters—nor does it prevent the sharing of tracking data with other government entities, including immigration authorities.

Furthermore, the reality on the ground is already grim. Wired highlights that police officers have been caught using Flock footage for personal vendettas, including stalking former romantic partners, with one report citing at least 100 instances of alleged abuse over the last eight years. While the New York University School of Law’s Policing Project notes that about 25 states and territories have some laws regarding ALPRs, very few actually limit how the technology is used.

Even as lawmakers attempt to rein in this corporate surveillance, the industry is fighting back. Federal records cited by Wired show that Flock's lobbying spending in Washington, DC, has remained steady over the last 18 months, and the company recently hired a fifth lobbying firm. With President Donald Trump expressing support for the cameras, the path to actual privacy is steep. If passed, states would face the loss of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation funding starting in October 2028, but for the average citizen, the surveillance hub is already active.