A federal judge in Oklahoma has ruled that a police deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights by searching her license plate in an automated surveillance system without a warrant.
U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill issued the ruling on October 1, 2026, targeting Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy Freddie Alaniz and his use of Flock Safety’s license plate reader network.
Deputy Alaniz initially queried Flock’s automated license plate reader system after spotting a California plate on an Oklahoma highway, before identifying any traffic violation or criminal suspicion.
The search gave the deputy access to roughly 30 days of vehicle-location data spanning several states, including more than 50 recorded sightings of the rental vehicle connected to defendant Melisa Kyle.
That initial warrantless database query ultimately fed into a traffic stop and vehicle search that allegedly uncovered 91 pounds of methamphetamine.
Judge Hill, a Biden appointee, ordered suppression of evidence obtained following the search, finding the deputy’s use of automated license plate reader data violated the Constitution.
The ruling described Flock’s expansive surveillance network as “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance,” signaling growing judicial concern about the reach of such systems across the country.
Hill wrote that the officer’s “use of the ALPR Systems was an Unconstitutional Warrantless Search” and “was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant in violation of [the defendant’s] Fourth Amendment rights.”
The judge further argued that prior rulings finding Flock searches constitutional because they track vehicles in public fail to account for the network’s scale, which she warned is approaching “dragnet-type law enforcement practice.”
“The Fourth Amendment requires courts to draw a line when the cost is too great,” Hill wrote, urging courts to update their legal understanding of advancing surveillance technology.
Audit logs reviewed by 404 Media indicate that more than 100,000 warrantless searches of Flock’s system occur every single month across the United States.
While the ruling does not establish binding precedent, legal observers note it is among the first federal decisions to find that querying Flock’s network can constitute an unconstitutional search.
Flock Safety disputed the ruling and stressed that the company was not a party to Kyle’s criminal case, calling Hill’s decision inconsistent with the broader legal record.
A company spokesperson said the decision conflicts with what Flock described as the “overwhelming weight of authority” from other courts, including previous rulings within Oklahoma itself.
Flock said it expects the decision to be appealed and characterized the ruling as narrowly limited to the specific facts surrounding Kyle’s case.
