Three plate reader bills have now landed in Congress in five weeks, and the newest one reaches further than the rest. Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Ban Flock Act on October 2, aiming at the money that keeps automated license plate readers running.
The bill would bar federal agencies from using plate readers or touching the data those cameras collect. It would also cut federal grants to any state or local government that runs the cameras or contracts with a plate reader company. A third provision hands people a private right to sue the federal government over harms tied to its own camera use.
The grant condition carries the widest reach. Washington does not operate most of these cameras, but its dollars flow to the cities and departments that do, so tying funding to compliance pushes the fight deep into local budgets.
Two earlier bills took different routes. The House Flock-Off Act, filed by Representative Thomas Massie on September 2, would strip federal funds from agencies that buy, run or upgrade plate readers and biometric cameras, and force federally funded systems offline within 180 days. Its cosponsors span Ro Khanna on the left and Lauren Boebert, Chip Roy and Paul Gosar on the right. Senator Josh Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, unveiled September 30, regulates how the cameras work instead: data deleted after ten days, no facial recognition on reader networks, and a log for every search.
Flock Safety, the target of all three, says it works with more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies and runs roughly 120,000 cameras across 49 states, reading about 20 billion plates a month. More than 50 cities and counties have dropped the company this year.
