State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) believes there will be an opportunity in the next Legislative session to put more limits on the use of Flock cameras by law enforcement.
The lawmaker was able to pass a bill that put some restrictions on license plate reader (LPR) cameras in 2021, but doesn’t think it went far enough in protecting the rights of Alabamians.
Orr discussed the issue Thursday on “The Rightside” with Allison Sinclair and Amie Beth Shaver, in partnership with Yellowhammer News.
“When the legislation ran into a lot of headwinds from my colleagues at the time, the best deal I could cut at the time was to get ALDOT to put policies in place, and I was assured by the transportation director at the time, Mr. Cooper, that they would, and they did,” Orr said. “In my opinion, they’re very, very loose. They’re not as tight as I would like to see.”
The CEO of surveillance technology company Flock Safety, Garrett Langley, recently apologized for instances of corruption by officials using the technology, but that hasn’t stopped the recent backlash against license plate reader cameras across the country.
The state lawmaker said they will likely address the issue further because of the outcry from voters in the state.
“Now that it seems, as you say, the public has awakened, I’m ready to revisit the issue and really clamp down on these,” he continued. “If the public even wants them at all, and I think that’s the initial debate out of the gate: do we do we even want to have them? And then, if we do, we really need to put some restrictions and guardrails and more limitations on the usage of them.”
Orr said he still supports the police in Alabama, but also supports putting checks on the system so it can’t be abused.
“And we all know we again we we support the police, but they’re bad actors among the police,” he argued. “And what happens if you get a cop that wants to check up on his girlfriend and see where she’s going, or somebody else, or a business associate, or whatever? We don’t need that, and if that happens, they need to be punished accordingly.”
Orr doesn’t believe the cameras violate the Constitution, but said the government still has a role to properly limit their uses.
“My real problem is these companies are using, you know, they’re using government right away to do this. So that gives us the right to really come in and limit how how they’re used,” he said. “[On] your private property, a license plate reader that reads vehicle tags as they come by, and there is nothing that we you could do to to stop that, but using government airspace above interstates and other roadways, etc. That’s where we get involved and able to draw some lines around.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
