Policy brief · Civil liberties
No. 04 · October 2026

Privacy and Surveillance

Warrants for Americans' data, public control of surveillance and open contracts.

For campaign staff, legislative offices and press · Figures sourced in the notes

The bottom line

License-plate cameras run by Flock Safety log more than 20 billion vehicle scans a month, by the company's own count.²
One Texas search swept more than 83,000 cameras looking for a woman who had self-managed an abortion.⁴
The FBI improperly searched Section 702 data 278,000 times by one count, including people at protests and political donors.⁷
Agencies buy Americans' data from brokers instead of getting warrants. A bill to stop it passed the House 219 to 199.^9,10
71% of Americans are concerned about how the government uses data it collects about them.¹³

20B+Flock vehicle scans a month²

$1.855BPalantir's U.S. government revenue, 2025⁵

212–212House tie on requiring a warrant, 2024⁸

71%Concerned about government use of their data¹³

01The problem

Cameras nobody voted for. Flock cameras photograph every passing car and log its plate, location and time. Through national lookup, an officer in one state can search cameras in thousands of other towns. Records show local officers running searches for immigration enforcement on ICE's behalf.³

A contractor that sees everything. Palantir's U.S. government revenue reached $1.855 billion in 2025. Its ImmigrationOS contract with ICE supports "selection and apprehension operations."^5,6

Warrantless spying at home. Section 702 lets agencies collect foreigners' communications abroad; Americans' messages get swept in, and the FBI can search them without a warrant.⁷

Concerned about government use of their data

2019

64%

2023

71%

Pew Research Center, share very or somewhat concerned.¹³

02The evidence

The abuse is documented, not hypothetical. In May 2025 a Texas sheriff's office searched more than 83,000 cameras for a woman who had self-managed an abortion; the sheriff said the search was about her safety.⁴ A 2022 surveillance court opinion described improper FBI searches of 702 data on people arrested at George Floyd protests, people tied to January 6 and 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate.⁷

The data-broker loophole is real. A declassified intelligence report found agencies buy Americans' data from brokers, including information the Supreme Court said needs a warrant, and do not know how much they hold.⁹

Communities are fighting back. More than 30 cities and towns deactivated Flock cameras or canceled contracts between the start of 2025 and February 2026.¹ At least 15 jurisdictions have passed community control ordinances requiring public approval before police buy surveillance tools.¹²

03The plan

The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (H.R. 4639) passed the House 219 to 199 on April 17, 2024, with members of both parties, then stalled in the Senate.^10,11 The Constituent agenda:

Reform	What it does
Warrants for Americans' data	No searching 702 data, plate-reader logs or location history without a judge's approval.
Close the data-broker loophole	Bar agencies from buying data they would need a court order to demand.
Limits on plate readers	Short retention, no out-of-state sharing, no use for immigration or reproductive-health investigations.
Community control	No new surveillance technology without a public vote and a published use policy.
Open contracts	Public bidding, public reporting and independent audits for every surveillance contract.
A federal privacy law	Limits on what companies can collect in the first place.

04Who benefits and who pays

Who benefits

Everyone with a car or a phone, whose movements are logged by default today.
Immigrants and people seeking reproductive care, who have been targeted through shared camera networks.^3,4
Protesters, journalists and donors, whose records were swept into improper searches.⁷

Who pays

Surveillance vendors such as Flock and Palantir, which would face public bidding, audits and limits on use.⁵
Data brokers, who would lose government agencies as buyers for data that needs a warrant.⁹
Agencies, which would have to get a judge's approval, as the Fourth Amendment intends.

05What lawmakers can do

Back the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act and any reauthorization of Section 702 only with a warrant requirement.^10,14
Pass a community control ordinance before your city or county signs another surveillance contract.¹²
Audit existing plate-reader contracts: who can search, how long data is kept, and where it goes.
Cancel contracts that break your own rules, as more than 30 communities already have.¹
Use the toolkit for the bill's language, a model resolution and answers to the objections.

Notes

The Constituent Institute · constituentinstitute.org/privacy-and-surveillance-brief Funded by people, not corporations. Free to copy and share.