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Flock Exposed - Federal Judge Rules Against Warrantless Flock Search

The Case

On October 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma issued an Opinion and Order in United States v. Melisa Susan Kyle, Case No. 26-CR-00189-SEH.

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

A federal grand jury indicted Kyle on one count of possessing with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine, under 21 U.S.C. Sections 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A)(viii).

Source: Indictment, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., May 19, 2026 (CourtListener)

Kyle's defense filed a motion to suppress the evidence. Judge Hill granted it.

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

What the Deputy Did

According to the opinion, Tulsa County Sheriff's Deputy Freddie Alaniz, parked on the side of a highway, saw a Mazda SUV with a California license plate, then pulled onto the highway to follow it "for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

The deputy had access to two automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems: Flock Safety's network and VehicleManager. The court described both as "gathering and organizing historical data about a vehicle's whereabouts on public roadways for use by law enforcement across the country."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener) / Gizmodo

The deputy ran the California plate through the ALPR systems from his patrol vehicle. He did not have a warrant. The court found that at the time of the query, "all Alaniz knew was that the vehicle had a California license plate."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

The court found the deputy had access to at least 30 days of vehicle location data in many states. The search returned "more than 50 individual records of Kyle's whereabouts across the country for an entire month," showing travel from Oklahoma toward the California/Arizona border area and back toward Missouri.

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener) / 404 Media

After the traffic stop, the deputy questioned Kyle about her travel in his patrol car "while he continued to review the ALPR systems for the car she was driving."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

What the Judge Ruled

Judge Hill ruled that the warrantless historical search was a search under the Fourth Amendment because it "intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

She found the search "was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant in violation of Kyle's Fourth Amendment rights."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

She described the systems this way: "This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance. It is not targeted on a single individual."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

She wrote: "No doubt, ALPR technology comes with remarkable benefits that the Court cannot ignore. But the Fourth Amendment requires courts to draw a line when the cost is too great."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

She also found the search had a "nexus" to the rest of the traffic stop "because Alaniz began following Kyle's car while he conducted the ALPR search, which led to the rest of the evidence obtained during the traffic stop."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

The Remedy

Because the government did not identify an adequate exception to the exclusionary rule, the court ordered that "all evidence obtained after Alaniz initiated the ALPR search must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

What This Ruling Does and Does Not Do

This is a federal district court ruling. It decides this one case and does not bind other courts nationwide.

Source: WSBT

The ruling does not ban license plate readers. It addresses the historical, multistate search of one vehicle's movements over about a month, done without probable cause and without a warrant.

Source: WSBT

Flock Safety was not a party to the case, which was brought by the United States against Kyle. In a statement, Flock said the ruling "goes against the overwhelming weight of authority in similar cases across the country" and that it expects the decision "will be appealed and ultimately overturned."

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener) / Gizmodo

NonDoc reported that this is the first federal ruling to find that ALPR use without probable cause or a warrant violates the Constitution, and that it runs contrary to most prior Oklahoma court decisions on the issue.

Source: NonDoc

The Takeaway

This ruling is not binding nationwide, and an appeal is expected. But it is another significant crack in the legal footing for warrantless ALPR searches: a federal judge has now put in writing that pulling up a month of a person's movements from a camera network, with no warrant and no probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment.

Source: Opinion and Order, United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla., Oct. 1, 2026 (CourtListener)

Questions to Ask Your Town

Does our police department require a warrant before searching historical license plate reader data?
How many days of location data can our officers search, and from how many states?
What reason must an officer enter before running a plate search, and does anyone review those reasons?
Who audits searches to make sure they are tied to a real investigation and not just an out-of-state plate?
Has our town's attorney reviewed this ruling and how it affects our policy?

This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.

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