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Tag: Fourth Amendment

Boebert Sounds Alarm Over Growing License Plate Surveillance Networks
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The Daily Caller, Approved, Commentary, National

Boebert Sounds Alarm Over Growing License Plate Surveillance Networks

By Rep. Lauren Boebert | Commentary, Daily Caller As we near the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, I write in defense of freedom not as a politician seeking applause, but as a Coloradan, a mother, a grandmother, and a fierce defender of the liberties that define this nation. Fixed license plate reader cameras are quietly turning American streets into zones of constant monitoring. These systems continuously scan and record vehicle plates, logging time, location, and travel patterns. In community after community, this infrastructure has often expanded without explicit statutory authorization, clear democratic limits, or the individualized suspicion that a warrant typically requires. It is simply happening. The result is a growing database of everyday movements — where people wor...
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Three federal cases test whether Colorado treats gun rights as policy or as a limit on government
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Three federal cases test whether Colorado treats gun rights as policy or as a limit on government

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado has spent more than a generation treating the Second Amendment as a public-policy question. That is the first mistake. The Bill of Rights does not identify subjects upon which government may act whenever legislators believe their intentions are sufficiently benevolent. It identifies areas in which governmental power is constrained. The distinction is fundamental. A constitutional right does not exist at the pleasure of a legislative majority, nor does its force rise and fall with polling, tragedy, political fashion, or the confidence of public officials in their own judgment. This is particularly important when discussing firearms because the Second Amendment was never merely an eighteenth-century hunting prov...
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Millions of License Plates Appear in Flock Search Records. Is Yours One of Them?
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CBS News, Approved, National

Millions of License Plates Appear in Flock Search Records. Is Yours One of Them?

By Mary Cunningham | CBS News As privacy concerns swirl over Flock Safety's nationwide network of cameras, drivers may be curious whether their license plate information is being tracked. The website HaveIBeenFlocked.com has compiled a database to provide the public with some answers.  Through the website's portal, people can enter their license number to see whether it has been searched in Flock's system.  As the website notes, the results show what Flock's customers — which include police agencies, local communities, schools and businesses — have searched for, but not the individual license plates captured by Flock's cameras.  "The license plates and search reasons are what someone manually entered into the system," the websi...
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Boebert Says Government Must Show Probable Cause and Secure Warrant Before Tracking Citizens
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Boebert Says Government Must Show Probable Cause and Secure Warrant Before Tracking Citizens

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado From Flock cameras to facial recognition, mass surveillance is advancing; at the same time, privacy protections are eroding. The government can access, or buy access to, vast troves of data on Americans' emails, texts, bank records, even cloud data and justify it in the name of national security. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, a Republican who represents Colorado's 4th Congressional District, knows that firsthand. The Coloradan had just taken the oath of office in 2021 when Jan. 6 happened, and she became the subject of an FBI investigation dubbed Operation Rampart 12. "And this was all because I brought my family to the Capitol and had a tour," she said. Democrats accused her and at least three other Republ...
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AI Camera Expansion Sparks Debate Over Privacy Freedom and Government Authority
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Washington Examiner, Approved, Commentary, National

AI Camera Expansion Sparks Debate Over Privacy Freedom and Government Authority

By Connor Boyack | Commentary, Washington Examiner On the morning of July 4, someone in Houston, Texas, cut two surveillance cameras in half and draped an American flag over the wreckage. In New Bern, North Carolina, police asked the public to help identify two men filmed destroying a camera — the public responded with hundreds of tips identifying the suspects as Batman and Robin. Since April 2025, Americans in at least five states have dismantled these devices from Flock Safety, a $8.4 billion company whose over 100,000 AI-enabled cameras now photograph passing vehicles in more than 6,000 communities. Yes, the vandals are committing crimes, and laws apply even when cameras annoy. But a nation’s lawbreaking, like its laws, contains information....
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Bill Targeting Government Purchase of Personal Data Faces Law Enforcement Opposition
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Bill Targeting Government Purchase of Personal Data Faces Law Enforcement Opposition

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A bipartisan coalition of Colorado lawmakers is advancing a bill that would prohibit police from purchasing personal consumer data without a warrant, setting up a clash with prosecutors who warn the measure could hamper criminal investigations. House Bill 1037, sponsored by Reps. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, and Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Evergreen, would prohibit law enforcement and government entities from purchasing “certain personal data” from third parties without a warrant, except in emergencies. The bill, which sponsors are calling the “Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act,” aims to prohibit personal data purchased from a third party from being used as evidence in court. “Fundamentally, w...
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Mullen: This Independence Day, you’re not as free as you think
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Miami Herald, Approved, National

Mullen: This Independence Day, you’re not as free as you think

By Paul Mullen | Miami Herald There's a lot to celebrate this Independence Day, as we mark the 249th anniversary of our national divorce from Great Britain and the abuses of King George III. Yet under the flags and fireworks, the hotdogs and hamburgers, and the checkered tablecloths camouflaged in red, white, and blue, lies an uncomfortable, ironic truth: You're not as free as you think. This may sound absurd, inappropriate, even unpatriotic. How could this be, in "the land of the free"? The fact is each of us is shackled by invisible economic, regulatory, and civil chains. Hidden in plain sight is a tangled, ever-expanding web of federal, state, and local taxes, programs, regulations, spending, and debt-the overwhelming majority of which unjustly constrain and violate our Go...
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