Flock surveillance spreads across the South as red-state lawmakers seek to axe '1984'-style tracking tools

By Fox News · Fox News

State lawmakers in West Virginia 's Freedom Caucus are seeking to ban AI-powered Flock surveillance cameras statewide, arguing the technology violates citizens' Fourth Amendment right to privacy. "The West Virginia Freedom Caucus strongly opposes the unchecked expansion of automated surveillance technologies, including Flock Safety camera systems, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), AI-powered facial recognition, multimodal vehicle recognition, and emerging 'gun detection' software that claims to identify armed citizens based on body shape or movement," West Virginia Delegate Chris Anders, the Chairman of West Virginia's Freedom Caucus, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "These technologies represent a dramatic expansion of government surveillance that is fundamentally at odds with the Fourth Amendment," Anders added. THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERA ON YOUR STREET CORNER: LAWFUL SPYING OR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROBLEMATIC? "No state or local government should be mass tracking the daily movements of law-abiding citizens without a warrant. Mass surveillance has no place in a free society," Anders also said in a statement posted to the caucus' X account. The caucus is calling on all state municipalities to immediately remove automated license plate readers such as the ones run by the security company Flock Safety. "The Constitution does not disappear because technology advances," Anders added. The caucus plans on combatting the cameras and surveillance technologies by reintroducing a previously failed legislative measure called the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act. The bill would prohibit a series of AI-powered surveillance technologies from being used by law enforcement and other agencies in the state. The technologies it would ban include facial recognition software, surveillance drones, license plate readers and more. "For two consecutive years, the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislature, yet it has failed to reach the G…