(Originally published in The Volokh Conspiracy on September 16, 2026.)

For reasons explained in my draft article, The Fourth Amendment After Chatrie, there is good reason to believe that the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Chatrie v. United States will trigger a rethinking of how the Fourth Amendment applies to automated license plate reader systems such as those provided by Flock Safety.  There was an oral argument in the Eleventh Circuit on this question on July 29 that you can listen to here, but there has been no ruling yet on that from the Eleventh Circuit.  Last week, however, the United States District Court for the Central District of California became the first court I’m aware of to weigh in on whether the use of Flock cameras is a Fourth Amendment search after Chatrie.

Continue reading the op-ed here.