The Fourth Amendment's protections do not disappear when surveillance becomes easier. That was the message from Institute for Justice legislative counsel Alasdair Whitney at a recent congressional hearing on Flock and other automated license plate readers, as reported in Reason's latest Short Circuit roundup. Whitney argued that technological convenience does not make constitutional protections any less important.
Elsewhere in the same roundup, a 2026 Fourth Circuit ruling addressed Baltimore police's warrantless use of a cell-site simulator to locate a shooting suspect. The court found the search unconstitutional, but granted qualified immunity to the officers and rejected the plaintiff's damages claims for nearly two years spent in pretrial detention. The court also expressed concern about law enforcement using private nondisclosure agreements to conceal or obscure important information when seeking a search warrant.
Together, the hearing and the ruling show two fronts in the debate over policing and technology. Lawmakers are weighing how far automated license plate readers can go, while courts continue to apply the Fourth Amendment to digital surveillance tools. Yet the cell-site simulator case also illustrates that a constitutional violation does not always lead to a remedy.