During the last Supreme Court term, the Court in the case of Chatrie v. United States ruled 6-3 to invalidate a police tactic called a “geofence warrant.”

A geofence warrant is a mass surveillance tool which a law enforcement agency demands from a tech company (like Google) location data from every mobile device within a defined geographic area with a certain timeframe, without specifying a suspect or suspects. It is clear that this constitutes a Fourth Amendment violation; geofencing is a mass, dragnet search of innocent people guilty of no crime.

In June 2025, the Lewiston City Council approved and accepted as part of the U.S. DOJ’s Byrne Community Grant, which was intended for surveillance camera technology. This grant funding then gets us to October 2025, when the Lewiston Police Department entered into a 60-day trial with Flock Safety. Without a City Council vote, the city went on to acquire and implement a 13-camera system.

According to one report, 82 Flock contracts nationwide have been canceled. Unlike Auburn, Lewiston has not decided to end funding. We the people of Lewiston should follow Auburn’s lead in ending Flock’s contract and removing this mass surveillance network. While the Chatrie decision is new, time will show that automated license plate readers are like a geofence warrant, a mass surveillance tactic and a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Matthew Roy
Lewiston