We, the undersigned, call on all lawmakers in the State of Texas to enact comprehensive legislation banning and prohibiting mass surveillance technologies and practices that enable the indiscriminate, warrantless tracking and or data collection of ordinary people in public spaces.

Flock Safety cameras illustrate the problem clearly. These automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems use AI-powered cameras mounted on poles and buildings to photograph every passing vehicle. They capture license plates along with vehicle details such as make, model, color, and unique visual “fingerprints” including dents, stickers, or modifications. The data, precise location and timestamp included, is uploaded in real time to a centralized cloud database that already spans more than one hundred thousand cameras across thousands of U.S. communities and continues to expand. Law enforcement can search this network without a warrant in most cases.

These systems eliminate the traditional expectation that people can drive in public without constant tracking or being entered into a government database. Every passage past a Flock camera creates a permanent record, allowing authorities, or anyone with access, to reconstruct movements across days or weeks simply by knowing a license plate. This mass, indiscriminate collection can reveal highly sensitive details: medical visits, places of worship, political gatherings, or personal relationships, all without the driver’s knowledge. The centralized, searchable nature of the database makes it unacceptably invasive.

Yet Flock cameras are only one example of a broader threat. Mass surveillance of every type, whether through ALPR networks, AI powered drones, facial-recognition systems, persistent video analytics, cell-site simulators, data brokers aggregating location trails, or any other technology that systematically records and stores the movements and associations of the general public, raises the same fundamental dangers.

From a civil-liberties perspective, these practices enable warrantless, long-term location tracking that the Supreme Court has already recognized as constitutionally problematic. They create a chilling effect on free speech, assembly, and freedom of movement: people may avoid protests, clinics, houses of worship, or certain neighborhoods out of fear of being monitored. The risks of abuse, mission creep into non-criminal matters, discriminatory application, and permanent databases that can be searched indefinitely turn everyday public spaces into a pervasive surveillance grid.

We therefore petition for clear bans and legal prohibitions on mass surveillance of all types.  This includes:

• Banning the deployment and use of automated systems that indiscriminately capture and retain data on the general public;
• Prohibiting the purchase of data collected by private companies using mass-surveillance technology or methods for government use of any kind;
• Establishing meaningful penalties for violations and mechanisms for the public to challenge and dismantle existing mass-surveillance infrastructure.

Mass surveillance undermines core civil liberties and the freedoms that define American society. Sign this petition to demand that the State of Texas reject the normalization of constant, warrantless tracking and restore the principle that people may move through public life without being recorded by a government surveillance apparatus.