Nevada cities and counties are quietly plugging into Flock Safety's network of AI-powered license plate cameras — technology that does far more than snap a photo of a passing car. These cameras can flag "suspicious" driving patterns, build watchlists of vehicles, and let officers search a nationwide database of driver movements, arrest records, and personal information, often without ever getting a warrant.

Flock recently announced new privacy safeguards in response to growing criticism. But look closely and one word never shows up: warrant. "One word you don't see mentioned anywhere in Flock's proposed reforms is the word 'warrant,'" according to Institute for Justice attorney Michael Soyfer, as reported by The Nevada Independent. That's not a small omission — a warrant requirement is the basic safeguard that has historically stood between police and unchecked surveillance of everyday people.

This isn't a hypothetical risk. In other states, similar camera systems have already led to a Colorado woman wrongly accused of theft and a Florida woman who spent seven months proving she wasn't responsible for a hit-and-run she had nothing to do with. Investigators in Mountain View, California even discovered outside state and federal agencies accessing local camera data without permission — showing how easily these networks can be tapped well beyond their original purpose.

Nevada lawmakers can get ahead of this before it becomes our problem too. Requiring a warrant before police search license plate camera data would keep the technology useful for solving real crimes, without turning every driver into a suspect by default.

Sign the petition to require a warrant for Nevada's license plate camera searches — before a scan of your plate becomes probable cause against you.