A California sheriff's deputy used a police license plate camera to hunt down his own ex-fiancée, tracking her movements until a judge handed him a six-year prison sentence this past February. He's one of roughly 70 documented cases nationwide where officers used license plate cameras to track spouses, stalk former partners, or pursue people they had feelings for — and California lawmakers just let a bill that could have stopped the next one die without so much as a vote.

Senate Bill 1013 would have limited how police use automated license plate readers, required officers to get privacy training, and ordered random audits to catch misuse before it turns into another stalking case. It passed the state Senate. Then Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry blocked it from ever reaching the Assembly floor on the final day lawmakers were in session — the fifth time in four years a bill like this has failed.

"It's a really disappointing outcome at a time when there is bipartisan concern about this mass surveillance tool," said Catherine Crump, co-director of UC Berkeley's Center for Law & Technology, according to CalMatters.

More than 230 California police and sheriff's departments run this technology today, logging the location of law-abiding drivers with almost no independent oversight. Survivors of stalking and abuse deserve better than watching a tool meant to protect them get turned into a weapon against them.

Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry has the power to let this bill move next session instead of quietly burying it again. Sign the petition to demand she bring license plate reader oversight to a real vote — before another survivor pays the price for her silence.