Washington spent the last week arguing over Flock Safety. On Sept. 23, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing examined the company’s automated license plate reader network, privacy, misuse, and public-safety value. The next day, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced the Facilitating Liberty and Accountability for Flock Observations Act, which would require federal agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing or sharing data from networked ALPR systems.

Those legal and civil liberties questions matter. But they can obscure a narrower issue that does not require choosing between law enforcement and privacy: when a camera network stores searchable records of where vehicles were seen, can the agency using it prove exactly who can reach those records?