Your car is being tracked without warrant. Two Republicans are ending the dragnet

Two House Republicans have decided the Fourth Amendment still applies to people who drive cars.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) filed HR 9800, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, on July 21. The bill would bar federal agencies from buying, operating, or accessing automated license plate readers, explicitly naming Flock Safety cameras, along with facial recognition and biometric tools that identify people by fingerprint, iris, voice, or gait. Any data a federal agency does obtain has to be deleted within 30 days, and none of it can be used in court. State and local governments couldn’t spend federal dollars on the same systems. Burchett’s summary of the problem ran to seven words. “We gotta ban these dadgum things.”