9th Amendment Project: Official Advocacy Statement
FROM: Roderick Threats, Director , 9th Amendment Project (9AP)
DATE: 7 April 2026
The 9th Amendment Project (9AP) formally calls for an immediate moratorium on the expansion of Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) networks—specifically the Flock Safety ecosystem—within the State of Florida. While HB 543 (2026) purports to provide a regulatory framework, it fails to address the systemic “Enclosure of Movement” created by the public-private sharing of AI-powered vehicle fingerprinting data. We advocate for a “Warrant-First” policy and strict jurisdictional firewalls to prevent federal agencies from utilizing local infrastructure to bypass constitutional safeguards.
While we acknowledge the legislative intent to regulate digital credentials, HB 543 currently provides a “stewardship” model that favors administrative convenience over inherent liberty.
- The Consent Deficit: Under Section 4 of HB 543, private entities may install ALPRs for “public safety-related purposes.” This broad definition allows for the warrantless collection of location data from millions of innocent Floridians without their explicit consent—a disparagement of the Retained Right to Anonymity.
- The Federal Loophole: Despite the bill’s restrictions on selling data, the “lawful request” exception allows state agencies (like the FWC) to act as a secondary data pipe for federal entities (ICE/DHS), effectively nationalizing Florida’s local roads into a federal surveillance grid.
We maintain that the current 2026 deployment of FLOCK cameras violates the Fourth Amendment and Florida’s explicit Right to Privacy (Art. I, Sec. 23).
- The Aggregate Search Doctrine: Citing Carpenter v. United States (2018), the 9AP asserts that the government conducts a search when it accesses a “comprehensive record of a person’s physical movements.” The 30-day retention of searchable vehicle fingerprints provides an “intimate window” into a citizen’s life—revealng religious, medical, and political associations.
- The “Whole of Movement” Violation: Citing United States v. Jones (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring), we argue that the cumulative effect of thousands of public and private cameras creates a “GPS-level” tracking dragnet that chilled the 9th Amendment right to move freely without being barcoded by the State.
The Scriptorium of the People proposes the following Policy Safeguards:
- The “Warrant-First” Mandate: Prohibit law enforcement from performing retrospective searches of any ALPR database without a warrant based on probable cause for a specific felony.
- Mandatory Purge Cycles: Reduce the maximum data retention period from the current 30 days to 24 hours for all non-hit data.
- Jurisdictional Firewalls: Explicitly prohibit the sharing of ALPR data with any federal agency unless required by a direct federal court order, closing the “administrative request” loophole.
- Credentialholder Veto: Require that any “Digital Driver License” system integrated into traffic modernized signalization (as per Section 16 of HB 543) requires opt-in consent for all tracking functions.
The 9th Amendment Project holds that the “Right to Produce” and the “Right to Private Exchange” are meaningless if the path to the market is under constant, automated state surveillance. We must choose between a society of Administrative Stewardship and a society of Presumed Liberty.
We look forward to presenting this testimony before the respective House and Senate committees.
STAY SOVEREIGN.
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