> No, the fact that it's recording people in public does make it escape scrutiny moving forward. In public you can be filmed by anyone - be they government or private citizens.

This is false. While there is no strongly established precedent yet, there are certainly serious and plausible legal arguments being made that unlimited collection and collation/cross-referencing/etc. of "public" information can under certain circumstances constitute a search. It will most certainly not "escape scrutiny moving forward".

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_theory_of_the_Fourth_Am...

▲

Manuel_D 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The legality of automated license plate readers has gone all the way up to the United States Court of Appeals. That's the second highest court in the country, superseded only by the Supreme Court.

This is as strong as precedent gets, short of a SCOTUS decision.

	▲	caconym_ 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That doesn't sound like escaping scrutiny to me! Sounds like it's getting pretty thoroughly scrutinized, in fact. > This is as stromg (sic) as precedent gets, short of a SCOTUS decision. Another egregious misrepresentation. The courts are obviously making their rulings as narrow as possible because they know the "mosaic theory" style arguments have some merit. Look at US vs. Yang, for example, in which the court dodged the issue completely with some argument about rental car contract periods. And Schmidt v. Norfolk, which IIUC directly challenges Flock ALPRs on 4A grounds, is pending. Lots and lots of scrutiny. Your claim that the conclusion is foregone here is obviously absurd. Even when/if it gets to SCOTUS I expect they'll write as narrow an opinion as they can get away with, in whatever direction it falls.