Waukesha County Flock cameras; WILL files lawsuit

A lawsuit filed today aims to stop flock cameras use in Waukesha County unless you have a warrant. Waukesha County reporter Brett Lemoine live with who the group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is suing. Brett. And Ben and Kim, Will alleges that these cameras are being pointed at churches and people's backyards and even at polling places in Waukesha County. Will calls this a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Waukesha County Court. It alleges a dozen municipalities are using flock cameras as, quote, no limits government surveillance. Our position is that if the police want to use that very powerful surveillance technology, they need to get a warrant. Dan Lennington is deputy counsel for the group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty or Will for short. Will is representing taxpayers in the county. One of our plaintiffs is lives here in O'Connell Walk and he has a camera that is right outside his back door. It looks into his backyard. Lennington says police need warrants when they ask cell phone companies for logs and locations of individuals. Will believes license plate readers should be no different, except Lennington says flock cameras do so much more like storing photographs of your vehicle, bumper stickers or even paint scratches in a database. They can look back 30 days and create a vehicle history map to see where you've gone and then they can predict the future, predict where you're going to be. Some homeowners tell Fox 6 they've embraced nearby surveillance. We have had some problems around here with rowdiness and crime and stuff and that's reduced it also. Will estimates there are about 120 flock cameras in the county. Most are operated by municipalities, but Lennington says some private businesses have them too. Fleet Farm has some in Delafield, Home Depot has them all over the state. Once you have a contract with Flock, you have access to the database. So you can search your own cameras, but you can also search the nationwide network. We did reach out to all the municipalities that are listed as defendants in this lawsuit and we heard back from a couple of them, mainly to just acknowledge that either they were aware of the lawsuit or they had yet to be served, but we did hear back from O'Connell walks. Mayor who told us the city will be taking up next week. The future of flock cameras in this city and also in the village of McGowan ago. They told us they had flock cameras on a temporary basis, a trial basis in July and they're already in the process of terminating that relationship reporting live in O'Connell walk Brett Lemoine Fox six news. Suddenly they are everywhere. Thank you. Brett Lemoine.