Pillar P · Liberty
Surveillance, Privacy, and the Fourth Amendment
“The Fourth Amendment has no technology exception.”
South Dakota has no statute governing automated license plate readers. The networks are going up anyway, including a Flock system in Summerset that covers Stagebarn Middle School. A warrant to query, a deletion deadline in statute, no federal or out-of-state sharing without a South Dakota judge, and audits the public can actually read.
Where I stand
- Require a warrant before any South Dakota agency queries an ALPR network for a person's location history.
- Put a hard retention limit with automatic deletion in statute, not in a vendor's policy.
- Bar sharing South Dakota plate data with federal or out-of-state agencies without an order from a South Dakota judge.
- Require independent audits, published in full, with penalties for improper queries.
- No ALPR cameras sited to surveil schools, churches, or medical facilities.
- Require a public hearing and a recorded council or commission vote before any agency signs an ALPR contract.
- No warrantless law enforcement access to privately owned camera networks.
Pushback, answered
The hard questions, answered straight.
These are the real objections this position gets, with the same answers Zac gives in person. No talking points. No dodges.
“This is anti-police.”
The Rapid City Police Department runs four plate readers on a localized Axon system. Plate data only, no driver identification, no real-time monitoring, used to find stolen vehicles, violent crime suspects, and missing persons. That is a defensible policy, and I have said so publicly. My problem is that it is a policy rather than a law. A policy holds until a chief retires, a vendor changes its terms, or a regional fusion center starts running queries nobody here approved. I want the good policy written into statute so it survives the people who wrote it.
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
The Fourth Amendment is not a reward for having nothing to hide. It is a limit on what government may do without cause. And the record shows the fear is not hypothetical. A May 2026 audit found Dayton's camera data had been searched more than 7,100 times for immigration enforcement, which that city's own policy prohibited. In June 2026, San Francisco's police chief disclosed 299 improper queries run on behalf of federal and out-of-state agencies over about a year. Those were not criminals being caught. Those were rules being broken.
“The courts already said these cameras are constitutional.”
One federal district court said so about one city, in January 2026, and it is on appeal to the Fourth Circuit. That same judge warned the practice could become too intrusive and wrote that the answer, at least in Norfolk, was not today. Meanwhile the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Chatrie v. United States that pulling a person's location history from a company is a Fourth Amendment search, because even short stretches of tracking expose protected details. I am not willing to let the Fourth Circuit decide what South Dakota's own constitution means for South Dakotans.
“The Attorney General is already handling this.”
Attorney General Jackley announced on August 12, 2026 that he will bring a bill limiting readers to legitimate law enforcement purposes with a data destruction timeline, and he deserves credit for moving first. I will vote for it. It also does not require a warrant, does not require an independent audit, and does not address private camera networks. Dayton and San Francisco both had purpose limits on paper. Purpose limits without a warrant and without audits are an honor system, and the audits are the only reason we know the honor system failed.
“These cameras solve real crimes.”
Some of them do, and I am not pretending otherwise. Police in two South Dakota cities have credited plate imaging with closing theft cases. A warrant requirement does not stop that work. Officers get warrants every day for phones, homes, and bank records, and serious investigations clear that bar routinely. What a warrant stops is the fishing trip, the ex-boyfriend with a badge, and the out-of-state agency running your plate for a reason no South Dakotan ever voted to allow.