The Norfolk Flock camera lawsuit is a Fourth Amendment challenge brought by two Virginia drivers who say the city’s network of automated license plate readers subjects them to constant warrantless surveillance every time they drive. A federal judge sided with the city in January 2026, ruling the camera system does not amount to an unconstitutional search. The plaintiffs have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where the case is now pending.
Who Sued Norfolk and Why
Lee Schmidt, a 42-year-old retired Navy veteran who lives in Norfolk, and Crystal Arrington, a 44-year-old home healthcare business owner from Portsmouth who drives through Norfolk daily, filed suit on October 21, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. They are represented by the Institute for Justice.1Institute for Justice. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk The defendants are the City of Norfolk and Police Chief Mark Talbot.2Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk
Their claim is that Norfolk’s camera network conducts a continuous, warrantless search of the driving public in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They argue the system lets police reconstruct a person’s daily movements and reveal intimate details about habits, associations, religious practices, and health without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing.1Institute for Justice. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk
Discovery gave the claim concrete shape. Between February 19 and early July, Schmidt’s vehicle was logged 526 times by the cameras, about four times a day. Arrington’s was logged 849 times, more than six times a day.3NBC News. Virginia Police Used Flock Cameras to Track Driver Safety Lawsuit Surveil The plaintiffs asked the court to declare the surveillance unconstitutional, order the city to obtain warrants before tracking individuals, and delete their data from the system.
What the Camera Network Actually Does
In January 2023, the Norfolk Police Department signed a five-year agreement with Flock Safety to rent 172 automated license plate reader cameras at $2,500 per camera per year, roughly $430,000 annually. Police leadership chose the locations using heat maps of violent crime and 911 calls, placing cameras at intersections and city entry and exit points so that, as Chief Talbot told the city council, “it would be difficult to drive anywhere of any distance without running into a camera.”4Courthouse News Service. Schmidt v. Norfolk Plaintiff Brief
The cameras use artificial intelligence to photograph nearly every passing vehicle, capturing plates plus make, model, color, and identifying features like damage or bumper stickers.5City of Norfolk. Cameras Data is uploaded to an encrypted server and held for 21 days, during which Virginia law enforcement can search it.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional By 2026, the network had grown to 176 cameras in 75 clusters, and Chief Talbot told the council the department planned to eventually acquire more than 230.7WHRO. A Federal Judge Ruled Norfolk’s Flock Surveillance Cameras Don’t Invade People’s Privacy Yet
For most of the program’s existence, oversight was thin. The department initially had no policy governing officer use. A July 2023 special order directed patrol officers to use the technology throughout their shifts. According to court filings, more than 230,000 searches were conducted, and the department did not download a single audit file until February 2025, and only then because of the lawsuit. After a new general order in June 2025, the plaintiffs still described audits as “a box-checking exercise,” with the department acknowledging that verifying stated justifications for each search would be “entirely too time consuming.”4Courthouse News Service. Schmidt v. Norfolk Plaintiff Brief
How the District Court Ruled
Chief District Judge Mark S. Davis first denied the city’s motion to dismiss on February 5, 2025, finding the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged a Fourth Amendment violation and had standing even without a specific query on their vehicles.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional
On January 27, 2026, however, Judge Davis granted summary judgment for the city and ended the case before trial. The legal question was whether the network captures enough data to constitute a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. In Carpenter v. United States (2018), the Supreme Court held that warrantless access to historical cell phone location data violates the Fourth Amendment because it enables the government to reconstruct the “whole” of a person’s movements. The plaintiffs argued Norfolk’s cameras do essentially the same thing. Judge Davis disagreed, finding that 176 cameras in 75 clusters along commercial corridors and major roads cannot reconstruct a person’s full movements. The system, he wrote, has “thousands more blind spots than it has unblinking eyes.”8The Virginian-Pilot. Judge Upholds Norfolk’s Use of Flock Safety Cameras, Tosses Lawsuit Before Trial
Judge Davis distinguished the Fourth Circuit’s 2021 decision in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, which struck down an aerial surveillance program covering nearly all of Baltimore. Norfolk’s fixed cameras, he found, capture vehicles only at specific, limited points and do not follow anyone into private spaces. He also dismissed the challenge to warrantless database searching for lack of standing, on the ground that the city had never actually queried data about either plaintiff’s vehicle.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional
The ruling included a notable caveat. If Norfolk significantly expands its network, Judge Davis wrote, “the constitutional balancing could conceivably tip the other way” and the system could become an “impermissible warrantless search.”8The Virginian-Pilot. Judge Upholds Norfolk’s Use of Flock Safety Cameras, Tosses Lawsuit Before Trial
Where the Appeal Stands
The Institute for Justice filed its opening brief with the Fourth Circuit on April 13, 2026.1Institute for Justice. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk The appellants argue Judge Davis applied the wrong standard by requiring surveillance to cover the “whole” of a person’s movements before it counts as a search. They urge the court to apply the Carpenter factors instead: whether the technology reveals intimate habits, whether it overcomes the resource constraints that naturally limit police surveillance, and whether it allows officers to reconstruct past movements. Their brief calls the Norfolk network a 21st-century “general warrant” and argues the line should be drawn between short-term observation and the kind of prolonged surveillance that exposes patterns of daily life.9Institute for Justice. Norfolk Opening Brief
On April 20, 2026, the ACLU, ACLU of Virginia, and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs, arguing ALPR systems collect sensitive location data indiscriminately, build sprawling interconnected databases, and enable retrospective searches that reveal weeks or months of a person’s movements. The brief also flags Virginia agencies’ violations of state restrictions on sharing ALPR data with out-of-state and federal entities.10ACLU. Schmidt v. Norfolk The Cato Institute filed a separate amicus brief describing the network as a “digital Panopticon” and warning the district court’s reasoning would greenlight unchecked expansion of drones and networked security cameras.11Cato Institute. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk Amicus Brief
As of mid-2026, the appeal is pending. No oral argument date has been publicly scheduled.10ACLU. Schmidt v. Norfolk
Virginia’s New ALPR Law
While the lawsuit was moving, Virginia enacted new limits on license plate reader use. House Bill 2724, signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin, restricts ALPR database queries to situations involving reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, stolen vehicles, or missing persons. The law requires deletion of collected data within 30 days unless it is tied to an ongoing investigation, and it requires law enforcement agencies to file annual reports on camera deployments, database searches, and vehicle stops. Most of the bill’s provisions are now in effect.12Independent Institute. Virginia ALPR Oversight Bill Privacy License Plate Reader Norfolk’s June 2025 general order was issued to comply with the statute, though the plaintiffs argue compliance has been superficial.4Courthouse News Service. Schmidt v. Norfolk Plaintiff Brief The statute regulates use of the cameras but does not itself resolve the constitutional question the Fourth Circuit will decide.
The Wider Pushback Against Flock
Norfolk’s case is one piece of a broader dispute. At least 30 localities have deactivated their Flock cameras or canceled contracts since the start of 2025, including cities in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia. Much of the opposition follows revelations about federal data sharing. In August 2025, Flock Safety acknowledged operating pilot programs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations after previously denying federal contracts. CEO Garrett Langley conceded the company had “inaccurately” communicated its relationship with those agencies.13NPR. Flock Contracts Canceled Immigration Surveillance Concerns
Flock maintains its technology is legal. The company’s chief legal officer has said more than 30 state and federal courts have concluded that fixed-location ALPRs do not infringe on a reasonable expectation of privacy.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional The Fourth Circuit’s coming decision in Schmidt v. City of Norfolk will be one of the first appellate rulings to test that claim against a citywide network.