Trump Backs Flock Cameras, Continuing His Long-Time Support for Unchecked Police Power

This week, President Donald Trump expressed support for automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which record and store images of license plates in a searchable police database.

Flock Safety, by far the country’s largest ALPR supplier, has come under fire for the privacy violations and police abuses its products have enabled. But Trump’s support for such a controversial product is perfectly consistent with his stated beliefs on policing.

During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Sunday, a reporter asked Trump for his thoughts on Flock cameras.

“I sort of like them,” Trump said, “because of law enforcement. Some people don’t. They think it’s an infringement. But I like them.”

Trump didn’t elaborate any further, though as The Washington Post noted, he “has previously sidestepped questions about his stance.” When asked about Flock cameras last month in the Oval Office, Trump said, “You have pros and cons, right? It’s being studied right now. We’ll have an answer as to our views on it over the next couple of weeks.”

Trump’s answer this week seemed more like a gut reaction—drawing a line directly to the fact that law enforcement likes them—than having been informed by the results of a study. It’s also perfectly consistent with his long-held beliefs on policing.

As the president mentioned in his aside, the cameras have indeed enabled abuses and “infringements” against members of the public. But Trump often speaks of the police as if they’re too constrained to do their jobs properly and says he wishes they could simply act with impunity.

While running for president in 2016, Trump supported stop and frisk, in which police officers routinely stop people and search them for drugs or weapons without probable cause. “We did it in New York [City], it worked incredibly well,” he said, and he pledged to roll it out nationwide.

Of course, stop and frisk ended in New York City in 2014 after a federal judge found it unconstitutional, violating both the Fourth and 14th Amendments.

And despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, stop and frisk did not work, much less “incredibly well.” Officers disproportionately targeted young black and Latino men for searches but rarely turned up anything illegal. And after the program ended, crime not only didn’t rise, it fell.

During his first term, in a July 2017 speech nominally about immigration and violent gangs, Trump pivoted, telling police officers, “please don’t be too nice” when arresting suspects, adding, “when you guys put somebody in the car” and “you put your hand over” their head to protect it, “you can take the hand away, OK?” (“I believe he was making a joke at the time,” said then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.)

During a 2024 campaign stop, Trump said, “We have to let the police do their job,” even “if they have to be extraordinarily rough.”

“They’re not allowed to do it, because the liberal left won’t let them do it. The liberal left wants to destroy them,” he added. “One rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.”

Perhaps most infamously, in 1989, police arrested five teenagers, between the ages of 14 and 16, for beating and raping a jogger in Central Park. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads in four New York City newspapers calling for their execution. “Bring back the death penalty,” the ad declared. “Bring back our police!”

The suspects confessed, but only after being interrogated by police for hours without an attorney or a parent present. They were convicted even though no physical evidence tied them to the scene; each served between six and 13 years in prison before they were exonerated. The city ultimately awarded them $41 million.

After their exoneration, not only did Trump not change his tune, he still insisted they were guilty, despite DNA evidence demonstrating that none of the five teens were involved. As recently as the 2024 presidential debate, Trump said, “They admitted…they pled guilty, and I said, Well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person—killed a person ultimately.” (None of them pleaded guilty, and the victim is still alive.)

It makes sense, then, that Trump would support Flock cameras, even in spite of their capacity for misuse or abuse. In recent years, police have pulled over or detained dozens of innocent people because of Flock misidentifications, while an increasing number of officers have been caught using Flock’s database to spy on current or former romantic partners.

It’s especially notable that Trump chose this moment to register his support for Flock cameras, just as there is a growing bipartisan backlash.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suspended funding for ALPRs in his state, while fellow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said the cameras were “out of control.”

On Tuesday, Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D–Ill.) and Michael Cloud (R–Texas) announced the No FLOCK Act, which would withhold federal transportation funding from states that did not limit the scope of ALPR use. That’s separate from the Flock-Off Act, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), which would bar federal funding for ALPRs other than for border or toll enforcement.

Polls show the general public has also soured on Flock cameras. “Last August, 45 percent of people supported the technology and 33 percent opposed,” Reason‘s Christian Britschgi wrote last month. “This year, 46 percent are opposed to ALPRs and 38 percent support it.”

And that’s to say nothing of the candidates for public office who are apparently shooting the ALPRs in their communities.

But as Trump noted, one constituency that still seems to support Flock cameras is law enforcement. And that’s good enough for Trump, who’s never been all that keen on oversight or limiting police power anyway.