KIKI SAID SO
Driver wins $76 after ALPR led to bogus traffic stop, drug searches
Mass surveillance gets stupider.
Credit:
Getty Images | Joseph Sohm/Visions of America
Credit:
Getty Images | Joseph Sohm/Visions of America
A federal jury in Texas recently ruled in favor of a man who sued Bexar County and its sheriff over allegations that the agency ran what the plaintiff’s attorneys called an “unconstitutional traffic stop scheme” enabled by “AI-powered” license plate readers.
Late last month, plaintiff Alek Schott of Houston was awarded $76, one dollar for each minute that he was detained. (Schott asked for this exact amount as symbolic compensation.)
“After the stop, I filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office because I knew what happened to me was wrong,” Schott said in a statement after his win. “The department reviewed it, told me they didn’t see any violation, and said if I had a problem with it, I should sue them. So I did.”
Suspicion
In his civil complaint, Schott outlined a wild tale.
Schott had been driving his pickup truck home from a work trip to Carrizo Springs, in the southwestern part of the state, back in March 2022. While in Bexar County, which covers the area around San Antonio, a police officer pulled Schott over for “lane drifting.”
The father of two was questioned by deputy Joel Babb, who admitted later that the stated reason for the traffic stop was bogus.
The real reason for the stop was that Babb had received a tip via a law enforcement WhatsApp group. It came from someone named “Kiki,” who allegedly worked with a federal fusion center in Laredo. Kiki apparently had near real-time access to automated license plate reader data.
According to Babb’s deposition, Kiki told him that Schott’s truck had made a potentially suspicious “one-day turnaround.” That is, Schott drove all the way from Houston, stopped in Carrizo Springs for one night, and then returned home to Houston the next day. (Schott sells oilfield supplies.) To authorities, this was apparently enough to make one look like a smuggling suspect.
After seeing the WhatsApp message, Babb waited for Schott’s vehicle and pulled it over once it passed his location. During the traffic stop, Babb said that he was on the “Criminal Interdiction Unit” looking for “human smuggling, drug smuggling, and all those things like that.”
According to the Institute for Justice, which helped Schott with his lawsuit, the entire stop was a travesty. “Footage from Alek’s own dashcam shows he never drifted lanes,” the group said. “Bodycam footage from the deputy shows Alek gave the officer calm, mundane answers about a run-of-the-mill work trip. Nothing about what he said was suspicious, but the deputy called a drug dog anyway. And moments before the dog alerted by jumping on the truck, the handler’s bodycam shows that he signaled the dog.”
Schott was detained for 76 minutes while his truck was thoroughly searched. Cops found nothing, despite the drug dog’s alert.
Schott eventually sued Bexar County. In late September, he won—the jury gave him the token $76 he requested.
“Money was never what mattered,” his lawyers said. “This was and has always been about the Constitution. IJ will now ask the court to enjoin Bexar County from using baseless traffic stops as a tool for warrantless searches, and will work to enforce the precedent across the state.”
“This is what mass surveillance looks like when it reaches the shoulder of the highway,” Josh Windham, one of Schott’s attorneys, said in a statement. “An AI-powered camera flagged Alek’s plate. An anonymous law enforcement agent decided his completely ordinary trip looked suspicious. And a deputy went out and found a violation that never happened.”
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, which touts its use of Flock Safety cameras, declined Ars’ request for comment.
Who watches the watchers?
Longtime critics of license plate readers generally, and Flock in particular, told Ars that there is increasing scrutiny of the use of this technology.
“I think this case seems like a pretty quintessential example of what we’re seeing more and more as the public digs into ALPR surveillance: AI tech that vendors sell with pie-in-the-sky promises to improve public safety often face a tough reality check,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center of Democracy and Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project, wrote in an email to Ars.
“The truth is that ALPRs create serious dangers for Americans’ civil liberties, and if there aren’t sensible guardrails and checks on how these powerful tools are used, they also create serious risks to public safety with drivers being improperly pulled over or stalked by officers abusing the tech.”