1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

Pass legislation requiring law enforcement to disclose the use of automated license plate readers — including Flock Safety systems — in all traffic stops, incident reports, and charging documents. The Wapello County Sheriff's Office has a written policy, effective November 7, 2025, that explicitly instructs deputies to "DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE" and to omit it from reports "unless absolutely necessary." That's not a rogue officer making a bad call. That's a department-wide directive to deceive the public and the courts. This practice is called parallel construction, and it's constitutionally dangerous. When the source of a traffic stop is hidden, defense attorneys can't challenge whether reasonable suspicion actually existed, and prosecutors may be violating Brady v. Maryland by withholding how evidence was obtained. Millions of vehicle movements are logged daily into these databases. Iowans have no way to know when or why they're being tracked if the law lets police bury that fact in vague language like "using county resources." Mandatory disclosure is the fix. Require that ALPR use be documented in every report and disclosed at every stop where it triggered law enforcement action. Anything less leaves the door open for exactly the kind of institutionalized deception Wapello County put in writing.