Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders want a full ban on automatic license-plate readers used by police, while a Republican senator offers guardrails instead of stripping the tools.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont teamed up Friday with Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon to release the Ban Flock Act, a measure that would prohibit federal agencies from using automatic license-plate readers often called Flock cameras.

The bill would also cut off federal funding to state and local governments that keep the systems, and it would let Americans sue the federal government over rights violations tied to the readers. The Independent reported the progressive trio framed the technology as mass surveillance run by Big Tech.

Sanders put the pitch in stark terms in a press release.

"Going to the doctor? Flock knows. Dropping your kid off at school? Flock is tracking you. Flock is always watching."

He added that America must not become "a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement."

Ocasio-Cortez struck a similar note, saying companies like Flock Safety have built a system "to harvest Americans’ private and personal data without their consent" and calling the spread of the tech "unconscionable." That hard-left posture fits a pattern readers have watched as radicals like AOC drive Democratic priorities.

Automatic license-plate readers scan plates and log vehicle movements to help officers track suspects or find missing people. The progressive bill treats the entire category as beyond repair.

Hawley answers with guardrails, not a ban

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri took a different path. On Wednesday he announced he would introduce the Stop Flock Abuse Act, which creates federal rules rather than an outright ban.

Hawley’s proposal would bar local governments from selling or sharing camera data with non-government third parties. It would ban license-plate reader networks from adding facial recognition. Agencies would have to log who searched what data, why, and who approved it, with supervisors auditing those logs for red flags such as repeat searches of the same person.

Hawley called the readers "a nightmare for individual liberties unless Congress enacts meaningful rules and accountability." He said "law-abiding Americans should not be treated like criminals" and described facial recognition as "ripe for abuse with AI."

That approach keeps a crime-fighting tool in place while demanding paperwork and oversight. The progressive ban would yank federal support and forbid federal use even where the systems help solve cases. Ocasio-Cortez’s national profile keeps rising through alliances that include Hasan Piker’s pledge to back her 2028 ambitions, yet the policy choice here still lands as a choice between abolition and accountability.

Officer misuse and city pushback fuel the fight

Abuse cases gave both sides ammunition. The Washington Post reported in August that at least 50 law enforcement officers had been charged with or accused of misusing Flock cameras and other surveillance systems, including to stalk women.

In that same month, the anti-surveillance app DeFlock said more than 50 cities across the country canceled or rejected contracts for the readers or deactivated the cameras. Those numbers show local governments already reacting without a federal ban.

Flock Safety defended its product. In an August blog post the company said its technology "assists your officers in more than one million crimes solved annually." It also announced privacy updates, including a requirement that all law enforcement customers adopt an Audit Assistance feature by year’s end. The company said that tool flags abnormal activity and has already led to the arrest of several officers accused of abuse.

In a statement Friday, Flock told reporters it "strongly supports legislation establishing guardrails governing License Plate Reader use" and welcomes congressional talks because public-safety tech works best "with strong policy, accountability and oversight mechanisms." A company official also said Flock does not operate facial recognition and that users cannot search specifically for humans in the photos its plate readers take.

The progressive bill ignores that distinction and treats the hardware itself as the problem. Hawley’s bill targets the known failure points: data sharing, facial recognition add-ons, and unsupervised searches.

Progressives reach for prohibition while crime tools stay in demand

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez cast the fight as resistance to AI oligarchs and unconsented data harvests. Their measure would let private citizens sue the federal government if the readers violate rights, and it would starve state and local agencies of federal dollars if they keep the systems.

That is a familiar progressive move: ban first, sort out consequences later. Police departments still need ways to locate stolen cars, fleeing suspects, and missing persons. Flock’s crime-solving claim sits in the record even as the misuse cases sit beside it. Recent coverage of Ocasio-Cortez has ranged from policy fights to moments such as AOC caught laughing during a 9/11 victims’ name reading, but the legislative question remains practical.

Hawley’s logging and audit rules speak directly to the stalking cases the Washington Post described. Supervisors watching for repeat searches of the same person is a concrete check. A total ban removes the tool from federal hands and pressures cities through the funding spigot whether or not they tighten their own controls.

More than 50 cities already walked away or powered down cameras in a single month, per DeFlock. Congress does not have to pretend the only options are zero cameras or zero rules. The progressive sponsors chose zero. The Missouri Republican chose rules, logs, and bans on the features most open to abuse.

Taxpayers fund both the cameras and the officers who have misused them. They also live with the crimes those cameras help clear. A ban that kneecaps federal and local use while crime remains a daily fact of life hands the loudest voices a victory on ideology. Guardrails that keep the systems honest hand the public a chance at both safety and accountability.

When the left reaches for abolition and a Republican answers with oversight, voters can see which side still trusts frontline tools under real rules.