Criminals hate San Francisco’s surveillance camera network — a new lawsuit threatens to shut the cameras down

A retired San Francisco schoolteacher is accusing the city of running a “Big Brother” surveillance dragnet that illegally tracks everyday drivers, filing a federal class-action lawsuit Monday alleging sweeping Fourth Amendment violations.

Michael Moore, a retired public school teacher, says the city’s Flock license-plate reader system unlawfully monitors his movements as he drives to stores, his sons’ schools, and family gatherings — all without a warrant or probable cause.

The lawsuit, first reported by the San Francisco Standard, claims the city’s network of roughly 450 automated cameras amounts to an Orwellian surveillance scheme that is “particularly acute under the Trump Administration,” which Moore alleges has exploited national surveillance tools to suppress political dissent.

According to the complaint, Flock operates a centralized nationwide database collecting more than 1 billion license-plate reads each month across over 5,000 communities, potentially allowing law enforcement agencies — including those outside San Francisco — to track residents’ movements.

San Francisco police have previously acknowledged that outside agencies accessed the city’s surveillance data in violation of local rules, a practice Moore claims underscores the dangers of unchecked, warrantless monitoring.