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June 28, 2026- by Steven Greer, MD
Most people are unaware that low-level, run-of-the-mill, $15-an-hour cops now routinely possess information and surveillance capabilities that were once reserved for the FBI, CIA, and other high-level intelligence agencies. Through contracts with private companies, everyday officers gain access to holistic digital dossiers on ordinary citizens without the traditional safeguards of warrants or judicial oversight.
Companies like Palantir (with its Gotham and Foundry platforms for data fusion), Flock Safety (automated license plate recognition networks), Clearview AI (massive facial recognition database scraped from the internet), LexisNexis (via tools like Accurint for comprehensive personal and financial profiles), Venntel and Babel Street (mobile location data), and others in the data broker ecosystem sell or license this information directly to law enforcement. This creates a situation where a beat cop can query vast integrated systems revealing a person’s real-time and historical location, movement patterns, financial transactions, social associations, vehicle history, and even biometric matches.
This access primarily violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has recognized that long-term location tracking reveals intimate details of a person’s life, ordinarily requiring a warrant, yet agencies bypass this by buying the data commercially. It also chills First Amendment rights to free speech, assembly, and association when movements at protests or meetings with certain people are tracked. Financial and communications data further implicate due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, as profiles can lead to arbitrary targeting without proper individualized suspicion. The “data broker loophole” effectively revives the general warrants the Founders rejected, turning private data exhaust into a tool of pervasive surveillance.
These civil rights violations are not abstract. They enable concrete and increasingly documented abuses by local officers who have been arrested for personal misuse. Numerous cases already in the news show police exploiting tools like Flock Safety’s license plate readers and other databases for stalking.
For instance, a Holiday Hills, Illinois, police chief (who also worked in Prairie Grove) was arrested for allegedly using law enforcement databases, including license plate reader data, hundreds of times to track former romantic partners and their new associates. In Milwaukee, former officer Josue Ayala faced charges after using Flock technology over 100 times to track a person he was dating and that person’s ex. Other officers in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and elsewhere have been arrested or fired for similar stalking via ALPR systems, often targeting romantic interests or personal grudges. These incidents reveal how readily accessible power leads to corruption even among rank-and-file officers, with minimal initial oversight until victims complain or patterns emerge.
The practical abuses extend far beyond personal stalking. With holistic platforms like Palantir fusing location, financial, and social data, officers can preemptively predict and stake out locations, echoing the “pre-crime” concept in Tom Cruise film ‘Minority Report’, to make arrests or stops based on algorithmic flags rather than observed probable cause. If financial patterns flag someone as “risky” through inferred transactions or associations, police can visit business partners, suppliers, or clients, subtly (or not so subtly) chilling commerce by implying scrutiny or future trouble, even without charges. This scares off partners, damages reputations, and disrupts livelihoods without due process. Profiling enables selective harassment: an officer could monitor a critic’s movements and associations, then pressure associates or employers. Location data from brokers reveals visits to clinics, places of worship, or political events, allowing targeting of protected activities. Facial recognition from Clearview combined with Flock’s vehicle tracking creates dragnet capabilities to identify and follow people at scale, facilitating retaliation against journalists, activists, or perceived enemies. Low-level officers, often with limited training on these tools, may over-rely on system-generated “risk scores” that embed historical biases, leading to discriminatory stops, wrongful arrests, or escalated encounters.
This issue is particularly timely amid recent White House statements over the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), described by critics as a form of American communism. With powerful surveillance tools already in place, the risk of abuse in the hands of any totalitarian-leaning regime becomes immediate.
We have already witnessed significant overreach under the Biden administration, including the targeting of parents at school boards, surveillance of traditional Catholics, and broader efforts against political opponents. Should similar actors regain or consolidate power, these integrated systems could be turned against the “little guy” with ruthless efficiency, far exceeding past abuses. The United Kingdom offers a cautionary parallel, where people have faced arrests for social media posts, “wrongthink,” or minor protests amid expansive monitoring.
In the wrong hands, these tools, once possessed only by the FBI or spy agencies, will not merely track crime, but rather enforce ideological conformity, turning America into a preemptive surveillance state where dissent is preempted and ordinary citizens live under constant digital scrutiny. These are the realities in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and China. Restoring constitutional guardrails now is essential before convenience and power fully eclipse liberty.