They can search for your car even if your license plate isn’t visible. Those are legitimate public safety goals, and that’s exactly how companies like Flock Safety built support for their technology. That’s a remarkable technological achievement, but it also represents something very different from the license plate readers Americans were originally told about. More recent cases involving automated license plate reader networks suggest judges are increasingly questioning whether massive, interconnected surveillance systems fundamentally change the constitutional balance. Or it may be the newest member of a surveillance network that grew so gradually, most Americans never realized it was being built.