Public Safety Information, Constitutional Duty, and the Case for Governed Law-Enforcement Technology

American political thought rests on a proposition sometimes lost in modern debates over policing and surveillance: liberty requires protection not only from government power, but also from private coercion.

A person is not meaningfully free merely because government leaves him alone. His liberty is also diminished when a gang controls his neighborhood, a violent offender makes him afraid to walk outside, a car-theft ring repeatedly takes private property, a drug organization intimidates a community, a trafficker controls another human being, or persistent crime forces families and businesses to abandon places they otherwise have every right to use.

The legitimate responsibility of government is therefore twofold. It must protect citizens against criminals who would deprive them of life, liberty, property, livelihood, mobility, and security; and it must constrain its own police powers so that the tools created for public protection cannot be used for harassment, curiosity, politics, personal relationships, stalking, discrimination, or other unauthorized purposes.

Modern public-safety information systems—including automatic license-plate readers, public-safety cameras, digital evidence systems, real-time crime centers, analytical systems, and related technologies—should be evaluated through that constitutional framework.

The proper question is not public safety or liberty.

The question is whether the state can provide effective public safety while controlling the power used to provide it.

That is an old American problem confronted with new technology.

Locke: Government Exists to Protect Life, Liberty, and Property

John Locke supplied much of the philosophical foundation later reflected in America’s founding documents.

In the Second Treatise of Government, Locke argued that people possess rights before governments exist. Political society becomes necessary because individuals living without effective institutions cannot reliably protect those rights against aggression by others.

Government therefore does not create liberty. It is established in substantial part to secure the conditions in which liberty and property can exist.

That principle becomes explicit in the Declaration of Independence:

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration immediately explains why legitimate government exists:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”

Government is therefore not merely instructed to avoid violating rights. It is instituted to secure them. The distinction matters. A government unable or unwilling to protect citizens against persistent criminal predation is failing at one of the purposes for which government was established. (Founders Online)

The Constitution Connects Justice, Order, and Liberty

The Constitution’s Preamble links three objectives that modern political debate sometimes wrongly separates:

establish Justice;

insure domestic Tranquility;

and

secure the Blessings of Liberty.

The Framers did not regard order and liberty as opposites. They understood that a constitutional government must possess enough authority to maintain order and protect rights while being sufficiently constrained to prevent that authority from becoming oppressive.

The Federalist Papers make this relationship even clearer.

Federalist No. 10: Protecting the Faculties of the Individual

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison wrote that:

“The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”

Madison was discussing the human faculties from which property rights arise. His broader point was that republican government must protect individuals and the different lawful interests that arise from their freedom. (Constitution Center)

Crime attacks precisely those interests.

A stolen automobile is not merely an insurance loss. It can prevent someone from reaching work.

A repeatedly burglarized business may close.

A neighborhood controlled by intimidation may lose investment.

A family threatened by violence may abandon its home.

Organized criminal activity therefore attacks not merely property but the individual’s practical capacity to live, work, travel, associate, invest, and participate in society.

Federalist No. 45: Public Safety Is Fundamentally a State Responsibility

For the question facing South Carolina, Federalist No. 45 may be the most directly relevant Federalist paper.

Madison explained that the powers retained by the states extend to matters concerning:

“the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

He contrasted those responsibilities with the more externally directed powers of the national government. (Founders Online)

That formulation describes public safety almost perfectly.

Protecting people from murder, assault, theft, trafficking, gangs, organized crime, dangerous offenders, and other threats to internal order is fundamentally within the traditional responsibility of state government and the local law-enforcement institutions created under state law.

The Supreme Court has likewise characterized suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims as classic subjects of the states’ traditional police powers.

The modern question is therefore not whether states have responsibility for public safety.

They plainly do.

The question is whether they will update the legal and technological means by which that responsibility is carried out.

Federalist No. 51: Government Must Control Crime—and Control Itself

Madison supplied the essential design principle in Federalist No. 51:

“you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

That sentence provides almost the complete constitutional architecture for modern public-safety information systems.

The first requirement is capability.

Police must be able to identify suspects, locate stolen vehicles, find wanted people, connect crimes across jurisdictions, locate missing and endangered persons, investigate trafficking, identify vehicles associated with crimes, and convert information into admissible evidence.

The second requirement is control.

Individual officers must not be free to search citizens because of personal relationships, curiosity, political interests, jealousy, harassment, commercial motives, or other non-law-enforcement purposes.

Modern systems should therefore combine powerful investigative capability with authentication, access restrictions, recorded search histories, purpose requirements, supervisory review, auditing, retention rules, cybersecurity protections, and penalties for intentional abuse.

Madison’s constitutional formula remains entirely applicable:

Give government enough power to protect the public, then make that power accountable.

Federalist No. 70: Feeble Execution Is Bad Government

Alexander Hamilton makes the argument even more forcefully in Federalist No. 70.

Hamilton wrote that energy in government is essential to the steady administration of law and:

“to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations”

that interfere with justice. He also connected energetic government directly with the “security of liberty.” (Constitution Center)

The phrase is remarkably applicable to modern gangs, organized theft enterprises, trafficking organizations, and other coordinated criminal groups.

Hamilton’s conclusion was equally important:

“A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution.”

A state cannot satisfy its responsibility merely by having criminal statutes on the books. Laws must be enforceable, and law enforcement must possess practical capabilities proportionate to the environment in which criminals operate.

Today’s criminals use automobiles, interstate highways, encrypted communications, mobile devices, networks of accomplices, rapidly changing identities, and computerized systems.

Government does not protect liberty by requiring law enforcement to operate with unnecessarily obsolete information capabilities.

Public-Safety Technology Is a Productivity Tool

Automatic license-plate readers illustrate the principle particularly well.

Traditionally, locating a vehicle involved in a crime could require an officer to happen to see it, another citizen to report it, or investigators to manually reconstruct its movements.

An ALPR converts vehicle observations into searchable information. Used appropriately, the technology can help law enforcement identify stolen vehicles, locate vehicles connected to crimes, find wanted or endangered persons, establish investigative timelines, connect incidents across jurisdictions, and substantially reduce the human effort required for some investigative tasks.

That is not a replacement for police officers.

It is a productivity multiplier for police officers.

A responsible government should therefore measure public-safety technology by outcomes: investigative time saved, stolen vehicles recovered, missing persons located, warrants served, related offenses connected, violent offenders apprehended, case-clearance improvements, and ultimately crimes and victimization prevented.

The obligation is not to purchase every new technology.

The obligation is to evaluate technologies capable of materially improving governmental performance and, where their benefits justify deployment, create rules permitting their lawful use.

South Carolina Shows What Happens When Technology Outruns Governance

South Carolina now provides an unusually clear case study.

House Bill 4013 was introduced in 2025 to establish rules for automated license-plate readers, limit their use to designated entities and legitimate law-enforcement purposes, and authorize the Department of Transportation to permit appropriate governmental cameras on certain highway rights-of-way. The bill remained in committee and did not become law during the 2025–2026 session. (South Carolina Legislature Online)

The absence of a completed statewide framework contributed to uncertainty about deployments on state rights-of-way. The State reported that the South Carolina Department of Transportation paused permitting while lawmakers considered the issue. Proposals included privacy controls, access policies, auditing requirements, and data-retention limitations, but legislation was not enacted before the 2026 session ended. (The State)

At precisely the same time, local communities were confronting the practical consequences.

In Pageland, two Flock camera poles were intentionally cut down. The deliberate destruction of public-safety equipment demonstrated that opposition to these systems had moved beyond legislative disagreement into destruction of government property. (The State)

Meanwhile, Irmo was considering increasing its existing network from 11 cameras to 33 by adding 22 additional locations. Local officials argued that wider coverage would make it considerably harder for a fleeing burglar, rapist, or other offender to move through the community without investigators obtaining useful vehicle information. (The State)

The controversy illustrates why state inaction is not neutrality.

Without a clear statewide framework, communities are forced to debate repeatedly whether the technology itself is permissible rather than debating the more useful questions: what legitimate purposes justify access, who may search the information, how long it may be retained, how misuse is discovered, and what consequences follow abuse?

For a local government such as Irmo, using ALPR technology for legitimate police purposes can be both a reasonable public-safety measure and consistent with constitutional government, provided the system is governed by appropriately narrow rules and applicable Fourth Amendment requirements. That is different from saying every possible use of the technology is automatically lawful. The legality and reasonableness ultimately depend upon how the system is configured and used.

The destruction of cameras does not resolve those questions. Nor should controversy over misuse elsewhere prevent legitimate deployment.

It demonstrates the need for law.

Georgia Demonstrates Both the Value of Regulation and the Need for Better Auditing

Georgia offers a useful neighboring example.

Georgia Code §35-1-22 expressly authorizes law-enforcement agencies to collect ALPR data but limits access to law-enforcement purposes. It permits appropriate interagency sharing for those purposes, requires agencies deploying ALPR systems to maintain operating and training policies, and restricts public disclosure of the captured data. (Justia Law)

Most importantly, Georgia made misuse itself a crime.

A person who knowingly obtains or attempts to obtain law-enforcement ALPR information under false pretenses or for a purpose other than a law-enforcement purpose commits a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. (Justia Law)

That provision has practical consequences.

In July 2026, five former Albany police officers were arrested following an internal audit that revealed alleged use of retained license-plate information for non-law-enforcement purposes. (Georgia Bureau of Investigation)

Other Georgia investigations have followed. A Conyers police dispatcher supervisor was charged after an audit allegedly identified more than 30 non-law-enforcement searches, and a former district-attorney investigator was charged after investigators alleged more than 60 unauthorized searches. (Georgia Bureau of Investigation)

These incidents demonstrate something important.

The existence of misuse is not an argument for eliminating the system when the system can detect the misuse and the law can punish it. It is an argument for making detection and accountability stronger.

One qualification is necessary. Georgia’s statute requires usage policies and training and criminalizes unauthorized access, but the text I can verify does not impose a statewide requirement for periodic audits. The audits uncovering the recent cases were agency actions rather than an express periodic-audit mandate in §35-1-22. Flock has subsequently announced that its own audit-assistance tools will become mandatory for participating agencies, together with additional accountability controls. (Justia Law)

South Carolina can improve on both approaches.

Instead of waiting for abuse to trigger voluntary audits, South Carolina should place regular independent or supervisory auditing directly into state law.

What South Carolina Should Establish

A comprehensive South Carolina public-safety information statute should authorize legitimate use while establishing uniform safeguards throughout the state.

The statute should define legitimate law-enforcement purposes; identify authorized agencies and categories of users; require individual authentication and role-based access; require every search to be logged; require a case number, incident number, warrant, investigative justification, or other documented lawful purpose where appropriate; establish retention limits; regulate interagency sharing; establish cybersecurity standards; require officer training; establish procedures for missing-person, stolen-vehicle, warrant, trafficking, and serious-crime investigations; and require regular audits capable of identifying unusual or unauthorized search behavior.

Intentional misuse for personal purposes should be a criminal offense, as it is in Georgia.

Agencies should be required to investigate abnormal searches and report confirmed misuse through established procedures.

The state should establish the common legal framework. Counties and municipalities should then adopt compatible ordinances and policies implementing that framework locally.

Sheriffs and police chiefs should remain responsible for operational deployment, training, supervision, auditing, discipline, and measuring whether systems actually improve public-safety performance.

That produces an appropriate division of responsibility:

The state establishes the law.

The county or municipality establishes compatible local governance.

The sheriff or police department operates the system.

Individual officers use it only for legitimate public purposes.

Auditing verifies compliance.

Courts enforce constitutional boundaries.

The Fourth Amendment Remains the Boundary

None of this diminishes the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable governmental searches and seizures and requires warrants supported by probable cause where the Constitution requires them.

Technology cannot override that protection.

Where information may constitutionally and statutorily be obtained without a warrant, officers may use the authorized capability. Where a warrant is constitutionally necessary, technological convenience does not eliminate the warrant requirement.

Due process protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments likewise remain intact. Information identifies investigative leads; it does not determine guilt.

The constitutional objective should therefore be maximum legitimate public-safety capability within enforceable constitutional boundaries.

Crime Itself Reduces Liberty

This entire debate becomes clearer once crime is recognized as a liberty issue.

A community may retain every formal constitutional freedom while its residents progressively stop exercising them because of crime.

People stop walking.

Parents restrict children.

Businesses close earlier.

Customers avoid commercial districts.

Families abandon neighborhoods.

Entrepreneurs invest elsewhere.

Older residents remain inside.

Citizens change where they travel and when.

These are not merely feelings about crime. They are changes in human behavior produced by credible threats of victimization.

Crime therefore has a liberty-displacement effect: criminal coercion removes otherwise lawful choices from the practical lives of citizens.

This produces a testable political-science proposition:

As serious victimization and credible fear of victimization rise, the effective liberty exercised by residents falls.

Its counterpart follows:

When lawful public-safety measures reduce victimization and credible fear without imposing disproportionate restrictions on innocent citizens, effective liberty expands.

Public Safety Is an Infrastructure of Liberty

Locke argued that government exists because natural rights require protection.

The Declaration says governments are instituted to secure life and liberty.

The Constitution joins justice and domestic tranquility with securing the blessings of liberty.

Federalist No. 10 describes protection of the individual’s faculties as government’s first object. (Constitution Center)

Federalist No. 45 assigns the states broad responsibility over the lives, liberties, property, internal order, improvement, and prosperity of their people. (Founders Online)

Federalist No. 51 requires government simultaneously to control wrongdoing and control itself.

Federalist No. 70 warns that ineffective execution of the laws produces bad government and specifically identifies protection of property against “irregular and high-handed combinations” and protection of liberty as functions of energetic government. (Constitution Center)

The principle connecting all of them is straightforward.

Public safety is not the opposite of liberty. Properly governed public safety is one of the conditions that makes liberty possible.

South Carolina therefore faces more than a decision about Flock cameras.

It faces a question about the performance of constitutional government.

When technology can materially improve the ability of law enforcement to locate dangerous offenders, recover stolen property, investigate organized criminal activity, find missing and endangered persons, disrupt trafficking, serve lawful warrants, and protect communities, the state has a responsibility to establish rules permitting those benefits while preventing abuse.

Refusing to govern new technology does not protect citizens from either danger.

It leaves law enforcement without clear authority and leaves citizens without uniform protections.

The better answer is constitutional modernization:

use the best effective technology available to protect the citizen, and build the law around it so that the technology can never legitimately be turned against the citizen for an improper purpose.

That is not choosing public safety over liberty.

It is government fulfilling its obligation to protect liberty from both the criminal and the state itself.