The **Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)**, in collaboration with the **ACLU of Wisconsin**, has taken a significant step in the fight for digital privacy, filing a petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The petition argues that the state's constitution mandates a warrant for retrospective searches of **Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR)** databases utilized by law enforcement in four key cities: **Milwaukee**, **Racine**, **Kenosha**, and **Green Bay**. Representing the **Wisconsin Council of Churches** and an individual pastor, the organizations highlight the profound privacy implications of current ALPR practices. ### The Scope of ALPR Surveillance ALPRs continuously record the movements of countless Wisconsin drivers. This data collection captures sensitive activities such as seeking medical care, attending recovery meetings, religious services, protests, and political gatherings. Law enforcement agencies across Wisconsin collect, store, share, and aggregate this ALPR data, enabling them to retrospectively track individuals and entire communities in ways previously impossible or prohibitively expensive. ### Protecting Fundamental Rights The petitioners argue that individuals deserve freedom from warrantless mass surveillance and that surveillance vendors should not undermine the system of individualized suspicion. Religious organizations and their members, in particular, have a heightened interest in location privacy due to the expressive associations inherent in their work, including facilitating worship, offering pastoral care, confidential counseling, and community support. Monitoring when individuals attend these services infringes upon strong privacy rights. ### Precedent and Future Hopes This lawsuit marks the **EFF**'s second challenge to warrantless ALPR searches, following *SIREN v. San Jose*. The organizations are optimistic that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will concur with a recent federal court ruling in Oklahoma, which declared ALPRs a "type of indiscriminate mass surveillance" and suppressed evidence obtained from a warrantless ALPR search. This Oklahoma decision was a landmark, being the first federal court to rule in such a manner.