Indianapolis, IN — July 24, 2026 — Eyes Off Indiana applauds the introduction of the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act (H.R. 9800), federal legislation that would bar federal agencies from purchasing, operating, or accessing automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and other mass-surveillance systems — and, critically, would stop state and local governments from using federal funds to acquire them.

The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 21, 2026 by Rep. Tim Burchett and referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. As written, it reaches ALPRs — including Flock Safety cameras by name — along with facial recognition, biometric identification, and any technology that captures a person’s image or personal information for the purpose of persistent or mass surveillance. It also requires the federal government to delete any data collected in violation of the Act within 30 days and makes that data inadmissible in court.

This is, first and foremost, a local decision

Eyes Off Indiana has long argued that whether a community accepts surveillance cameras — or rejects them entirely — should be decided by the people who live there, not imposed from the outside.

“The most important question about a surveillance camera isn’t how well it works. It’s who gets to decide whether it goes up in the first place,” said Walker Lasbury, Executive Director of Eyes Off Indiana. “That decision belongs to the community — to the neighbors, the city council, the county commissioners who answer to local voters. When a network gets built with federal dollars, that conversation never has to happen.”

Federal grant money has quietly become one of the main ways ALPR networks expand. A department can accept a grant, sign a vendor contract, and switch on dozens of cameras before residents ever get a chance to weigh in. In practice, outside funding lets officials route around the will of the people they serve.

“Federal funding has allowed communities to subvert the will of their own residents,” Lasbury said. “When the money comes from Washington, the pressure to justify the cameras to the people who actually live under them disappears. Cutting off that funding stream forces the decision back into the open, where it belongs — in public, in front of the community, on the record.”

Moving the decision back to the people

By closing the federal-funding pathway, H.R. 9800 would make it far harder to install mass-surveillance systems over the heads of local residents. Communities that want cameras could still choose them through a transparent local process. Communities that don’t could say no — and have that no actually hold.

“This is a great step toward putting the decision back with the people,” Lasbury said. “Some Hoosier towns may look at the trade-offs and decide the cameras aren’t worth it. Others may decide to move forward with strict limits. Both of those are legitimate outcomes — as long as it’s the community making the call, not a grant program.”

Eyes Off Indiana continues to advocate for a statewide floor of protection — enforceable minimum standards on retention, data sharing, and oversight — while preserving the right of every community to go further, including rejecting the technology outright.

A national issue, and an increasingly bipartisan one

The introduction of H.R. 9800 reflects a shift that reaches well beyond Indiana. Over the past two years, concern about mass surveillance has surfaced in statehouses and city councils across the country, and it has drawn support from across the political spectrum — from privacy advocates on the left to limited-government conservatives on the right who see unchecked tracking of ordinary people as government overreach.

“Worry about being tracked everywhere you drive isn’t a red or blue issue — it’s a Hoosier issue, and increasingly an American one,” Lasbury said. “We’re seeing conservatives and progressives arrive at the same conclusion from different directions: the government shouldn’t be financing or building systems that log the movements of innocent people at this scale. That growing common ground is exactly why this moment matters.”

Eyes Off Indiana hopes the national momentum behind H.R. 9800 encourages Indiana lawmakers to act as well — establishing clear protections for Hoosiers while ensuring the choice to adopt or reject surveillance technology remains a local one.

The full text of the bill is available here: H.R. 9800 — Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act (PDF).

Learn more about Eyes Off Indiana’s policy goals at eyesoffindiana.org.

About Eyes Off Indiana

Eyes Off Indiana, Inc. is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting privacy and advancing strict limits on government surveillance technology. The organization advocates for clear, enforceable policies governing the collection, retention, and sharing of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) data across Indiana.

Media Contact

Walker Lasbury, Executive Director
walker@eyesoffindiana.org