Flock on or flock off is the question for many local governments in Kentucky.

State and federal policymakers are debating what are appropriate safeguards for automatic license plate readers.

Yesterday, a local sheriff made it clear for his community no flock searches without a search warrant.

Our June Lefler has more made.

County has just five license plate readers, searchable by one employee at the sheriff's office.

It's enough to stir up the local community.

Sheriff Philip Wimpy announced Wednesday.

Going forward, his office will limit their flock camera searches.

The smartest way, the easiest way to fix this is a search warrant, because that's that's the right thing to do.

Now we'll tell you if there's some, extenuating circumstances.

Like, I don't know, of a robbery with a gun or somebody after that, then, there's nothing to be a search warrant.

We're going to find the guy right in our county.

So, just depends on the situation.

But, yes, anytime there's an investigation, there will be a search warrant.

Wimpy may be the first official in Kentucky to enact a warrant requirement for flock searches.

State lawmakers mentioned warrants last week, though they won't resume lawmaking until next year.

Federal law doesn't require a warrant.

The one bill has been introduced in the U.S.

House.

U.S.

Senator Rand Paul told one reporter it's a guardrail.

That makes sense.

Some Kentucky cities have recently ended contracts with the ubiquitous company operating these cameras.

Others are having to go after police officers who've abused the data.

Wimpy says sheriffs were encouraged to consider a search warrant requirement at a Kentucky Sheriffs Association meeting this week.

The association did not confirm that to Wkyt.

Today, many Meade County residents like this update, but still have concerns about mistakes in the system, leading to wrongful arrests.

Recounting firsthand how devastating a single wrongful detention case may be or can't be paid, more than 24 million for me was wrongly imprisoned for what you buried.

Whatever your identification, there's the wrongful stop, arrest or use force that exposes the same level of liability, say, for some fiscally responsible choice as the captain in this contract.

Now, others say even the best local policies do nothing to rein in what flock the company does with the data and cameras.

We're kind of creating this giant machine that traps every single person.

And even if everybody in the country right now like great intentions ten years from now, what if they did?

You know, but they're already everywhere.

We can't get rid of them.

There are even issues where cities have canceled flock camera contracts, and then flock refused to move the cameras and they had to put trash bags over them.

And I just I don't really want to trust our day to day lives with a third party company that we don't know.

Flock representatives virtually attended a Meade County town hall last night, though they answered a few questions.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm John Lefler.

Meade County Sheriff Philip Wimpy says whether to keep flock at all is still up for debate.

He said he looked into putting that question to voters, but had already missed deadlines to try to put it on local ballots.