SIREN's Huy Tran says the cameras "have been used to target immigrants already"
Services, Immigrant Rights and Education NetworkPlaintiff in the lawsuit; executive director Huy Tran, quoted by San Jose Spotlight
After the ruling, Huy Tran, executive director of SIREN, one of the two plaintiff groups, told San Jose Spotlight that the cameras have already been used to target immigrants and that everyone will be subject to their far-reaching impact.
“These cameras have been used to target immigrants already, but the reality is that we all will be subject to their far-reaching impact”
Reporting
Reporting
Where this statement fits
Judge dismisses challenge to San Jose police's warrantless queries of Flock camera data
On October 2, 2026, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey El-Hajj dismissed a lawsuit by SIREN and CAIR California that sought to require San Jose police to get a warrant before querying the city's stored license plate reader data. The plaintiffs, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California, argued that the warrantless searches violate the California Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches and its right to privacy. The city argued that images of vehicles taken on public streets carry no protected privacy interest. Applying a 2024 state appeals court decision on San Diego streetlight cameras, the judge found no reasonable expectation of privacy in the plate data or in later queries of it, and he denied leave to amend. EFF says it will appeal.
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
San Jose Spotlight's report on the ruling, later distributed by The Associated Press. It quotes City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood, Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Huy Tran, executive director of SIREN, and notes the city's March 2026 cut in data retention from one year to 30 days.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Reporting
About this source
KQED's report on the San Jose City Council's unanimous March 10, 2026 vote to tighten rules for its 474 Flock cameras, including a 30-day default retention period, limits on camera placement near reproductive health care facilities and places of worship, and new requirements for agencies requesting data. It quotes Police Chief Paul Joseph, Mayor Matt Mahan and critics, including a SIREN organizer.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The court dismissed the lawsuit on October 2, 2026. In March 2026, SIREN and CAIR's Bay Area office had said that the city's new camera limits did not end warrantless searches.
After the quotation
Police Chief Paul Joseph told the City Council in March 2026 that the department has never shared plate data with federal immigration authorities, which would be illegal under California law, according to KQED. EFF, which represents SIREN, said on October 13 that the plaintiffs will appeal.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is the San Jose Police Department's practice of querying the city's stored license plate reader data without a warrant. Tran, speaking for a plaintiff group after the dismissal, says the cameras have been used to target immigrants and that their impact will reach everyone, which criticizes the camera system whose stored data the queries draw on, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional; it loses because the statement contains no qualification. He does not mention warrants, so this entry records his group's objection to the system rather than a legal argument.
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More from this case
Read the full caseEFF says the dismissal "is wrong on the law" and that it "will appeal"
Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Make no mistake: We believe this ruling is wrong on the law, and we will appeal. ... Networked ALPRs are not individual streetlight cameras. Their net effect of tracking and mapping cars as they travel reveals patterns of life, intimate relationships, and much more.”Read statement
EFF's Andrew Crocker says San Jose police "could get a warrant" and calls the city's new limits "insufficient"
“Clearly these cities are recognizing there’s a problem, and I don’t think that restrictions like this are going to solve that problem. Really any use of ALPRs is harmful, and the only way to stop the risk of this kind of abuse is to end their use in these cities ... Short of that, they could get a warrant, they could go before a court and present probable cause to run these searches, which is what we’re seeking in this lawsuit ... San José has not done that. San Francisco has not done that. So it’s insufficient, and it’s very likely that we will see further abuse of these systems.”Read statement
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood says the dismissal shows the city's plate reader system "meets constitutional scrutiny"
“The city adopted stringent guidelines for its deployment, seeking to balance the use of a significant crime detection and community safety tool with stringent protection of individual privacy rights ... The court's dismissal of the complaint is testament to the fact that the city's ALPR system meets constitutional scrutiny and only gathers information that is already observed from the public rights-of-way.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "SIREN's Huy Tran says the cameras "have been used to target immigrants already"". First published: 2026-10-14. Last updated: 2026-10-14. https://disputeindex.com/events/5696-after-the-ruling-huy-tran-executive-director-of