Baltimore Police Misconduct Appeal.pdf

The district court erred in concluding that Plaintiffs are not likely to prevail on the merits of their claims that the BPD's AIR program is unconstitutional. The AIR program violates the Fourth Amendment. The acquisition of location information through wide-area aerial surveillance is a Fourth Amendment "search." The district court made two fundamental legal errors in rejecting the proposition that the AIR program's surveillance constitutes a Fourth Amendment "search." The AIR program's long-term collection and retention of location information far exceeds the seven days at issue in Carpenter. The AIR program's collection of location data is meant to, and will, identify people. The AIR program's surveillance is nothing like the aerial surveillance approved of in past cases. The warrantless, long-term use of wide-area aerial surveillance to collect and retain the locations of all Baltimoreans is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The rules regulating the AIR program are constitutionally inadequate. The AIR program violates the First Amendment. Because the district court erred in rejecting Plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits, it also erred in applying the remaining preliminary injunction factors. The district court's decision should be reversed, and the case should be remanded for further proceedings.