LNC Resolution Against Dragnet Surveillance | In Lockstep With LPHI Historical Stances

Abbra Green
2 days ago
4 min read

On July 5, 2026, the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) passed the Resolution on the Warrantless Dragnet Surveillance of Personal Electronic Devices. It condemns the growing web of tracking tools that police departments now use to monitor and track ordinary people. It also calls for a warrant based on individualized probable cause before any agency collects location data. The Libertarian Party of Hawaiʻi backs this resolution against dragnet surveillance, as it applies directly to what is already happening on our own streets. Our own past torch bearers warned against these very same overreaches.

HPD Has Been Doing This Since 2012

Honolulu Police started using automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in patrol cars back in 2012. By 2022, HPD had 21 ALPR units in operation, each one costing about $18,000, with total maintenance since 2013 running around $75,000. In late 2025, HPD used a federal grant to move beyond patrol cars and mount fixed cameras on street lights and light poles in Waikiki and downtown, and officers told KHON2 that the department wants cameras on every part of the island, with Kalihi and east Honolulu next in line.

None of this requires a warrant. None of it requires suspicion tied to a specific person. A camera reads every plate that passes, whether the driver is a suspect, a commuter, or someone who is simply driving to church.

Hawaii HB 2033

This year the state legislature moved on House Bill 2033, an eight-part transportation measure that would let the same camera network start flagging cars for expired registration and safety checks too. The bill would also let counties place new cameras at any intersection they define as "high risk."

Camera enforcement tends to hit people from under-resourced communities the hardest, and Hawaii has no clear law governing how long this footage is kept, who can access it, or what it can be used for. Even the state Department of the Attorney General asked lawmakers to delay part of the bill so that rulemaking questions could be sorted out first, and Hawaiʻi County Police testified they do not have the staff to process the extra citations the system would generate. This expansion is moving faster than its guardrails.

On Replay

Hawaiʻi already has a cautionary tale on this exact subject. In the 1990s, the state ran a program nicknamed "Van Cam," a mass surveillance effort to ticket speeding drivers. The Libertarian Party of Hawaii played a major role in its shut down.

“The city seems determined to make driving in Waikiki as unpleasant as possible. And let's not forget the van-cam fiasco. The Libertarian Party was the only one fighting that for years before it was actually initiated. If you drive and you're tired of being scolded and attacked, you need to ask those people seeking your vote this year where they stand on driving issues. Don't be shy. Otherwise, you leave your fate up to a handful of anti-driving activists.” -Tracy Ryan, Former Chair of LPHI

ACLU of Hawaiʻi Executive Director Vanessa Chong referenced that history back when HPD first proposed ALPR technology, warning that dragnet surveillance of law-abiding drivers can become permanent while doing little to actually improve public safety. That warning from over a decade ago reads like it was written for HB 2033.

The Supreme Court Gives Us New Ammunition

Four days before the LNC passed its resolution, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Chatrie v. United States, a case about geofence warrants, where police ask a company like Google to hand over data on every phone that passed through an area during a set window of time. The sweep included every phone within a 17.5 acre circle around a Virginia bank for two hours, including phones inside a nearby church and private homes.

In a 6-3 ruling written by Justice Kagan, the Court held that pulling this kind of location history from a third party counts as a search under the Fourth Amendment. A person keeps a an expectation of privacy in their own movements. The Court built on its 2018 ruling in Carpenter v. United States, which first extended Fourth Amendment protection to cell tower records. It applied that same logic to geofence data, which is even more precise.

The ruling did stop short of declaring geofence warrants unconstitutional outright. That specific question got sent back down to the Fourth Circuit. But the core principle now stands at the Supreme Court level. The government cannot treat your location history as free for the taking just because a private company happens to hold it.

A Win for Hawaii

License plate readers and geofence warrants both rest on the same broken assumption, that a person gives up their privacy simply by existing in public or by using a phone. HPD's own stated goal, island-wide camera coverage, is a different flavor of exactly the kind of dragnet the Supreme Court just took a real step toward reining in in. If a warrant is required before police can ask Google where your phone has been, there is no principled reason a camera network should be allowed to log where your car has been without one.

The Libertarian Party of Hawaiʻi will be watching HB 2033 and any successor bill closely in the 2027 legislative session. We encourage members to follow the example set by our trailblazers. Ask your state legislators and the running candidates this election cycle three questions:

Who can access this data?
How long is it kept?
What happens when the system gets it wrong?

The LNC Resolution Against Dragnet Surveillance was long overdue. Hawaiʻi shut down Van Cam once already. We should not need a repeat performance to learn the same lesson twice.