Rep. Tim Burchett renewed his campaign against warrantless mass surveillance Saturday with a characteristically blunt post. “If law enforcement wants to follow all of us get a Dadgum warrant,” Burchett wrote on X. The post is the latest in a long-running series of statements from Burchett targeting automated license plate reader networks and similar surveillance technology he argues violate the Fourth Amendment.
The Bill Behind the Slogan
Burchett’s post ties directly to legislation he introduced weeks earlier. According to the official text of H.R. 9800, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act states that “no Federal agency may purchase, deploy, operate, access, or contract for any automated surveillance system that identifies, tracks, or records individuals” through an automated license plate recognition system — explicitly naming Flock Safety cameras — facial recognition technology, or biometric identification technology including fingerprint, iris, retinal, voice, or gait recognition. The bill was introduced July 21 and referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to the official record of Burchett’s sponsored legislation.
What the Bill Would Require Beyond the Purchase Ban
Beyond barring federal agencies from using the technology themselves, the bill’s text extends its reach to state and local governments, prohibiting them from using federal funds to acquire or operate the same covered surveillance systems. It further requires that any data obtained by a federal agency be deleted no later than 30 days after it is obtained, and bars that data from being admitted into evidence in any court or administrative proceeding.
How Burchett Frames the Underlying Problem
Burchett has drawn a specific line between opposing the technology outright and demanding judicial oversight of it. In a video posted to X regarding the bill, Burchett said: “These law enforcement intelligence agents, they gotta have tools to address these threats, but taking our constitutional rights is not on the table.” Separately, in comments to a local Knoxville station, Burchett summarized the bill’s scope simply: “All it says is that there will be no federal money spent on Flock cameras. If the locals want to do it, they do it.”
A Tennessee Partnership on the Issue
Burchett’s push has coincided with parallel local opposition in his home state. According to WATE’s reporting, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs called Flock cameras a “threat to our privacy and civil liberties,” giving Burchett’s federal legislative push a companion effort at the local level in the same Tennessee community.
Local Police Pushback
Not everyone in Tennessee law enforcement has embraced Burchett’s framing. A Knoxville Police Department spokesperson told WATE that “LPRs have been one of the most impactful investigative tools in policing that’s been developed in the last decade or more.” In a separate report, Mt. Juliet Police Department Chief Tyler Chandler told WZTV that his department’s system had led to hundreds of arrests in 2026 alone, adding, “I welcome strong legislation that ensures law enforcement across our State and Nation use license plate readers responsibly with clear policies, limited access, auditing, and a continued commitment to protecting the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the public,” according to the same report.
A Related Bill From Another Texas Republican
Burchett is not alone among Republicans pursuing a warrant-focused response to the technology. Rep. Keith Self of Texas has introduced a separate bill requiring federal agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing surveillance data, telling reporters, according to WATE: “You ought to have to take that information to a judge and get a warrant. That’s what the Fourth Amendment is about and I believe this is an abuse of that.”
How This Fits a Consistent, Months-Long Pattern
Saturday’s post continues a message Burchett has repeated consistently for months. On July 23, he posted on X, “Ban FLOCK cameras! Call your Congressman,” with an accompanying video, and on July 6 he wrote, “We had the opportunity to block these and we chickened out. Tell them next time to bring a warrant.” His signature phrase extends beyond license-plate cameras specifically: on June 16, discussing FISA Section 702 surveillance authority, he wrote, “If you want to spy on Americans, get a dadgum warrant,” and on June 17 he wrote, “Obey the Constitution. Get a Dadgum warrant.”
The Bill’s Current Status
As of the most recent tracking, H.R. 9800 had no cosponsors and remained in committee, according to Congress.gov’s record of the legislation. That status places it in an early stage of the legislative process, with no scheduled committee action or floor vote, meaning Burchett’s public messaging campaign — including Saturday’s post — functions as much to build outside pressure and cosponsor support as to describe a bill already close to passage.
What the Bill Does and Doesn’t Cover
The bill’s own text makes clear it addresses federal action and federal funding specifically, not state or local governments’ own independent spending. As Burchett told WATE directly, localities that want to fund and operate their own camera networks using their own money remain free to do so under the bill as written — meaning the legislation’s practical reach depends heavily on how much any given local law enforcement agency currently relies on federal funding for its surveillance technology.
The Scale of What Burchett Is Targeting
The underlying network Burchett’s bill takes aim at has expanded rapidly in recent years, with automated license plate readers now deployed by law enforcement agencies across thousands of jurisdictions nationwide, including in Burchett’s own East Tennessee district. The cameras photograph and log vehicle characteristics — make, model, color, and identifying features — alongside location and timestamp data, building a searchable historical record of vehicle movements that departments like Knoxville’s and Mt. Juliet’s have cited as central to their investigative work, even as Burchett and Mayor Jacobs argue the same capability amounts to warrantless tracking of the general public.
Where This Leaves Things
As of Burchett’s Saturday post, H.R. 9800 remained an introduced bill without cosponsors, awaiting committee action, while Flock-style camera networks continued operating across Tennessee and the rest of the country under the current legal framework Burchett argues is inadequate. His “get a dadgum warrant” framing, repeated consistently across both this specific bill and his broader FISA-related advocacy, distills his position to a single constitutional principle: that location tracking, whether through license plate cameras or electronic surveillance, should require the same judicial oversight the Fourth Amendment has long required for other searches — a principle local police officials have publicly countered by pointing to the technology’s track record in producing arrests.