Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department

In 2019, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) (defendant) planned to conduct a pilot program testing aerial surveillance to track the movements of people and vehicles related to certain serious crimes. The Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) program would use specialized planes to fly over Baltimore, collecting about 12 hours’ worth of images covering approximately 90 percent of the city each day. Collection would be limited to daylight hours, and the image quality would allow for magnification that showed people and cars individually, but only as blurred dots. The recorded data would be transmitted to collection points and stored for 45 days. At BPD’s request, contractors would use the data to compile reports related to identified criminal offenses. The reports would provide data from before and after an offense, tracking the movements of relevant persons and vehicles to aid BPD in its investigation. Generated reports and associated images would be stored indefinitely or until the statute of limitations for the underlying offense expired. Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) (plaintiff), a group of Baltimore community advocates, sued the BPD, seeking an injunction preventing implementation of the AIR program and the use of collected data. LBS argued that the warrantless surveillance would violate the Fourth Amendment. After the district court denied the requested injunction, BPD initiated the pilot program as planned. While the appeal was pending, the pilot period ended. Due to the program’s mixed results, Baltimore decided not to continue it. Most, but not all, of the collected data was deleted. BPD then moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that the program’s termination rendered the appeal moot.