Although police departments in liberal cities and conservative suburbs are eager to embrace surveillance tech, elected officials across the aisle in Tennessee are moving the other way.
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by Steven Hale [The Nashville Banner, Creative Commons] –
After filing legislation in the U.S. House earlier this month that would prohibit federal agencies from using automated license plate readers, Republican Congressman Tim Burchett pitched the bill in his characteristically East Tennessee way.
“They’re pretty draconian, and you can look that up if you wanna know what that means,” he said, going on to talk about protecting Americans’ constitutional rights in a video posted on X. “Call your legislators, tell ‘em we gotta ban these dadgum things.”
Burchett’s Democrat opponent in the 2nd Congressional District’s upcoming general election agrees with him about the draconian nature of the cameras.
“Keeping our country safe doesn’t mean letting the government spy on us 24/7,” reads a section on Michaela Barnett’s website about her policy views. “Like so many of the other priorities I am fighting for, this is a bipartisan issue, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the aisle to pass commonsense privacy legislation that protects East Tennesseans from government overreach.”
A third candidate for that congressional seat, Independent Adam Heimerman, has also targeted LPRs in his own way. He is currently facing felony charges in Blount County for allegedly shooting four Flock Safety LPRs in the area. A GoFundMe campaign to support his legal defense has raised more than $13,000.
Flock, the leading LPR company specifically named by Barnett and Burchett, told Nashville’s Fox17 that “clear safeguards that ensure accountability, oversight and responsible use” can be established without banning the technology outright. But political momentum appears to be shifting against them, pushed in many cases by growing public anger about mass surveillance.
In Nashville, a plan to deploy LPRs citywide stalled last year in the face of community opposition that followed a pilot program by the Metro Nashville Police Department and concerns about the use of LPR data for mass deportations.
The MNPD has continued to argue in favor of LPRs as a way to solve deadly hit-and-run crashes, recover stolen vehicles or find wanted individuals, but it has become increasingly difficult to imagine the Metro Council approving a contract with Flock or any other LPR provider.
The Banner reported last week on the Flock LPRs in use at the Nashville International Airport and the audit logs that show how they fit into Flock’s sprawling surveillance network.
Anti-surveillance groups like DeFlock and others have mapped thousands of LPRs across Tennessee.
It wasn’t that long ago that some in Metro circles worried that state lawmakers would force the city to deploy the cameras as many of its neighboring counties have. Though the Tennessee Highway Patrol told the Banner last year it was planning a test LPR in Shelby County in the months to come prior to a potential wider rollout in Nashville and beyond, the Tennessee Department of Transportation said last month that no license agreements have been issued to THP for LPRs on state right-of-way.
But more recently, Tennessee officials and residents from across the political spectrum have expressed increasing resistance to the rapid spread of LPRs and the surveillance network they create. It is not unlike the widespread opposition to data centers that has activated so many otherwise disengaged citizens. And it is not unique to Tennessee.
The New York Times reported earlier this week on the bipartisan backlash to LPRs in Texas, while also noting that Flock’s footprint continues to grow. Other national news outlets have covered the growing number of cities that have turned off their LPRs or canceled their contracts with Flock.
One of the company’s largest customers, the Los Angeles Police Department, allowed its contract with Flock to expire last month citing “civil liberty and civil rights concerns.” The department had also learned from an internal audit that its LPRs had wrongly flagged 161 cars as stolen when they were not, according to 404 Media.
In Tennessee, some local officials are stepping in to try to stop previously approved plans to adopt LPRs. Republican Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs — the former professional wrestling superstar known as Kane — came out last month urging the Knox County Sheriff’s Office not to deploy Flock LPRs, which had been funded by a grant from the county commission.
“At this point, I do not believe these devices have a place in Knox County,” Jacobs said.
After initially considering a run for governor, Jacobs supported Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s successful campaign for the Republican nomination. He and state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) were alongside Blackburn at Johnson’s Boots and Jeans, BBQ and Beans event earlier this month.
“These are not your old school license plate readers,” Jacobs told the Banner in response to questions about the cameras. “This is something very different. The laws in Tennessee that govern license plate readers are from 2014. There was a minor amendment in 2021, but that’s it. At the federal level, there’s no regulation. So it’s just one of those things where technology has gotten way far ahead, and we need to have regulations in place to ensure that the Fourth Amendment is protected adequately.”
Johnson said he was “very concerned about the advancement of AI” and drew a distinction between targeted license plate searches and “24-hour surveillance of all of our citizens.”
“We want to be able to catch the bad guys, but that tension between security and liberty is something that’s very tenuous,” he said. “When it’s in question, we have to fall on the side of liberty.”
The issue looks likely to come up when the state legislature reconvenes next year. In response to Jacobs coming out against the deployment of LPRs, state Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) suggested he’ll be pushing related legislation.
He and any other supporters of LPR regulation are likely to run into Flock representatives in the hallway. The company currently has four lobbyists registered to work at the Tennessee statehouse, according to state records.
Any such legislation approved by lawmakers will be sent up to a new governor.
Democrat nominee Jerri Green, a Memphis City Councilmember and former public defender, has expressed uneasiness with LPRs.
“While I support technology that strictly targets and solves violent crime, unregulated mass surveillance threatens our basic constitutional privacy,” she wrote in response to the Banner’s candidate questionnaire. “We must have strict, non-negotiable guardrails, including limits on data retention and how it’s shared, and a strict prohibition on sharing local surveillance data with federal immigration authorities.”
Green’s Republican opponent, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, has shown some signs of shifting with the political winds when it comes to LPRs.
In response to the Banner’s questionnaire, which asked if she supported “the use of license plate readers, Flock cameras and other automated surveillance,” Blackburn answered directly, “Yes, I do.”
“It’s a commonsense measure to protect our communities,” she wrote. “As governor, I will continue to advocate for the privacy of all those in Tennessee, while balancing public safety considerations.”
But earlier this month, standing with Jacobs and Johnson at the event in Franklin, she seemed to have a more careful tone.
“We have to protect people’s privacy,” she said. “As the mayor said and as the senator said, there is a big difference in having a license plate reader looking at a license plate and anything that would ever lead to some type of 24-hour surveillance.”
3 Responses
Good, thanx. Sold out Marsha’s in Big Brother’s pocket.
The communist left wants as much police state as they can get. If they could arrest people of wrong think or speech they would. Tracking license plates is just a cover, as these cameras are now being placed in neighborhoods and other non-intersection locations, tracking people’s movements and more, and the information is hackable and being used in a gestapo-like manner. Several members of law enforcement have used them for stalking victims. I say remove them all, now.
I used to oppose them but then I noticed who was mainly opposing them > Dems like Nashville > “In Nashville, a plan to deploy LPRs citywide stalled last year in the face of community opposition about the use of LPR data for mass deportations.”
Get real > If you use a computer you are being spied on.
There’s a trade off > crooks and Dems oppose them for a reason – they catch crooks. They are a very good way to find stolen cars that crooks use to commit crimes – criminals often steal a car to commit a crime. My city is safe and I want to keep it that way.