Carl Gunn sat under the Florida sun last Saturday with nothing but a camping chair, a pool skimmer and a handmade sign. The 77-year-old Republican from St. Petersburg’s Coquina Key neighborhood had positioned himself directly in front of a camera mounted on a 12-foot black pole. All the device captured that afternoon was his message: “DOWN WITH FLOCK CAMERAS.”
Gunn had spotted the pole weeks earlier. Concern quickly turned to alarm once he learned who ran it and what it recorded. The camera, part of a system operated by private company Flock Safety, doesn’t just film. It reads every license plate that passes, builds AI-generated profiles of vehicles and feeds the data into a searchable national database. Creative Loafing Tampa Bay captured his solo demonstration in detail.
“This is just another thing to take our information and to spy on us,” Gunn told the publication. “I have a constitutional right to my privacy. I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I don’t need anyone sticking their nose in my business. And if they do, I’m going to chop it off.”
His protest marked the second time he had taken such action. A week earlier he had targeted another camera nearby. This time drivers honked in support. One woman tossed cold drinks and snacks from her car window. A stranger identifying only as Carter C. joined him, offering a shade umbrella and a soda. Two St. Petersburg police cruisers stopped for 10 to 15 minutes to question Gunn before leaving. Video shared with the outlet showed one officer’s vehicle paused beside the demonstrator while a passerby shouted an offer to post bail.
The episode might appear small. Yet it reflects a widening national debate over automated license plate readers. Flock Safety installed its first cameras in St. Petersburg in 2022. City police now operate about 50 of them. They sit at entrances to the St. Pete Pier, near Wildwood Park, outside a youth recreation center and across a retail corridor anchored by Lowe’s and Home Depot. Records show officers have queried the system in federal probes targeting noncitizens, vandalism cases and even one littering complaint.
Supporters argue the technology delivers results. Police departments credit it with helping recover stolen vehicles, locate missing persons and identify suspects who might otherwise slip away. Queries can span a network that now includes more than 100,000 cameras nationwide. An officer types in a plate number and sees every location the vehicle has been spotted, complete with timestamps, direction of travel and visual details such as dents or bumper stickers.
Critics counter that the system creates something new. Not occasional observation by a patrol officer but constant, automated tracking of ordinary citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned against it for years. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the organization, said in 2025, “In a democracy, the government shouldn’t be watching its citizens all the time just in case we do something wrong. It’s one thing if a police officer out on a street sees something suspicious in public and reacts. But this is an entirely different matter.”
Recent developments have sharpened those worries. The Los Angeles Times reported in mid-July that the Los Angeles Police Department suspended its partnership with Flock over questions about data control and potential sharing with immigration authorities. At least 28 states have canceled contracts, according to local news accounts compiled in July. And the Mother Jones detailed a surge in officer misconduct cases tied directly to the technology. In Milwaukee, one patrolman searched his romantic partner’s plate more than 200 times in two months. A second officer assigned to investigate him later faced identical charges. Similar firings or resignations occurred this year in Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, California and Georgia.
Flock itself has grown rapidly. The company, founded in 2017, surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue in early 2025. That figure represented a 70 percent jump from the prior year, according to an analysis by TDG wealth management. Its business model depends on selling hardware and access to law enforcement while retaining significant influence over the data pipeline. Carl Gunn noticed. “The Flock company, they’re doing this for profit,” he said. “We didn’t give them permission to do it on us. If they want to do it for profit, I want my paycheck.”
Privacy advocates point to additional risks. Data can be used to monitor political protesters. It has been queried in immigration enforcement actions that have drawn local backlash in Florida. The Truthout reported just two days ago that public pressure has prompted several Florida counties to reject funding for more cameras or impose moratoriums on related data centers. In the state’s Treasure Coast region, police conducted 216 immigration-related searches of Flock data in a three-month span early this year despite earlier assurances the system would not support such efforts. Leon County commissioners pulled a $440,000 grant after more than two hours of resident testimony focused on privacy, data retention and federal access.
Communities have responded in creative ways. Activists maintain Deflock.org, a site that maps camera locations across cities including St. Petersburg. Another tool, the FlockHopper app, helps drivers route around the devices. Some individuals have chosen vandalism. Gunn rejected that approach. He wanted a lawful, visible form of resistance. “They don’t own the air,” he said.
The debate carries constitutional weight. Courts have yet to deliver a definitive ruling on whether prolonged automated tracking of vehicles on public roads violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. Lower court decisions have split. Some treat license plate data as akin to public observation. Others warn that the scale and permanence of digital records create a mosaic of movement that reveals far more than any single sighting could.
St. Petersburg officials have defended their use of the system. Department spokespeople emphasize that the cameras aid crime-solving without replacing traditional policing. Yet the city’s expansion plans, once aimed at doubling the number of units, now unfold against a backdrop of national retrenchment. At least 30 municipalities canceled contracts during 2025 alone, many citing fears that local data could feed federal deportation operations under the current administration.
Gunn’s protest may not halt the cameras. Police cruisers eventually drove away. The pole remains. His sign, however, lingered in local memory and social media shares. One X user reposted the Creative Loafing Tampa Bay story on Sunday, echoing broader frustration. Others have voiced similar unease on the platform for months, warning that St. Petersburg risks becoming another node in a surveillance grid.
What happens next remains uncertain. More cities may follow Los Angeles and pull back. Legislation could impose stricter rules on data retention, sharing and civilian access to logs. Or the technology’s utility in solving crimes may convince leaders to accept the trade-offs. For now the cameras keep scanning. And at least one 77-year-old refuses to look away.
His pool skimmer stood firm. The sign faced the lens. And the larger argument about privacy in an age of constant recording continues, one intersection at a time.
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