Cookeville residents renewed their push Thursday for the City Council to reconsider its recently approved two-year Flock camera contract.
The council approved a $60,000 contract for ten automatic license plate readers last month. Cookeville resident John Dotson said the systems violate public rights.
“I’m thrilled to report that 15 days ago,” Dotson said, “Federal District Court Judge Sarah Hill ruled that a warrantless search using Flock Safety cameras was in fact a violation of the Fourth Amendment in the case of United States vs. Melissa Susan Kyle.”
Resident Nicholas Sullivan also asked council to consider the scope of outside access to information collected by Cookeville’s cameras. Sullivan said he believes the technology can be useful in certain cases but questioned how widely the information should be shared.
“Isolate the data, only Cookeville can see it, Cookeville can’t see outside of Cookeville, other places cannot see inside of Cookeville’s cameras, and then put it behind a warrant,” another resident said, “An officer has to get a warrant before they can do a search and violate people’s Fourth Amendment rights otherwise.”
Dotson said the ability to search and share information collected by the cameras remains one of his primary concerns. Three other residents joined him in asking council members to reconsider how the system is used.
The resident stated agencies in other states have searched his license plate information despite him not recently traveling to those locations. Another resident told council her concerns center on what could happen if access to location information were abused.