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Residents urge council to halt auto-renewal of Flock cameras; city attorney cites case law
Summary
Residents told the council the city must remove or limit Flock-brand surveillance cameras, citing Fourth Amendment and state-constitution concerns; the city attorney said case law limits privacy expectations for license plates and described certification and docketing controls for queries.
Several residents urged the Crossville City Council to restrict or remove the city's Flock-brand cameras and to prevent the contract from auto-renewing.
Dylan Romero (speaker 5) told the council the cameras violate federal and state constitutional protections and said, "You are in violation of the federal constitution and the state constitution by hosting these cameras under government control." Another commenter asked the council to require any renewal to return for an affirmative council vote.
The city attorney (speaker 9) responded in the attorney's report, citing United States v. Sturdevant and the plain-view doctrine as applied to license-plate data and saying that in Crossville the current deployment is license-plate readers only. He described local controls: only certified officers may request camera data, requests are tied to docket numbers through 911, and the statutory sunset brought camera records under public-records rules for limited retention periods.
Public speakers also referenced vendor features marketed as "Freeform" that allow searches by clothing or description and multiple municipalities that have canceled or declined similar systems; they called for transparency about which features are enabled locally and who can run queries. One commenter requested that council vote to prevent automatic contract renewal and require an affirmative council vote for any extension.
The council did not immediately remove or suspend the cameras during the meeting; the attorney's remarks were the meeting's primary institutional response. No formal policy or ordinance was adopted at this session.
