OKLAHOMA CITY – Rep. Tom Gann, RInola, is expressing his deep concern over recent revelations that he believes highlight a widespread and ongoing violation of Oklahomans’ rights. Gann led an interim study on this issue before the House State Powers Committee in October. His recent concern follows an open records request filed by an independent media publication, which revealed that citizens of Oklahoma’s original capital city, Guthrie, were under warrantless surveillance by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
In response to an open records request made by The Sooner Sentinel, Guthrie City Hall disclosed that its network of FLOCK license plate scanner devices has been shared with nearly 100 other government agencies, including the Nashville, TN, branch of the ATF.
Gann said this access appears to allow government agencies from multiple states, including Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, to monitor the real-time traffic of Guthrie drivers. The scanners create a profile of each passing vehicle.
“All across the state, police departments are allowing FLOCK to add their cities and towns to a growing, nationwide surveillance network,” Gann explained. “I’ve long suspected that access was being shared with federal agencies, but this is the first time I’ve seen proof that this was perpetrated on unwitting citizens. It may be occurring in many other Oklahoma towns as well” Gann stated the system appears to be designed to allow the ATF and other agencies to create “Hot Lists,” enabling agencies, to receive alerts whenever their target passes by one of the scanners without a warrant.
“When city councils approve these systems, they often believe they are simply authorizing a tool to compare passing traffic with National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and Amber Alert lists,” Gann said. “But what they do not realize is they have just made their town the latest node on a growing surveillance network and have authorized their police departments to share their citizens’ travel data with numerous other government agencies. When abuses occur, citizens have little recourse to address their grievances with agencies located far away, where they do not have standing as voters.”
Gann emphasized the scanners have not been specifically authorized by Oklahoma state law. Last year, a McClain County judge ruled that state law prohibited their use and suppressed the camera evidence obtained through these devices. Despite this ruling, the devices continue to be deployed across Oklahoma. Gann insists Oklahoma take immediate action to put an end to this unauthorized surveillance.
“The prying eyes of the ATF have been unleashed on our state. We must step up now to end this madness,” Gann said.
Additionally, Gann believes it’s time to investigate how FLOCK, a specific vendor of the license plate scanning technology and its associated artificial intelligence, appears to be securing “sole source” contracts to deploy hundreds of scanners throughout the state. The company reportedly provides “sole source” letters to police departments, allowing them to bypass essential purchasing policies that would otherwise enable competitive bidding, according to Gann.
“The CEO of FLOCK has declared his vision is to put a scanner on every street corner,” Gann said. “Each scanner costs local governments thousands of dollars per year. That amounts to a massive wealth transfer from the public purse to this sole-source big tech company. That money has to come from somewhere. Make no mistake, this is about replacing the common sense of human police officers with the uncaring eye of AI, all to benefit a rapidly expanding big tech startup.”
Gann said FLOCK’s lobbyists will be interacting with the Oklahoma Legislature as several bills have been filed this year to authorize warrantless surveillance technology. The Sooner Sentinel’s open records request also revealed FLOCK has been pressuring local law enforcement to advocate for their legislation. Gann warns that the upcoming votes on these bills will be among the most critical of the year.
“These votes are going to have dramatic privacy implications that will affect generations of future Oklahomans. As legislators, we have a sacred responsibility to hand down to our future generations the freedoms that we were given. We must defeat these measures,” Gann said.
