Jimmy Patronis
Role at the time: U.S. representative for Florida's 1st district, in a post on X
Statement summary
Sharing a Washington Post report that a Florida county had found Flock cameras with no obvious owner, Rep. Jimmy Patronis said advocates of the technology are asking for "a hell of a lot of trust" and questioned how it can be used or policed when people do not know what is on their infrastructure. He suggested Congress consider criminal penalties for illegally installing non-permitted technology on federally funded infrastructure.
“Advocates of this tech are begging for a hell of a lot of trust, and when people don’t have a sense of what’s even on their infrastructure, it begs the question of how this stuff can even be used or policed. It might be worth Congress looking at criminal penalties for illegally putting non-permitted tech on infrastructure that receives federal dollars.”
Post by Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) at 8:38 a.m. ET on October 1, 2026, sharing a Washington Post report that a Florida county had discovered Flock cameras with no obvious owner. His office pointed Dispute Index to the post in reply to a request about license plate readers.
Why we used this label
The reference point is whether networked license-plate reader systems such as Flock should exist and be used. Patronis criticizes the systems' advocates for demanding trust and questions whether the cameras can be policed, so we labeled it Condemned. His proposed remedy, criminal penalties for unpermitted installations on federally funded infrastructure, is a safeguard rather than a ban or warrant rule, so the tracker step is Guardrails.