Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs publicly broke with the county’s sheriff’s office on July 22, 2026, declaring that the rollout of Flock Safety license plate cameras across the East Tennessee county represents a direct threat to the constitutional rights of the people he governs. In a post published to X at 5:54 a.m., Jacobs wrote: “I have serious concerns about the rollout of Flock cameras in Knox County. I believe they are a threat to our privacy and civil liberties. Commission is holding a special session prior to their regular meeting Monday to discuss this issue, and I will have more to say as well.”
The statement thrust Knox County into a national debate over automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that has been building in cities and counties across the country. Flock Safety, the private company behind the technology, has installed devices in more than 5,000 communities nationwide and says its network performs upward of 20 billion vehicle scans every month. Knox County’s own proposed expansion would add nearly 300 of the cameras, funded through a $1.5 million grant secured by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) to build out an Advanced Research and Communications Center.
Jacobs, a self-described small-government libertarian who was first elected Knox County mayor in 2018 after a career as WWE wrestler “Kane,” has built much of his political identity around limiting government reach into residents’ lives. His objection to the Flock rollout fits squarely within that framework: cameras that continuously photograph, log and store the license plates, and in many cases the physical descriptions, of vehicles traveling on public roads, regardless of whether the driver is suspected of any crime…