{"id":358785,"date":"2026-07-31T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358785\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T13:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:13:12","slug":"florida-man-defeats-ai-surveillance-with-a-12-foot-pool-skimmer-down-with-flock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358785\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Man Defeats AI Surveillance With a 12-Foot Pool Skimmer: \u201cDown With Flock\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The phrase “Florida Man” usually precedes a bizarre story involving a rogue alligator, a stolen golf cart, or a chaotic trip to a drive-thru. But this week, a 77-year-old pensioner from St. Petersburg, Florida<\/a>, is being hailed as an internet folk hero after waging a hilariously low-tech, one-man war against artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

His weapon of choice? A camping chair and a 12-foot pool skimmer.<\/p>\n

Carl Gunn recently noticed a new Flock Safety camera installed in his neighborhood. Unhappy with the idea of a private corporation tracking his daily movements, he decided to protest. But rather than resorting to the vandalism tactics we’ve seen elsewhere\u2014like spray paint, lasers, or power drills\u2014Gunn found a brilliant, completely legal loophole.<\/p>\n

Gunn’s Low-Tech “Hack”<\/p>\n

As shown in the video via Twitter<\/a>, Gunn simply taped a massive sign reading “DOWN WITH FLOCK CAMERAS” to the end of his pool skimmer. He then set up a lawn chair directly underneath the surveillance pole and spent his Saturday holding the 12-foot skimmer squarely in front of the camera’s lens, entirely blocking its view without ever laying a finger on the hardware.<\/p>\n

The Flock network, for those unfamiliar, is a massive, privately-owned web of AI-powered Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs<\/a>). Law enforcement agencies contract with the company to utilize the cameras, which track not just license plates, but vehicle makes, models, colors, and even unique identifiers like bumper stickers and roof racks. Because the network logs the movements of thousands of innocent drivers<\/a> without a warrant, they have become highly controversial privacy flashpoints.<\/p>\n

Gunn, clearly, had seen enough.<\/p>\n

“I have a constitutional right to my privacy,” Gunn said of his protest in the image quote. “I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I don’t need anyone sticking their nose in my business. And if they do, I’m going to chop it off.”<\/p>\n

The Community Rallies<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long for the one-man protest to draw an audience.<\/p>\n

According to local reports from Creative Loafing Tampa Bay<\/a>, Gunn’s demonstration eventually attracted the attention of the authorities, and two St. Petersburg police cruisers rolled up to interrogate him.<\/p>\n

The police presence immediately sparked a community response. Passing drivers began honking in support of the 77-year-old, with several strangers stopping to bring him cold drinks, snacks, and an umbrella to shade him from the brutal Florida sun.<\/p>\n

One passerby, a local named Tyler Knight, even pulled over to film the police encounter. In the video, Knight can be heard shouting his support from the window: “What’s your name? I’ll bail you out!” Knight then yelled at the officers for protecting the corporate camera before driving off.<\/p>\n

Despite rumors circulating on social media that Gunn was arrested following the standoff, court records in Pinellas County show no matching charges.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And that is exactly what makes Gunn’s protest so brilliant. Because he never touched, altered, or damaged the $3,000 Flock camera, he technically didn’t commit a crime. He is simply a citizen standing on a public sidewalk holding a sign in public airspace\u2014it just so happens that his sign completely blinds a sophisticated, AI-powered surveillance dragnet.<\/p>\n

Gunn fully understands the corporate dynamic at play, too. “Flock company, they’re doing this for profit\u2026 They don’t own the air,” he told Creative Loafing. “We didn’t give them permission to do it on us. If they want to do it for profit, I want my paycheck.”<\/p>\n

Gunn has reportedly staged at least two of these pool-skimmer protests at different camera locations around St. Petersburg. So the next time an AI startup claims their surveillance tech is an unstoppable force of the future, just remember: it can be completely defeated by a stubborn senior citizen with a pool toy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The phrase “Florida Man” usually precedes a bizarre story involving a rogue alligator, a stolen golf cart, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[77526,28,30,3475,29,146300,199],"class_list":["post-358785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-flock-safety","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-man","tag-florida-news","tag-pool-skimmer","tag-st-petersburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}