Floridians deserve greater transparency, accountability and scientific integrity from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).<\/p>\n
At the very least, we deserve the opportunity to publicly criticize political appointees without being surveilled.<\/p>\n
I, along with at least 15 other environmental advocates, had our private records pulled by the FWC using a database containing citizens\u2019 confidential information that is regulated by state and federal law. Under the guise of a criminal investigation, the FWC accessed our Social Security numbers, our vehicle information, home addresses, phone numbers, medical records and emergency contacts\u2019 information.<\/p>\n
No government agency should be immune to public scrutiny. The FWC does not have compelling reasons for pulling private data on citizens for expressing our opinions and demanding that Florida\u2019s remaining wild spaces be protected.<\/p>\n
I was born and raised in Florida. I studied Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Management at Florida International University. And, after pulling my records multiple times over the last year, surely the FWC now knows that I have no criminal record.<\/p>\n
A government agency should not have access to my confidential information simply because I publicly criticized political appointees\u2019 lack of scientific expertise.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re like me \u2014 a citizen who has not committed any crime, is under no criminal investigation, and has been exercising your First Amendment rights \u2014 why should you be concerned about the potential for a government agency to surveil you?<\/p>\n
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The Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID), used by the FWC to track its critics, has a history of being misused by Florida law enforcement. A 2021 investigation found that \u201cmore than 900 state and local workers have gotten caught misusing that access since 2015, some using it to track their former romantic partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June 2026, a police officer used the database to stalk a woman he\u2019d met while working a security detail, putting her license plate details on a surveillance \u201chotlist\u201d so he would receive live notifications any time her vehicle passed by an AI-powered license plate surveillance camera (known as Flock cameras).<\/p>\n
These Flock cameras, now deployed across the state, have also been used in a collaboration between the FWC and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to continuously pull up driver\u2019s records and vehicle information. Investigating the immigration status of drivers at random is not something that the agency tasked with \u201cmanaging our fish and wildlife resources for their long-term well-being and the benefit of people\u201d should be spending our tax dollars on.<\/p>\n
The FWC Commission needs to be reformed. The FWC is currently headed by seven commissioners, all appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, with backgrounds in real estate, development, mining, and lobbying for developers. A state agency purposed with conserving wildlife and natural resources should be led by people who actually have backgrounds in conservation.<\/p>\n
Some of the environmental advocates whose records were pulled by FWC, such as Brent Fannin, were integral to the writing of bills (HJR 1625 and SJR 1364)1 that would require FWC commissioners to hold backgrounds in environmental science, conservation and\/or natural resource management.<\/p>\n
No government agency should be able to leverage citizens\u2019 confidential information because those individuals called into question the credentials of that agency\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people sign up to speak, their names are checked,\u201d said FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto, president and CEO of Barreto Group, Inc., a company specializing in corporate and public affairs consulting, real estate investment, and development. \u201cThat\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of those whose records were pulled have never attended an FWC meeting in person, nor stepped foot in an FWC facility.<\/p>\n
The agency has potentially violated federal law, as they\u2019ve emphasized that there was no criminal investigation underway at the time advocates were being monitored, yet they were using the criminal investigation code to access the DAVID database.<\/p>\n
Asking that the FWC commission serve their intended purpose and stop selling out our ecosystems to development interests shouldn\u2019t be controversial. It doesn\u2019t warrant a criminal investigation, and certainly doesn\u2019t warrant fabricating one to access a confidential database in an attempt to silence dissent.<\/p>\n
Isabella Herrera is a lifelong Floridian with 10 years of experience as a science communicator, conservationist, social media and communications specialist, and environmental advocate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Floridians deserve greater transparency, accountability and scientific integrity from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[483,28,30,29,482,109,76410],"class_list":["post-363302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-commentary","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-opinion","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363302","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=363302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}