![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_2026-08-26AD0401DesantisFIUEmergency.JPG\" "\\"Governor")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Governor Ron DeSantis holds a press conference at FIU with Jared Purdue, the new head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, August 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
PHOTO BY AL DIAZ<\/p>\n
adiaz@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE<\/p>\n
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday became the latest politician in a swelling bipartisan<\/a> movement to demand an overhaul of how and where AI-powered Flock cameras can be used, calling on Floridians to pressure lawmakers to regulate the tools.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to have this become a surveillance state,\u201d he told attendees at an unrelated event in Miami. \u201cGo after criminals \u2014 great, let\u2019s all do that. But surveilling just regular Floridians\u2019 movements, and how that data\u2019s used, that\u2019s a bird of a different feather.\u201d<\/p>\n In his last year as governor, and with his final legislative session behind him, DeSantis asked voters to call their lawmakers to demand regulations on the cameras, which use AI to read, identify and store license plate and vehicle information.<\/p>\n He suggested Florida look to New Hampshire, which largely bans<\/a> state and local governments from surveilling and recording public roads, and mostly prevents<\/a> fixed roadside license plate readers.<\/p>\n DeSantis was among the first in his party to criticize unfettered use of artificial intelligence. It was a stark contrast from President Donald Trump, who had allied himself with technology titans and signed an executive order curbing states\u2019 abilities to curb AI in favor of regulations at the federal level.<\/p>\n Last year, DeSantis\u2019 office authored an \u201cAI Bill of Rights\u201d \u2014 a sweeping regulatory package that would have kept minors away from certain AI tools and forced AI companies to delete users\u2019 personal data.<\/p>\n It failed in the state House, which had long-feuded with the governor in his last two years.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, DeSantis criticized the House for not taking up the bill \u2014 claiming his measure would have prevented a potential \u201csurveillance state\u201d but the House \u201cwouldn\u2019t even do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n But Florida isn\u2019t new to Flock.<\/p>\n In the past year, DeSantis and the Cabinet have approved roughly $2.5 million from a new state immigration grant to six local law enforcement agencies who were either buying Flock license plate readers or trying to consolidate Flock information onto a single software database.<\/p>\n It\u2019s part of the DeSantis administration\u2019s broader immigration crackdown, started in 2025 to align with Trump\u2019s nationwide call for mass detentions and deportations.<\/p>\n Along with creating two state-run detention centers called Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot, DeSantis muscled through legislation creating a State Board of Immigration Enforcement, made up of himself and the three Cabinet members, and a $250 million grant to support local police aiding in detentions.<\/p>\n So far, the state has approved $147 million in disbursements; just under $22 million of that has been doled out to local law enforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Governor Ron DeSantis holds a press conference at FIU with Jared Purdue, the new head of the Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-381892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381892","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=381892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}