IMMEDIATE RELEASE — David Tulis (423) 544-2285 davidtuliseditor@gmail.com
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Friday, Sept. 18, 2026 — A lawsuit filed today asks a judge to shut down Hamilton County’s license-plate reader system for good. The petition names Sheriff Austin Garrett and alleges the program violates constitutional rights.
Radio journalist David Tulis filed a complaint alleging that the county’s surveillance program “puts innocent people on a criminal ledger and record” in violation of the Tennessee Constitution’s Bill of Rights. He says people may not be placed in a criminal-investigation system without probable cause, a sworn complaint or an indictment.
“The sheriff cannot put an innocent man into a criminal police lineup every day simply because he uses the road,” Tulis says. “The roads belong to the people, not the state.”
“The sheriff prosecutes people who do not buy auto tags. Nearly every vehicle on the road carries a state number under threat of arrest. That is not consent. The state cannot force people to display a tag and then say they agreed to continuous, warrantless tracking. Article 1, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution forbids general warrants as dangerous to liberty. These plate readers watch the public without naming a suspect and without a sworn complaint. That is the kind of general warrant the Constitution forbids.”
The suit does not ask for money damages against the county’s roughly $1.1 million contract with Vigilant Systems using Motorola cameras. It asks the Circuit Court to stop the program, under a “pause” Sheriff Garrett ordered Aug. 31.
The complaint does not allege officer misuse of the database. “My complaint doesn’t need to pay any attention to misuse of these systems,” Tulis says. “Sheriff Garrett’s warrantless police lineup violates our presumption of innocence protected by our supreme law, where searches are unreasonable unless there is a sworn complaint or probable cause.”
“In the interest of police efficiency, Mr. Garrett views all of us as degenerate, naughty children deserving close monitoring,” Tulis says. “We don’t have mass searches. We don’t have mass arrests. We don’t have mass trials. We don’t have mass quarantine in the law. Nor do we have mass surveillance.”
License-plate systems generate billions of images of passing traffic each month, according to press reports. Tulis says the brand of camera — Motorola, Vigilant, Flock, or another — does not change the constitutional question: “Whether a mass system may record the public’s movements without individual suspicion.”
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David Tulis
NoogaRadio Network
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