The legal fight involving Jose Rodriguez and Flock Safety cameras has become an important case study in the debate over police surveillance, public records and personal privacy. What began with requests for license-plate-camera images in Washington developed into several lawsuits, court rulings, camera shutdowns and settlements worth thousands of dollars.
One point is important: Rodriguez’s best-known cases were not primarily lawsuits against Flock Safety itself. They involved cities and public agencies that used Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader, or ALPR, technology and then disputed whether the resulting images had to be released under Washington’s Public Records Act.
Who Is Jose Rodriguez?
Jose Rodriguez has been described in Washington reporting as an Oregon resident and tattoo artist who became concerned about the expanding use of automated license plate readers.
Flock cameras photograph passing vehicles and can record information such as license plates, vehicle characteristics, location, date and time. Rodriguez began submitting public-records requests to agencies operating the cameras because he wanted to examine what was being collected and highlight the privacy implications of widespread vehicle tracking.
His requests eventually created a difficult question: If a city pays for Flock cameras but the images remain on Flock’s cloud servers, are those images still government public records?
Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley Case
The most significant early dispute involved the Washington cities of Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley.
Court records show Rodriguez requested Stanwood Flock images and data from a specific one-hour period in March 2025. He later requested approximately 30 minutes of data from Sedro-Woolley. Neither city ultimately produced the requested records before the images were automatically deleted.
The cities sought a declaratory judgment arguing, among other things, that Flock information they had not downloaded should not be considered a public record.
On November 6, 2025, Skagit County Superior Court rejected that position. Judge Elizabeth Neidzwski concluded that the images were public records under Washington law. The ruling noted that the cities paid for the systems, the images were generated for their benefit, and an agency did not necessarily need to physically possess a record for the Public Records Act to apply.
The dispute continued over whether the cities had improperly withheld Rodriguez’s requested records. According to August 2026 reporting, a court ruled on July 16 that Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley had wrongfully withheld the footage. The cities subsequently approved settlements totaling $80,000, with each city agreeing to pay $40,000.
Everett Flock Camera Lawsuit
Everett became involved in a similar dispute after Rodriguez requested approximately 30 minutes of the city’s Flock records.
Everett went to court seeking a ruling that the footage was not subject to public disclosure. The controversy contributed to Everett temporarily pausing its Flock camera system after a Snohomish County judge ruled that the recordings were public records.
In June 2026, Everett approved a $25,000 settlement with Rodriguez to end the litigation.
Skamania County Settlement
Rodriguez also sued Skamania County after requesting several hours of Flock footage and data.
The county argued that no responsive records had been downloaded and raised concerns about releasing large amounts of law-enforcement surveillance information. The dispute ended in March 2026 when Skamania County agreed to pay Rodriguez $19,900, without admitting wrongdoing.
Washington Changed the Law
The lawsuits exposed an unusual tension. Privacy advocates worried about governments maintaining databases capable of tracking vehicles, while police departments warned that making bulk ALPR images publicly available could itself create privacy and safety risks.
Washington lawmakers eventually passed SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Protections law. Governor Bob Ferguson signed it on March 30, 2026. The law established strict rules for government ALPR use, including limits on retention and sharing, restrictions on surveillance uses, and a provision making ALPR data generally exempt from disclosure under the Public Records Act.
That change means the legal situation for new records requests is substantially different from the law governing Rodriguez’s original 2025 requests.
Why the Jose Rodriguez Flock Cases Matter
The Rodriguez disputes showed that modern surveillance law is not simply about whether police may collect information. Questions about who owns the data, where it is stored, who can obtain it and how long it should exist can be just as important.
His cases also demonstrated the complications created when government records are stored by private technology companies. Even though Washington has now changed its ALPR rules, the lawsuits remain a notable example of how one series of public-records requests can force courts, local governments and lawmakers to confront the privacy consequences of rapidly expanding surveillance technology.
