Dear Delaware,

Drive past the wrong pole in this state and a camera can log your plate, and the make, model, and color of your car. Rehoboth’s police spokesperson told the Cape Gazette that the city’s system has been used to help other agencies. WHYY reported on July 30 that Delaware still had no legislative guardrails on these cameras. How long a department keeps the scans, and who it sends them to, is still mostly a policy the department writes itself.

Take the public Flock cameras down until every municipality that wants them holds a real vote, after public notice and a hearing. Not a smashed lens. A vote.

On September 1 I asked for a federal floor under all of this. That letter stands. No plate data kept past 72 hours without a warrant tied to a real investigation. No pattern tracking of people who are not under investigation. A public audit. The same limits when a homeowners association or a business shares its feed with police. A federal floor that a town cannot bargain away. The new part is the consent. The Senate can write the floor. The town still has to vote before a public Flock camera stays up.

The Cape Gazette reported on May 23, 2025, that Rehoboth Beach had put the cameras up without input from the commissioners or the public. Lt. Mark Sweet said four Flock readers had been active since mid-April 2025, on Rehoboth Avenue, Bayard Avenue, and State Road. He said Chief Keith Banks brought the system to City Manager Taylour Tedder, and Tedder approved it. Mayor Stan Mills told the paper the decision was day-to-day operations, not policy, which is why the commissioners did not need to discuss it.

City spokesperson Lynne Coan told the paper the cameras cost $12,000 to buy, with no installation fee, and that the maintenance contract for that fiscal year was another $12,000. Sweet said Flock stores the scans. He did not give a retention period. He said there was no intention to store the data long term.

A camera on every car into town is not a day-to-day purchase. It is a decision about whether the town keeps a record of who comes and goes. That belongs in a public hearing, and then in a vote.

On August 5, 2026, Councilwoman Yolanda McCoy’s office said Wilmington is decommissioning four Flock cameras that had been donated to the city. The city said it was doing so in part because it has no contract with Flock and because of the public discussion around the technology. The same release says Wilmington still uses plate readers from other companies. I am not asking those other cameras to come down in this letter. I am asking that public Flock cameras come down until the people who live there vote.

A town can choose. Rehoboth did not give its people that choice. Wilmington started to.

WHYY’s July 30 article said Flock’s own spokesman, Paris Lewbel, put the number at 20 law enforcement agencies in Delaware using the company’s cameras. The headline line was 20 police agencies. I am using his number as his number, not as a census I took. The same article said WHYY had found Flock customers that included the Delaware State Police, New Castle County, Wilmington, Newark, Dover, Rehoboth Beach, Milford, and the University of Delaware police. That was before Wilmington said it was taking its four donated Flock cameras down. I am not going to pretend the July list is still the August list.

Senator Coons sits on the Judiciary Committee. On September 1 I wrote that he had not introduced a bill on these readers, had not held a hearing, and had not asked the company a public question. I am not adding a new claim about his donors, and I am not claiming I have read every hearing since. I still have not seen that bill.

I will not take a dime from surveillance companies or their executives. This campaign is people-funded. No Super PAC. Ever. Privacy is a voting issue. The record of your car should not be built in an office and explained later.

The Delaware Department of Elections lists me as a Qualified write-in candidate. My name is not printed on the ballot. If you are not registered yet, the deadline is Saturday, October 10. On November 3, thirty-four days from this letter, write TRAVIS JACK STEVENS for U.S. Senate.

With gratitude and determination,

Travis Jack Stevens
Write-in candidate for U.S. Senate · Delaware
travisjackstevens.com