WWE legend Kane built his career terrorizing arenas full of screaming fans as a masked monster.
Now the man behind the mask runs Knox County and just declared war on out of control government surveillance cameras.
Then his own Republican controlled commission betrayed citizens with those very cameras.
Sheriff's Office Pushes 270 Snooping Cameras While Conservative Republican Mayor Demands a Ban
Glenn Jacobs is Knox County's mayor now.
You know him as Kane, the Big Red Machine who held the record for most matches in WWE history.
Jacobs doesn't scare easy.
But he told his commission this week that Flock Safety's automated license plate readers have him legitimately alarmed.
"The more that I've learned about Flock cameras, the more troubled I am," Jacobs said.
He's not talking about a handful of test cameras.
The Knox County Sheriff's Office has plans to install roughly 270 Flock cameras across the county.
That rollout is riding on more than a million dollars in grant funding.
Jacobs asked his commission to ban the devices outright until Tennessee or the federal government writes real rules for them.
He didn't get his ban.
The commission voted unanimously Monday night to keep talking about it in August.
But commissioners refused to pass an emergency ordinance that would have stopped the cameras immediately.
Commissioner Adam Thompson stood with Jacobs anyway.
Thompson called the cameras a straight threat to the constitutional liberties of every resident in the county.
Jacobs laid out exactly why these cameras are different from the license plate readers your grandfather remembers.
Old cameras snapped a plate and let the photo disappear in days.
Flock's cameras don't stop at your plate.
Their software logs your car's color and model, and it even flags things like bumper stickers.
That information can sit in a searchable database for weeks, sometimes longer.
String enough cameras together and you don't just catch a stolen car.
You build a permanent record of everywhere a law abiding citizen drives.
Your pastor's parking lot, your doctor's office, your ex-wife's street.
Jacobs also revealed something Knox County residents didn't know.
Any camera on county right of way needs a county permit first.
Jacobs said he's since learned some of these cameras may have skipped that step entirely.
Burchett's Bill Would Force Feds to Delete the Data in 30 Days
Jacobs isn't fighting this alone.
Congressman Tim Burchett held the Knox County mayor's office himself before Jacobs.
Burchett introduced H.R. 9800, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, in Washington on July 21.
"We gotta ban these dadgum things," Burchett said.
He called the cameras a straight violation of the Fourth Amendment.
His bill would bar federal agencies from buying, deploying, or even accessing Flock style surveillance networks.
It would block facial recognition and biometric tracking systems too.
Any state or local government would be barred from using federal money to buy or run these systems at all.
Data collected in violation of the bill gets deleted within 30 days and can never be used in court.
Jacobs told the Daily Caller he appreciates Burchett bringing the fight to the national level.
He said the rules need to catch up with the technology, and fast, so people's rights and liberties stay protected.
Flock's Camera Network Already Stretches Across the Country
Flock built a nationwide surveillance web while nobody was watching.
Notice who's leading the charge to tear it down here.
This isn't the ACLU or some liberal privacy group filing another lawsuit.
It's the sitting Republican mayor and the Republican congressman who used to hold that same job, both pushing back against their own county's surveillance rollout.
That matters more than a partisan food fight ever could.
It's conservatives policing their own on government overreach, and Washington could use a lot more of that.
A dense enough camera network doesn't need a warrant to know where you go to church, who you visit, and how often you leave town.
Jacobs and Burchett aren't asking Knox County to give up on catching criminals.
They're asking why a private tech company gets to build a tracking grid on every American with zero oversight from the people footing the bill.
The Sheriff's Office already locked in grant money before commissioners even finished debating it.
That's the pattern with government surveillance programs.
They expand first and ask permission later, if they ask at all.
Kane played a monster in the ring for a living.
Now he's fighting a real one, and this time the referee is his own commission.
Whether they’re Flock’s or any other makers’ surveillance cameras, they aren’t protecting us.
It's time to bring the sick panopticon grifts to an end.
They're not about protecting anyone, they’re about picking our pockets while letting creepy men lurk in the shadows looking in on our daily lives and that of our kids, and our kids and grandkids.
The only question is are you one of the sheep that’s okay with that or one of the sheepdogs who is going to guard against it.
Sources:
- "Knox County Mayor Calls for Pause on Flock Cameras, Cites Privacy Concerns Ahead of Commission Meeting," WVLT, July 27, 2026.
- "Two Tennessee Politicians Are Taking Aim At Flock's Growing Surveillance Empire," The Daily Caller, July 27, 2026.
- "Knox County Mayor Asks Commission to Ban Use of Flock Cameras," WATE 6 On Your Side, July 27, 2026.
- "Knox County Commission Unanimously Approves Continued Conversation of Flock Cameras," WVLT, July 28, 2026.
- "We Gotta Ban These Dadgum Things: Congressman Criticizes Flock Cameras, Police Respond," Fox 17 News, July 24, 2026.
- "U.S. House Bill Would Prohibit Federal Agencies From Purchasing, Accessing ALPR Systems," Police1, July 24, 2026.
