Free Speech

Florida Wildlife Agency Tracked Critics Using Law Enforcement Database

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says it followed the law when it pulled the driving records of more than a dozen critics of the agency.

C.J. Ciaramella | 7.24.2026 11:15 AM

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Katrina Shadix (Bear Warriors/YouTube)

Florida's state wildlife law enforcement agency used a police database to snoop on more than a dozen of its critics, two Florida news outlets reported, raising concerns of First Amendment retaliation.

The Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald both published stories last weekend revealing that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) secretly investigated outspoken opponents of the agency's policies using the state's Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID), access to which is tightly restricted to legitimate law enforcement purposes.

Targets of FWC searches included a documentary filmmaker, Brent Fannin, who accused the agency of failing to protect endangered gopher tortoises. Another was Katrina Shadix, who fought the FWC's decision to allow bear hunts and successfully sued the state over a pollution-related manatee die-off.

"We found out that they were illegally accessing our information, and it was these people who have........

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