‘Appalled.’ FWC looks at its critics’ info in database meant for criminal probes
A group of citizens with a history of criticizing the state agency that enforces conservation laws and boater safety recently discovered that agency employees have been pulling sensitive personal information about them from a state database designated for police to use in criminal investigations.
The Miami Herald confirmed that Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission employees pulled 12 people’s records multiple times since 2023 and almost always cited “criminal investigation” as the reason.
The records were in the Driver and Vehicle Information Database, known as DAVID. The system contains people’s driving records and other sensitive information like their Social Security numbers, medical disability records, addresses, signatures and emergency contacts. Only authorized people, usually law-enforcement officers, can pull DAVID records, and there needs to be an official reason to do so.
In the section of the form explaining the reason for pulling the data from 12 activists’ DAVID files, the FWC employees stated: “Criminal Investigation,” according to Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports seen by the Miami Herald. The employees who have conducted the searches all work as criminal intelligence analysts for the FWC.
“I am totally appalled. To be under criminal investigation because we are advocating for the environment is outrageous,” said Sandra Moise, a 60-year-old educator who has long advocated for a variety of environmental causes, especially for the rookery of Biscayne Bay.
Like the other activists whose DAVID files have been accessed by FWC, Moise has also been critical of the way FWC’s seven commissioners are appointed by the governor, saying the group prioritized development interests over conservation of natural resources.
Another activist discovered that the FWC had pulled his DAVID file, citing a criminal investigation. After finding out his records were accessed, he told other activists, who requested information on who pulled their DAVID records from the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and that’s how Moise and others learned they also were being looked into by FWC.
“I was shocked. It’s rather nerve-wracking to learn you’re under criminal investigation, and you’re not sure why you’re being investigated,” Moise said. “It’s a violation of our First Amendment rights. They’ve clearly crossed the line.”
When the Miami Herald asked FWC why the agency was using DAVID to check the activists’ records, a spokesperson responded with an email saying it was done to protect participants at commission meetings and staff at FWC offices.
“The FWC welcomes and values feedback from stakeholders at its public meetings. The FWC Division of Law Enforcement is committed to anticipating potential threats, continuously monitoring safety and security conditions, and implementing appropriate measures to provide a safe, secure, and orderly environment for all participants at public meetings and for employees, visitors, and other occupants of any FWC facility.”
Col. Alberto Maza, FWC’s director of law enforcement, told the Miami Herald that none of the activists was under criminal investigation, and that the people’s records were pulled as a precaution for the safety of FWC employees and anyone else attending meetings.
“We would have been interviewing these people and talking to them, and we haven’t,” Maza said. He said that because the analysts categorized the reason for checking DAVID as “criminal investigation,” the search confirmation was “taken out of context.”
Maza said the agency is looking into whether officers and analysts have more options to categorize searches other than saying they are for a criminal investigation.
Moe DeWitt is an Orlando personal injury attorney who successfully litigated cases that involved DAVID abuse and helped lead to a law overhauling access to the system five years ago. He said anyone searching it must have a legitimate reason to do so. Speaking out at meetings or posting non-threatening comments on social media doesn’t qualify, DeWitt said.
“It all boils down to whether it’s a legitimate criminal investigation, and it sounds like it’s probably not,” DeWitt said.
Other than Moise, the other people confirmed to have been searched through DAVID by the FWC were critics of the state’s controversial bear hunt, which was approved by commissioners last August.
The activists packed FWC meetings leading up to the vote and subsequent meetings deciding the rules of the one-month hunt — the first in Florida since 2015. There were also social-media groups that hounded commissioners and sought to sink the hunt.
Rodney Barreto, chairman of the FWC, told the Miami Herald that while no one whose information was accessed by the agency is under criminal investigation, commissioners received threats, some violent, during the course of the bear-hunt debate, so some people who signed up to speak at the meetings were checked.
“When people sign up to speak, their names are checked,” Barreto said. “That’s all.”
In the end, 172 permits were allocated to hunters, who killed 52 bears in December, according to the FWC’s website.
Katrina Shadix, 58, who grew up hunting with her uncle in the Orlando area, was among the most outspoken critics of the hunt, calling it a “callous” way of trimming the state’s bear population.
Shadix found out last month that FWC had searched her DAVID information 17 times between 2023 and 2025. In almost all of the searches, FWC employees cited she was under criminal investigation, according to the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles report obtained by the Herald.
In October 2025, an FWC employee used the system to search Shadix’s vehicle, her photograph and signature and her driver’s license transaction data, according to the report.
“I was shocked. It leveled up my concern for my safety regarding what the FWC was willing to do to silence me,” Shadix told the Herald. “They’re willing to break the law to silence their opposition who are trying to speak truth to power.”
Bruce Rogow, a constitutional-law attorney and founding professor of the Nova Southeastern University of Law Center, said looking into someone’s information that is already public record might have been acceptable for FWC to have done. But using a database to get otherwise private details is not.
“What is under public records searches is one thing. ... Digging deeper is quite another, and a government agency doesn’t have a fishing license to delve without a strong reason into private information,” Rogow said.
The man who first discovered FWC was pulling activists’ DAVID files is Brent Fannin, who has been leading a movement to reform the way commissioners are appointed by the governor, aiming to require more candidates to have backgrounds in science and the environment.
Fannin, 38, helped write a bill that has been stalled in the Legislature for the past two sessions and would “revise the composition” of the FWC’s commissioners. This session, the bill died in March in the state Senate’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
He told the Herald that after finding out that FWC was accessing his DAVID records, he was concerned, but not surprised.
“It’s just kind of blowing my mind that they are so confident they can get away with anything they want, that they are willing to abuse their power to surveil a bunch of Instagramers,” Fannin said.
This story was originally published July 18, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "‘Appalled.’ FWC looks at its critics’ info in database meant for criminal probes."
