Banish Big Brother

The Pentagon has announced “Autonomous Warfare Command,” a new four-star command built to scale autonomous and robotic weapons across the military, which Zach and Elizabeth break down as a cute Orwellian name for AI making its own kill decisions, backed by the same surveillance infrastructure being built at home. They dig into what “human supervision” will actually mean once split-second AI decisions are involved, why this always ties back to the surveillance buildup they talk about every week, and the case for basic self-sufficiency (cash on hand, water, a backup plan) when so much of modern life depends on systems that can go down in a disaster.

Then: a report reveals that Dunwoody, Georgia police have been intentionally entering incorrect license plates into Flock’s “hot list,” on the record, specifically because they know Flock’s cameras misread certain letters and numbers, an admission that a system running an estimated 20 billion plate reads a month is error-prone enough that cops are manually patching around it, with real people getting pulled over at gunpoint as a result.

Plus a strange and unsettling report on always-on aerial surveillance over major cities that can rewind time to track anyone, anywhere they went, and how one political operative claims it helped catch Luigi Mangione, and Apple’s rollout of facial-scan age verification.

Georgia’s Child Protective Services quietly bought a nearly million-dollar surveillance vehicle, including a cell-site simulator (a “Stingray”) that can sweep up everyone’s phone data within a mile, using federal foster-care funds, while the state claims it can’t afford basic services for kids in the system.

Meanwhile MapQuest is having an unlikely comeback by adding Flock camera locations to its maps after someone found Flock’s data sitting unsecured online and the USPS is turning mail trucks into rolling surveillance cameras.

Plus: OpenAI’s rare-book-buying habit (and the copyright rule forcing them to destroy the originals after scanning), and a 404 Media report on Houston police searching a flock camera network in North Carolina 183,000 times in three months, and a flock database in Ohio 900,000 times in one month, raising the question of what, exactly, they’re using it for.

A nonprofit is pitching driverless patrol cars to a North Carolina police department, Amazon wants 20,000 delivery drivers wearing AI smart glasses that photograph your property (and sometimes your front door) every few seconds, and a company no one’s heard of just found a way to bolt facial recognition onto Flock’s camera network without Flock’s permission.

Zach and Elizabeth dig into how each of these “won’t replace humans” pitches quietly erases jobs, consent, and the last bit of privacy around your own home — plus a detour into kid-tracking apps, why nobody lets their kids walk to the store anymore, OpenAI finding a bugging device in its own office, the (probably fake) story of an AI “hacking its way” out of a sandbox, Getty Images going bankrupt because of AI stock photos, and the show closes out with an AI-generated song.

Alex Marthews, National Chair of Restore the Fourth, joins Zach and Elizabeth for a deep dive into the legal architecture behind mass surveillance, from FISA's origins after the Church Committee and COINTELPRO revelations to today's AI-accelerated version of the same programs.

Alex walks through how Section 702 surveillance works, the history of warrantless wiretapping programs dating back to the Bush administration, and a 2024 legal fight that gave the NSA secret, warrantless access to data centers and business networks nationwide.

He also covers how FBI domestic extremism designations have shifted across administrations, the use of confidential informants in manufactured terror plots, and why he calls Flock Safety "the Wile E. Coyote of the ALPR world."

The conversation closes with practical tools: how Restore the Fourth helps local communities pass surveillance oversight ordinances that force public hearings and annual re-approval before new technology gets deployed.

Guest: Alex Marthews, National Chair, Restore the Fourth

Zach and Elizabeth dig into a Wired report on Flock's new voluntary separation program, offered to its roughly 1,500 employees amid mounting backlash, along with reporting that the company may need to sell off parts of its business to stay afloat.

They cover an EFF audit log review that caught officers searching ALPR networks with reasons like "IDK" and keyboard mashing, and a wider rundown of how little those "safeguards" actually fix.

From there, they look at a new front in AI-powered code enforcement: a company called City Detect is putting cameras on garbage trucks to assign homes a "blight score," with early data showing violations concentrated almost entirely in lower-income zip codes.

They close out with Meta's Ray-Ban camera glasses and the plan to use them to train household robots, musings on AI-generated content flooding YouTube, and an update on a DC police union pushing back after internal affairs used Flock to secretly monitor officers under investigation.

Jon Padfield, host of the Business Reform YouTube channel, joins Zach and Elizabeth for a deep dive into what license plate reader networks actually capture and where the technology is headed next. They start with signal traces (the electronic fingerprints your devices give off as you drive) and how COVID-era lockdowns normalized the kind of movement tracking now baked into everyday policing.

They also cover Flock's pitch to live-stream dashcam footage from Uber and Lyft vehicles, the question of who's actually accountable when this technology gets it wrong, and updates from recent privacy and civil liberties events including the Electronic Frontier Forum.

Jon covers Flock and broader privacy topics regularly on his popular YouTube channel.

Guest: Jon Padfield, Business Reform

In this episode of Banish Big Brother, Zach and Elizabeth cover the escalating tactics of the surveillance state and the creative ways people are fighting back.

They start with the shocking news out of Oakland, where police are obtaining warrants to physically tow bystanders' Teslas just to extract their Sentry Mode video footage.

That opens up a wider conversation about automotive kill switches, the 2027 federal mandate for spy tech in new vehicles, Thomas Massie's fight against it, and whether "cash for clunkers" was ever really about emissions.

From there, they cover the wave of Flock camera news: Ron DeSantis ordering license plate readers off Florida's state highways, a group of Miami-area mayors publicly pushing back to keep theirs, and the disturbing case of a Brevard County deputy who used Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend before resigning. They also break down reporting that Axon is redesigning its ALPR cameras to not look like Flock's, so the public stops vandalizing them.

Zach and Elizabeth also reveal that police are actively asking Axon to redesign their ALPR cameras to avoid the rampant vandalism currently targeting Flock.

Later, they break down the rollout of "Next Generation 911". They speculate on how the shift to IP-based dispatch could eventually lead to AI replacing human 911 operators and authorities geofencing crime scenes to harvest civilian text and video data.

Finally, they end on a high note with an update on a wild "digital camouflage" shirt designed with strange patterns to make the wearer invisible to AI video surveillance.

Flock cameras may be getting all the attention, but what else is happening behind the scenes?

In this episode of Banish Big Brother, Zach and Elizabeth look at the growing surveillance infrastructure being built into everyday life.

We discuss a Wisconsin police department installing Flock cameras without notifying city leaders, a Tennessee sheriff refusing license plate readers because the cost to freedom is too high, and the Institute for Justice's new database documenting abuses of automated license plate readers.

Then we zoom out. Atlanta gas stations are required to maintain surveillance cameras, while Rialto, California has required surveillance systems as a condition for a certificate of occupancy. We talk about the growing trend of governments finding ways to make private surveillance part of the public surveillance apparatus.

From there, we ask where this is all heading: facial recognition, voice recognition, brain-wave monitoring, emotion detection, predictive policing, temperature sensors, smart streetlights, and the possibility of connecting all of these systems into a massive surveillance network.

We also discuss 15-minute cities, centralized control over movement, the dangers of predictive surveillance, and why seemingly harmless technologies can become something very different when they're combined into a larger system.

In this episode of Banish Big Brother, Zach and Elizabeth are joined by "educator and agitator" Ethan Watters from Flockout SAV. They discuss the Savannah mayor's refusal to hold open public comment periods and the shocking revelation that 28% of the Savannah Police Department's budget is heavily allocated to surveillance.

They break down Flock Safety's latest PR maneuvers, including their misleading "7-day default retention" and the rise of "copaganda" pushed by crisis management PR firms.

They also explore the integration of Fusus real-time crime centers, the concerning push to replace beat cops with AI, and Wired's recent report on Flock's new chatbot search prompts.

Stick around for updates on the National DeFlock Week of Action and some good news.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flockoutsav/

"Popsicles for Privacy": Saturday at 9:30 AM at the Forsyth Park fountains.

"SCAD Get the Flock Out": Saturday at 5:00 PM in the Northwest section of Daffin Park.

Zach and Elizabeth dive into the escalating pushback against Flock cameras and the government's attempts to control the narrative. They break down a Colorado intelligence memo attempting to link the anti-surveillance movement to extremists, and analyze Flock’s sneaky new Terms and Conditions that allow the company to sell your data and retain it perpetually.

They also discuss the alarming trend of police officers misusing the surveillance system to stalk citizens, the reality of how these cameras are quietly installed using structured contracts to avoid public approval, and the upcoming National Week of Action Against ALPRs. Finally, they cover a creative new method researchers are using to fool AI cameras: "dazzle" camouflage.