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.
Zach Varnell
Zach Varnell is a cybersecurity expert and advocate for privacy and individual liberty. He is a founding member of Banish Big Brother, a nonprofit dedicated to combating invasive surveillance. He also runs Asteros, a security firm that helps software teams and compliance-driven organizations understand and reduce their real-world risk. His insights have been featured in publications like Infosecurity Magazine, Threatpost, ZDNET, and the Washington Examiner.