In a live presentation recorded in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dr. Jon Padfield of Business Reform details the explosive growth of America’s surveillance grid, starting with Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers and expanding into AI-powered Raven microphones, facial recognition, smart TVs, data brokers, smart meters, and location-tracking apps. He explains how these seemingly separate systems interconnect to create detailed “patterns of life” profiles—tracking your movements, associations, media consumption, and even opinions—without warrants, enabled by the third-party doctrine and private-public partnerships. Padfield highlights real-world examples, proposed legislation like Florida’s Surveillance Accountability Act, and warns that today’s “crime-fighting” tools can easily be repurposed for broader social control through policy tweaks or software updates, urging bipartisan concern over the erosion of privacy.
