All We Needed After 9/11 Was A Closed Border. Instead We Got Spied On And Force-Fed Halal Food
Since 9/11, America has imported 1.8 million Muslims into the country from 2001 to 2024.Since 9/11, America has imported 1.8 million Muslims into the country from 2001 to 2024.Tennessee congressional candidate arrested after allegedly shooting down Flock cameras himself
The Flock camera debate turns physical.
A candidate running for Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District is now facing felony charges after authorities say he admitted to shooting down four automated license plate reader cameras — including at least one made by Flock Safety, the surveillance company at the center of a growing national privacy fight.
'Gotta ban these dadgum things.'
Last week, Adam Lee Heimerman, 37, of Lenoir City, was arrested and charged with four counts of felony vandalism.
According to the Blount County Sheriff's Office and Maryville Police Department, Heimerman admitted to investigators that he used a gun to shoot four automated license plate reader systems over the span of nine days in July.
According to a statement from police, the damaged cameras were first discovered on July 25 — three in Blount County and one in the City of Maryville — prompting a joint investigation by the two agencies.
Officials said evidence showed Heimerman accessed one of the systems from the "property of a house of worship" while a church service was under way.
RELATED: The truth about Flock cameras: ‘We are the sheep, and they are controlling us’
The congressional hopeful is now being held at the Blount County Correctional Facility on bonds totaling $40,000, with a hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Blount County General Sessions Court.
Since his arrest, Heimerman has received a remarkable amount of support.
A GoFundMe started on Friday has raked in over $12,000 from more than 360 donors.
Rather than focus on the felony vandalism charges, the fundraiser casts Heimerman as a longtime Tennessean standing up for personal freedom, privacy, and government oversight, with the money earmarked for his defense attorneys.
RELATED: Flock off, Axon on
Heimerman is running as an independent candidate for Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District, facing off against Democratic candidate Michaela Barnett and Republican incumbent Tim Burchett.
Burchett, one of Congress' loudest critics of Flock, has been blunt about his objections to the technology. He previously told reporters that lawmakers "gotta ban these dadgum things," arguing that Americans should never have to choose between safety and liberty.
He recently introduced a bill that would bar federal agencies from buying or accessing automated surveillance systems and that would prevent state and local agencies from using federal funds to purchase them, citing Fourth Amendment concerns.
Under Burchett's proposal, counties could still contract with Flock — they'd just have to pay for the privilege themselves.
Barnett, the Democratic candidate, has also spoken out against Flock cameras and other mass surveillance tools — although, as one outlet dryly noted, she has not proposed destroying them.
Asked by Military.com about Heimerman's case, Barnett's campaign stood by the underlying grievance but condemned the method. "The answer is not the unsafe discharge of a weapon in public spaces," Barnett said.
Beyond Heimerman's case, in neighboring Knox County, Mayor Glenn Jacobs — the former WWE wrestler known as Kane — put a hold on the local sheriff's plan to install 270 Flock cameras, arguing the technology raises Fourth Amendment concerns.
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Flock off, Axon on
Flock's downfall has a beneficiary, and it might not be your privacy.
As of July 21, more than 50 U.S. municipalities have canceled or rejected contracts for Flock Safety public cameras.
Cities are switching to a public safety tech company already inside these departments in smaller roles: Axon.
The trend away from this particular brand of license plate readers is part of a wave that includes 39 terminations in just the first five months of 2026 alone.
Earlier this month, the LAPD allowed its three-year contract to expire as concerns over data sharing and privacy continued to plague the department. LAPD’s chief information officer, Dean Gialamas, told the LA Times that the department would not be using Flock Safety until it gets a new contractual relationship “ironed out.”
Smaller cancellations have also stacked up: Monroe County, Indiana, voted to terminate its contract about a year early, and Pea Ridge, Arkansas, dropped its program over public pushback.
But it isn’t really a rollback. Cities are switching to a public safety tech company already inside these departments in smaller roles: Axon.
RELATED: We're winning the fight against Flock — but the surveillance isn't going away that easily
LAPD’s patrol cars already run Axon body cameras and tasers, with the company supplying basic automatic license plate recognition software for its in-car cameras well before Flock’s exit, though Axon’s own LAPD contract was also set to expire at the end of July.
Austin shows that this pattern predates the current wave entirely: When the city canceled Flock in 2025, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s own write-up noted Austin "still makes use of ALPRs via its contract with Axon," meaning the cancellation never touched the Axon relationship running alongside it.
Denver dropped Flock in February for a $150,000 Axon deal, going to 50 cameras instead of 110. Douglas County, Colorado, did the same last week, its sheriff flipping to a 10-year, $23 million Axon contract after defending Flock publicly not long ago.
Weekly told Axios “trust was lost” between the sheriff and Flock, citing the company’s handling of privacy and policy concerns.
Syracuse shows how messy the handoff can get. The city’s breakup with Flock took eight months and involved an Axon contract approved in February, Flock’s street access revoked in March, a deadline Flock missed, and police who kept using the old readers anyway until a reporter asked why.
The last Flock camera was confirmed gone only in mid-July, but as of July 23, Axon’s readers still hadn’t been switched on, pending a usage policy the department hadn’t yet posted.
Separate Flock cameras run by Syracuse University and Destiny USA aren’t subject to any council or voter approval at all.
Though Axon is winning the biggest departments, Motorola Solutions, Rekor, Genetec, and Verkada are all being evaluated as Flock alternatives by cities running requests for proposal, including Richmond and Saratoga, California.
On July 25, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced a bill cutting federal money to any city running these cameras, the third bill out of the House in recent weeks.
Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett’s H.R. 9800 is vendor-neutral: It bars any federal agency from buying, accessing, or contracting for ALPR, facial recognition, or biometric ID systems used for "persistent or mass surveillance."
Blaze News reached out to Flock Safety and Axon for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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Flock Safety CEO: It's "terroristic" to want to know where we put our spy cameras
For years, Americans have been told not to worry about the explosion of AI surveillance cameras. They're only looking for stolen cars. They're only helping solve crimes. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.
Then the CEO of one of the country's largest AI surveillance companies, Flock Safety, said something that should make every American stop and think.
Americans can support law enforcement while also believing there must be limits on mass surveillance.
In an interview with Forbes last year, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley called DeFlock — a volunteer group that maps the locations of Flock's automated license plate reader cameras — a "terroristic organization." He contrasted the group with the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, saying those groups use the courts, while DeFlock's "primary motivation is chaos."
Think about that for a moment.
Citizen terrorists?
DeFlock's primary activity is mapping the locations of publicly visible cameras installed throughout American communities. Flock argues that publishing those locations could help criminals avoid detection. DeFlock argues that citizens have a right to know where government-connected surveillance technology is being deployed. Reasonable people can disagree about that. But calling transparency activists "terroristic" is something else entirely.
Words matter, especially when they come from the CEO of a company whose business depends on collecting, analyzing, and sharing vast amounts of location data. He didn't call the group irresponsible or reckless; he chose language normally associated with violent extremism. That choice tells us how criticism of surveillance is increasingly viewed by the industry building it.
Then there was another statement from that interview that deserves just as much attention. Langley said, "We're not forcing Flock on anyone."
Really?
No choice
Americans never voted to install AI-powered camera networks throughout their communities. They didn't vote for systems capable of tracking vehicle movements across cities. They didn't vote for technology that has evolved far beyond simply reading license plates. Today's systems can identify vehicles by make, model, color, aftermarket wheels, roof racks, bumper stickers, damage, window tint, and countless other characteristics — even when a license plate isn't visible. Every generation of this technology becomes more sophisticated than the last.
This isn't simply about solving crime anymore. It's about building an increasingly comprehensive picture of where vehicles travel, when they travel, and how artificial intelligence can connect those movements. That is why transparency matters. If these cameras are installed in public places with taxpayer dollars, why shouldn't the public know where they are? That's the question DeFlock is asking. And asking it, apparently, makes them terrorists.
It's also a question the surveillance industry appears increasingly uncomfortable answering. Perhaps the most revealing part of this controversy isn't the quote itself. It's what it says about the mindset behind the technology.
When someone maps surveillance cameras, the cameras aren't questioned. The person documenting them is. That's an extraordinary shift. The debate moves away from whether expanding surveillance deserves public scrutiny and toward whether the people asking questions are somehow the threat. That inversion should concern anyone who values accountability.
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Mounting frustration
The frustration is building. People across the country are vandalizing or removing Flock surveillance cameras. While Flock doesn't operate in Europe, activists have targeted similar surveillance cameras in London, France, and Italy.
To be clear: Destroying public or private property is illegal, and I don't support it. But those incidents reflect something policymakers and technology companies shouldn't ignore — a growing segment of the public feels these systems are being imposed without meaningful public debate or consent. Ignoring that frustration won't make it disappear. Calling critics "terroristic" certainly won't either.
The irony is hard to miss. The surveillance industry frequently tells Americans these systems are about building trust and making communities safer. But trust isn't built by dismissing or demonizing people who ask legitimate questions about privacy, accountability, and the limits of government surveillance. Trust is earned through transparency — and right now, that transparency is disappearing fast.
Just asking
Americans can support law enforcement while also believing there must be limits on mass surveillance. They can believe violent criminals should be caught while also asking who owns the data, who can search it, how long it is retained, and whether artificial intelligence should be allowed to follow their daily movements without their knowledge. Those aren't extremist questions. They're the kinds of questions citizens in a free society are supposed to ask.
Garrett Langley's comments may have been intended to defend his company. Instead, they revealed something far more important. They exposed an attitude many Americans have long suspected exists beneath the rapid expansion of AI surveillance: that questioning the system is becoming more objectionable than expanding it. He said the quiet part out loud. And that matters, because once a society accepts ubiquitous surveillance as normal, history suggests it rarely moves in the opposite direction.
So let me get this straight: We did not vote to add these surveillance cameras, and letting people know where they are located makes us the bad guys. This is not a joke.
I guess I'm "terroristic" for discussing this and telling everyone about it.
Is the UN's digital ID plan the end of privacy?
With Trump’s presidential victory in the rearview mirror, many people have begun asking questions about the future. What is the world going to look like in five, 10, 20 years? Luckily for everyone, the United Nations is proposing a mandatory, unsolicited solution for the future of digital technology, which includes digital IDs, censorship, and mass surveillance.
According to a report from Reclaim the Net, a committee of the United Nations has adopted two resolutions, “one of them aimed at the [U.N.'s] Department of Global Communications establishing and strengthening ‘partnerships with new and traditional media to address hate speech narratives.’”
While the United Nations may not seem like an immediate threat at present, it has posed itself as a forum for these types of ideas to be flushed out and developed.
Reclaim the Net reports that the resolution of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee reaffirms the U.N.’s commitment to “Our Common Agenda” and the “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN Pact for the Future, and Global Digital Compact,” all of which are plans for the vision of the future proposed by the United Nations.
“Our Common Agenda” reportedly “proposes bank account-linked digital ID.” One of the goals of this resolution is “promoting a trustworthy Internet by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content.” The bank account-linked digital ID is one of the proposed solutions for combatting misinformation.
Another policy brief related to Our Common Agenda makes this even more explicit: “Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.” Essentially, the digital ID would serve as a deterrent for the further spread of “misinformation.”
The resolution was met with various degrees of enthusiasm. For example, Reclaim the Net said Italy’s representative advocated for “the use of AI in combatting ‘misinformation and disinformation.’” The U.K.’s representative was likewise on board with increased U.N. censorship, according to Reclaim the Net: “The U.K. remains committed to digging its heels in when it comes to characterizing ‘misinformation’ as a major threat.”
The U.K.’s support of these policies is unsurprising in light of the national effort to pass speech codes and digital policing frameworks, such as the Online Safety Bill, which Reclaim the Net says gives “sweeping new censorship powers to the UK’s Secretary of State and its communications regulator, the Office of Communications.”
Some representatives also proposed solutions for the punishment of individuals who disseminate what is deemed to be hate speech and misinformation. For example, Pakistan’s representative not only wanted a system of deterrence, but also a system for “censoring and demonetizing content algorithmically,” according to Reclaim the Net. A digital ID linked to bank accounts would serve as a solution to both of these demands.
On the other hand, Argentina’s representative expressed concern that “the term ‘hate speech’ can be abused by those wishing to stifle ‘pluralistic debate,'” according to Reclaim the Net. This did not sway any opinions, however, and the resolution was passed. Argentina’s representative was only able to “dissociate himself” from the parts of the resolution relevant to the attacks on free speech.
It is easy to dismiss the United Nations and its plans for global governance. They often sound far-fetched or way too extreme to put into action. However, even supposedly free countries like the U.K. are beginning to implement hate-speech laws and guards against misinformation of their own accord. While the United Nations may not seem like an immediate threat at present, it has posed itself as a forum for these types of ideas to be flushed out and developed. Therefore, the recent triumph of free speech figures in the United States should not be taken for granted, and we must remain vigilant in this age of increasing censorship and surveillance.
MIC DROP: Jordan Peterson warns Jim Jordan and members of Congress that America is quickly becoming China 2.0
China is well known for being a surveillance state, but according to Jordan Peterson, America is not far behind.
Last week, he made the following statement to a congressional committee:
“There are now 700 million CCTVs in China under the rule of the Communist Party. The system to which those electronic eyes are attached is the most complete state apparatus of surveillance yet imagined with the the ability not only to recognize faces at a distance, but gait itself when facial features are hidden or obscured.”
This invasive surveillance software has been ominously named “Skynet after the rogue and all-seeing technology that took such a dreadfully wrong turn in the famous science fiction movie 'Terminator' series, featuring artificially intelligent robots hell-bent on protecting themselves by destroying humanity.”
China’s Skynet system allows the government “access to everything [citizens] possess electronically,” including “their savings and their access to travel.” Their “access to the world can be reduced to zero if [their] social credit score falls beyond an arbitrary minimum,” which allows them to be “shut out of all activities,” such as “driving, shopping, working, eating, finding shelter, and even fraternizing with friends and family.”
“This has also opened up the opportunity for the government to extract slave-like labor from its citizens” who are desperate to “increase their [social credit] score and remain part of human society,” Peterson warned.
While China’s tyrannical Skynet system sounds like something from a dystopian novel, it’s all too real, and according to Peterson, America is heading in the same direction.
“Why is any of this relevant to people in the West?” he asked.
“Well, because the technology that the Chinese Communist Party employs is an extension of Western technology because we already fell prey to the terrible temptation of lockdown employed by that state in the face of hypothetical crisis once,” he said, referencing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Further, the West is prone to falling victim to a Skynet-like system due to the “convenience of universal and automatic recognition of identity and partly because any problem whatsoever that now confronts us can easily be used to justify the increasing reach of the security and nanny state,” said Peterson.
“We all live so much in the virtual world in consequence of our purchasing habits and modes of electronically mediated communication that our very selves have become reducible to … data — the modern equivalent of our footprint” and “an image of our identity,” which is “increasingly bought and sold by the invisible corporate brokers.”
These “brokers” then use the information for advertising purposes — “to sell us what we so desperately and carelessly and conveniently want,” said Peterson, but what most people fail to realize is that it “can also be used to track, monitor, and punish everything we do and say.”
“Governments can and are colluding with these corporate agents to develop a picture, not only of our actions, but of our thoughts and words, so that deviation from the desired end can be mapped, rewarded, and punished.”
“The development of a digital identity and currency … will facilitate the development of a surveillance state — the scope of which optimistic pessimists of totalitarianism, such as George Orwell, could scarcely imagine.”
“The ultimate fascist collusion between gigantic, self-interested corporations and paranoid, security-obsessed, anti-human governments … becomes ever more likely. ‘If you have nothing to hide, you will have nothing to fear’ will be the slogan commandeered by those most likely to turn to surveillance,” Peterson warned.
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Andrew Schulz goes silent when RFK Jr. tells him how the DNC cheats
If anyone knows that the game is rigged, it’s presidential candidate and former Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And he made that clear to a curious Andrew Schulz on the “Flagrant” podcast.
“Who’s more corrupt?” Schulz asks RFK Jr., referencing the DNC and the RNC.
“Probably equally corrupt, but I don’t know,” RFK Jr. tells Schulz, adding, “I don’t even know the metric by which you would measure that.”
“But the DNC is really misbehaving. They’re really trying to block people. They try to block me, they try to block Trump. I’m not a fan of Trump, but I want to be on a level battlefield with him; I don’t want to beat him because a court threw him out.”
“I think this persecution that the DNC has leveled, that people see that as unfair,” he continues. “This is what they do in banana republics."
Dave Rubin finds the conversation “refreshing.”
“He is telling the truth,” Rubin says, noting that while RFK Jr. won’t completely disparage the Democrats, he clearly knows they are more corrupt.
“He knows the Democrats are worse than the Republicans. When the Republicans had their insurgency in 2015, an orange man named Donald Trump, the party maybe didn’t like him,” Rubin explains, adding, “but they didn’t change any of the rules.”
To hear more, watch the episode below.
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