Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] James Keys: In this episode, we take a look at the controversy that has erupted over the use of mass surveillance cameras, like flak cameras, in municipalities across the US.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys and joining me today is a man who sometimes likes to blow smoke through. Of course, his wild podcast tastes Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde. Are you ready to give people some blueberry yum yum today?
[00:00:40] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, man. Thought we were gonna blow smoke up backsides. But you clearly have something else in mind, which I'll let the audience figure out. So let's see if they can figure out what you're talking about.
[00:00:55] James Keys: Now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast, appreciate doing so really helps the show out. Now I'm recording on September 15, 2026. And Tunde, the idea of public surveillance on the streets is not new, you know, but we've recently seen a firestorm erupt over a type of constant surveillance that's going on in many places. And this type of surveillance involves it, it involves the use of cameras that are placed, you know, on streets, on and around streets, and, and they, they record every license plate, you know, they track every license plate that passes by them. And it's a network of cameras. It's not just one, it'll be a network covering a whole area which put together would allow the person who controls the, the cameras and, or the people who receive the information to track someone pretty much everywhere they go. And this, you know, this is something that we've seen evolve over time as technological capabilities have increased and so forth and without much pushback. We've seen pushback initially when there were red light cameras or speeding cameras, but not a ton, not a firestorm like this.
And the poster child for this has been the company Flock, you know, the Flock camera, so to speak. And you know, they're one actor in this space now. Reportedly they sell 90 plus percent of the cameras that are being used in this way. But the issue is larger than them. So, Tunde, to get us started, what are your thoughts on the use of these Flock style camera systems that track license plates as they pass and more generally, the idea of kind of a constant movement surveillance in these streets.
[00:02:29] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, man, I think it's a great question. I would say, I think that the way that the public's been discussing it, as I see, is kind of missing the point in a sense.
And I think that the last part of your question is a good Segue for me to say. I think this is more of a corporate end run around certain things that we have in our system like the fourth Amendment, certain privacy. Because at first I thought more from a government standpoint of surveillance and Big Brother type of stuff. But as I thought more into this, I thought this is actually just another lane for corporate America really the technology industry to just siphon more money out of all of us. Because remember, you make a good point. If 90 plus percent of these cameras are owned by this one company, Flock, it's not free. Right. Like where our municipalities are paying for it. Yeah, right. We as a taxpayer, basically taxpayers, you know, when it's in the end, so, so, so at the end of the day, that's kind of what I was thinking. James was. Made me think also back to things like when we were younger, after 9, 11, the Patriot Act. And I remember so many people that were older than me at the time were, were concerned about that.
And as a young person sometimes it'd be like, oh, these people are overblown their concerns. But as I've gotten older I can appreciate it. Like yeah, it's these little creeps, right? It's like the Patriot act was a legislation to allow certain surveillance from the government side and now the technology's caught up with that and the incentives. Now when we talk about the profit motive, as I just mentioned, that's I guess why we're having this conversation partially.
It's a really interesting, I think a new world we're entering. And you know, I don't know, I don't know if I have the imagination to see where we're going from here.
[00:04:18] James Keys: Well, I mean you could probably read science fiction and figure out where someone else's imagination. Well, yeah, exactly. Where some at least would like to see this go. I think the issue is actually more complicated than the, than the controversy allows it to, allows us to contemplate because the general idea of cameras in the streets is pretty well established and people know about this. Like when they caught Luigi Mangione, the guy who shot the United Healthcare CEO, part of it was like, oh yeah, we got this camera here, that camera here. You know, Manhattan, there's all these cameras and so like we're gonna track this and track that and all the facial recognition and all that. So that kind of was people taught like, oh yeah, we got all this, we can now try to track somebody down. And I didn't see the outward outcry then and you know, because that's again the same kind of thing. And that's even, that's not just license plates, that, that's facial recognition, which again, people are objecting to that as well. In this instance. This is kind of like it has hit a certain number of people right now that maybe we're doing too much as far as surveillance. But I think the issue was complicated in the sense that the needs of maybe a residential area may be different and should be different than the needs of a place like Miami beach. You know, like, and so like a high traffic commercial area, a lot of people coming in and out, a lot of people coming, being there for a little bit and then never coming back, so to speak.
And the reason that this really hit home for me is that the state of Florida recently said, okay, hey, we're going to put. And we got 30 days, everybody has to get rid of these type of cameras. You know, we're not going to have this surveillance state. And Miami beach was like, well, hold on, hold on. Like, you know, like Miami Beaches needs are different than that of most places in the country, you know, because it's a place where people, young people, party people come and congregate, hang out. A lot of times, you know, they have a hard time dealing with the security and making sure that you can provide a safe environment for everyone and that they're not necessarily trying to follow people home. You know, like some of the risks here that we see from the type of these cameras, and we'll get into that, the risks in terms of the temptation of law enforcement to follow girlfriends around or ex girlfriends around or anything like that. But I think that we may need to have a, because I'm full disclosure, I'm pretty much against pretty much all types of surveillance. You know, like I'm, I'm mad that the TVs are spying on me. We did a show a couple years ago about Tesla spying on people, people riding around in Teslas, being snitches, just, just taking cameras. Their, their car is a big camera. So I'm not making. But I do think we need to recognize that for some places, for some specific instances it may be a good idea to have that kind of system in place. But for most places it wouldn't be. So I worry that kind of the, what we're seeing now because this is a anger driven thing, an emotion driven thing as it is. I don't know that we're going to be able to kind of say, hey, is there, is there a, is there a good thing that could be done here? And then we make sure that we keep this stuff, we. We limit it, we keep a leash on it. But certain, certain places, certain might have a need for something like this. That's. That's kind of my reaction is just seeing, like, it's. It's just kind of like all of a sudden everybody's so mad about this, and it's like, yeah, I agree. But, you know, I think that we. We probably shouldn't just break everything because we're all of a sudden so mad.
[00:07:35] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah. And I think, man, it's interesting because as you're talking, it makes me think of this as politics in a certain way. Just the dilemma between various geographical areas that have different realities. This is a good point you make about south beach having a much different reality than many other parts of a large state like Florida. And got me thinking when they had the debate about concealed carry and handguns in the state of New York, and they're making decisions in an area like Albany, which is pretty rural, and you can shoot a deer from your back porch, but you have New York City and Manhattan, like, you're saying that there's over 10 million people shoved into a geographic area that's probably less than six, seven square miles. So, you know, those are two very different environments within the same state that, you know, politics is. That's. That's what it's about, debating these things.
[00:08:27] James Keys: And just to add to that, and our legal system kind of contemplates that, that we try to push rulemaking further down and not have either, you know, like, not make it on the federal level. The federal level is supposed to be more about keeping the government back. Now, this doesn't happen in practice, but then you have the state level, then you have the municipality level, like, so it is tiered in a way that that can be accomplished. But a lot of times, like you said, politics, people want to grandstand a government or governor wants to grandstand, or they respond in the public pressure that may not be appropriate for issues that may not be appropriate or may not be something that everybody experiences the same.
[00:09:01] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah. And I think you're right that it's a good example of government is a local concern and has been for most of our experience, I think, in humanity. But today, with the Internet and starting with maybe cable TV and satellite tv, but with the Internet now, it's like politics. Everything is national.
[00:09:20] James Keys: That's a good point.
[00:09:21] Tunde Ogunlana: I think this is. This is probably where, you know, circling back to the flock camera directly where we can see this, because I think you're right. And part of it also, and I know we talked offline about this. I was kind of saying the same thing to you. Like, well, why is it that now that there's. It's like the Flock camera gave this feeling of being surveilled like a target now for us in the public.
But it was like I was. Because you and I were talking in private was kind of like, well, you know, I know that my phone has a GPS in it that tracks me everywhere I go. I know now that I watch enough true crime stuff and body cam videos on YouTube that the cops always, you know, the GPSes. Sorry, the cars now that are made have GPSs in them. And then like you said, some cars like Teslas have cameras everywhere. And on top of that, where the company itself, we learned. Remember when that guy killed himself in January 1st of 2025, and he blew up that Tesla in front of some, you know, hotel in Vegas, that Tesla was able to go into the cameras and all that, immediately identify the guy because they could track the whole route. So it's like, we know that this ability to surveil has been there for some time, but I think, again, it's kind of more in your face. And I've seen some of the stuff where there's been vandalism of some of these Flock cameras around the country, and I feel like that's like the emotional response of the population to all of this surveillance, which is that camera that's on somewhere, like on the corner of that street that is distant from me. It feels like someone watching me. I don't like it. And then, you know, some people say, I'm gonna go break it versus my phone. I have a relationship with my car. I have a relationship with. And so it's much harder for me to see. I feel like the phone and the car is more of the.
Is more sinister, actually, because that's listening and watching.
[00:11:12] James Keys: It's kind of like, you know, like, it's like, hey, I'll give you some entertainment. I'll give you some convenience. Now you tell me everything about you. You know, it's so.
[00:11:21] Tunde Ogunlana: It is, but.
[00:11:21] James Keys: But they don't give you an option, or most of the time you don't have an option to opt out of that. You know, it's just like, hey, if you're going to use. If you're going to drive around in a Tesla, then you are going to be telling Tesla everything what's going on around you at all times and including what's in the car. You know, like any in the car and around the car is all going to be recorded.
[00:11:39] Tunde Ogunlana: But that's what I'm saying.
[00:11:40] James Keys: Y.
It's. It's.
[00:11:41] Tunde Ogunlana: It's a. It's like a virus and a disease that's already come in and it's too late to get rid of it because it's a great point, James. Think about it. Let's go with the Tesla. If I just bought a new Tesla, I just spent tens of thousands of dollars on a car.
So, you know, if I begin to learn that it's doing all this, you
[00:11:56] James Keys: know, like you exactly got it, not to have the camera, but to get around you.
[00:11:59] Tunde Ogunlana: But, but, but as I'm saying, but as angry as I am as an individual about maybe the fact I'm being spied on now, and I didn't realize it before I bought the car, I'm not going to go smash that car up, right? But I can take my anger out on that camera that's on the corner of my block and go smash that. So I think that's all I'm saying is I think that's why the flock cameras have people. They've taken people's attention. Because again, we don't, you know, humans don't like nuance. That. That gives everyone a target. Like, that's the scapegoat. It's that thing I don't like.
[00:12:28] James Keys: But I want to talk about the backlash because, you know, like, the backlash seems to be grassroots in this sense. This is. It seems to be one of these. And. And part of this is cultural, you know, like, because, for example, you go a place like Hong Kong, you know, like everything is, like every square inch of that place is. Is something under surveillance at all times. And so. Or Manhattan, you know, like, it's, you know, certain parts of Manhattan in particular, like the whole thing. And so people have kind of become accustomed to it. And so this, I think the network of it, you know, is something that makes it feel very overwhelming, very Orwellian, you know, like. But the, the grassroots backlash is something I think that's worth paying attention to because so often issues and causes seem to be generated or seem to be. Seem to come from a more top down or orchestrated standpoint. This is so disorganized and so out of the blue, it seems to just have arisen from a grassroots standpoint, which was interesting. It struck a chord in a way with a critical mass of people. And then once, once you start, people start talking about it, more people get interested in it. Because again, there's this. It carries this emotional resonance.
Myself, I'm pretty skeptical of this, you know, like, because the, the biggest concern I have, and then I bring this up to you, like you grow up and you know, and especially United States, and United States does a good job of saying, hey, you know, we, we do these things, we're great. You know, everything like that, which I think, you know, you should, you know, when you, when you are, when you're trying to build something, you should, as people grow up in it, you try to tell them the virtues of it and try to make them want to be a part of it and want to contribute positively. But you know, one of the things that is kind of, you know, post enlightenment passed down is this idea of the rational man or the person who's principled and so forth. And I've just come to realize as an adult that that's not really a thing. You know, like people can be put in positions to act more principled, but by and large you shouldn't count on people taking principles and being that, having that being the basis of decision making. I bring that up because I feel like a large part of this backlash is people think that they're being watched. Not that people are being watched because I, I, I, I'm sure. And in fact, the first time I heard about this stuff was when they were trying to catch immigrants with it. And then no, but there was no backlash. It wasn't like people are like, oh my God, we got all these cameras here, you know, like. But because what they, what people were doing with the cameras was something that many people were okay with in that sense, or at minimum, it didn't directly come at them. And so now it's like, for whatever reason there's this emotional resonance because people feel like it's coming at them. Like, what? What? My license plate, you're taking my license plate every camera I pass and then you're following my route and everything like that. And so that type of me, that type of thing to me is not, they're, they're not really objecting in a way, and I hope they are, and I wish they are, but many of these same people will have ring doorbell cameras and they'll be the ones with the camera that this pointing out at the street and recording everybody that walks by. So there's, and again, maybe that's what you were talking about before in terms of how this is so like the idea of surveillance is so ingrained in us and the fourth Amendment is about the government doing it, you know, like private companies doing it, or you know, you yourself doing it is not necessarily implicated by the government until the government starts accessing that information, which as you pointed out with the Tesla issue, we know they will. But I'm just, I'm wondering if, you know, the energy, the attention to this is probably a good thing if we care about privacy. And so how can this be harnessed in a way that can be productive is kind of my question. And I'm not ask question for you necessarily. That's the question I'm asking myself. And if you want to answer it, fine. But it's like how people are paying attention and people are emotional about it. So can we do something to take advantage of this? Not necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater, but get this surveillance thing at least push it back a little bit. Right now it'll probably continue to creep. But that's what I'm asking myself is like, how can this be useful?
Because otherwise it seems like surveillance creeping on us all the time.
[00:16:16] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah. So I think there's a lot there to unpack. So let me see if I can have a flow to it because I do want to discuss what you mentioned kind of a little bit later in terms of. Because there's some to me, like evolutionary stuff that I'm doing some reading I discovered and I think that's partly what bothers us with the idea of when we are being watched.
And I think you're, you know, we're both kind of swimming in the same pool here with relates to the cameras representing this feeling of actually someone's really watching me versus intellectually I understand that someone's watching me or potentially watching me when I have my phone in my pocket or my iWatch has a microphone in it. So maybe someone could hack it and listen to me. But I don't feel it. And there's something that I learned in some of the research that I was reading about the idea of like a gaze that if. That if like we know subconsciously as humans when something is pointing at us or, or looking at us. And it was talking about. One of the studies was like, you know, think about if you see a crowd of people that just like in a square or let's say a mall or something like that, you can quickly discern if there's some one person in that whole crowd just staring at you.
And the idea is that's an evolutionary thing because when we were in the woods as hunter gatherers or even before there maybe more even as close to primates, the idea is that a predator gazing at you meant you are you're potentially somebody's lunch.
[00:17:48] James Keys: You were a person of interest.
[00:17:50] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of. James, that's what I realized. This has goes way back in our brain, like the idea of disgust.
[00:17:56] James Keys: Well, you know what's interesting with that? And that goes. This goes to your vandalism piece, you know, where people are vandalizing these things.
Tesla or the phone or even the ring doorbell. Those all have other purposes, so to speak. But that camera sitting right there has no other purpose but to watch you.
[00:18:12] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah. And think about how much that bothers you to know that something's purpose is just to watch you.
[00:18:17] James Keys: Yeah, right.
[00:18:18] Tunde Ogunlana: Like. Like we're talking about my watch is my watch. So it can listen to me. But I don't think about it like that. I think about it as looking at time and reading my heart rate and all that. So I don't get as bothered by it as I do from a camera with a lens that, you know, reminds me of an eye just staring at me.
[00:18:34] James Keys: All right, no, I mean, I get that. I mean, I can see how, you know, like, what you're talking about is how from an evolutionary standpoint, this creates a trigger that would tap directly into us and giving us an emotional reaction to this. Is that's what we're seeing right now. I don't know that that still explains, though, why now, you know, and maybe, you know, maybe there is more than some organic backlash that has been generated from the grassroots from the ground up. Maybe there has been a orchestrated.
We never know, you know, when it comes to what happens on the Internet and algorithms and so forth. But it appears, you know, like, it's been all over the place. It's been very broad all of a sudden, you know, So I think that the evolutionary tracking of it is a good way to frame it. But remember, this is something that from. That goes in. It's in American culture, you know, like, this is something that's been in American culture a long time. The. The American Constitution, you know, this isn't something that's. That's everywhere in every society. The Constitution with the Fourth Amendment on, you know, ban against unreasonable search and seizure. That type of stuff isn't. Is it part of every country? So this is something also that is specific to America or that would appear to be specific to American culture, because you can actually read about how in a lot of other countries, people are looking at us like, what are you guys talking about? Like, people are always. There's cameras everywhere. And, like, we're used to that, you know, you Go to London. You know, like, it's like, you know, like, I already mentioned Hong Kong before. So, you know, I think that the backlash here in particular, setting aside the fact that it's all of a sudden and kind of out of nowhere again, for somebody like me who's been, you know, like, seething about this, you know, to myself for a long time, and this is like, yeah, but people just don't care. And then now everybody cares. I'm like, okay, great. What do we do with it? So, I mean, I don't. I don't know. I mean, I think. I think there. I wonder if there's something about the backlash in the United States right now. You know, like, it's kind of worth exploring.
[00:20:22] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, I do. This is, to me, where it gets a bit fascinating because we've had discussions about literature, and then I think you messed me up in a prior show when you asked the rhetorical question, which is, can a document that was created in the late 1700s, when literature was the primary medium of communication and the way humans received information, can that survive in the digital age when the primary medium is screens?
That, to me, is a profound question that we're living through.
There's something I want to read here. It's a question which says, what are we trading away when we allow private enterprise in the state to quietly eliminate our ability to move freely without a digital receipt?
I read that in, was part of my research, and it was a question that I started thinking to myself, the system we have, which I think you very eloquently laid out, that is unique to the United States, this Constitution with these rights, that the government is not supposed to behave in certain ways without certain transparencies or permission or things like that.
We have three co. Equal branches of government, one of them being the US Congress, split between the Senate and the House of Representatives, which they were created to debate these things. And when I was reading the question I just read, that's. That's kind of what I thought. I was like, wow, the question is being asked, but it's like, 20 years too late. Because think about it, James, the question you posed, that rhetorical question. When I think about what we Learned about the 1700s, how people would go as part of their leisure to watch a politician do a stump speech for three hours debating another person, that is how our Congress is set up. They're supposed to debate, speak on the floor. We're supposed to be paying attention. And then through that process, over time, we come to the conclusion that's best for Everybody through compromise.
[00:22:23] James Keys: Hey, not just us. They're supposed to be paying attention to each other. You better believe the congressmen are over there on their phones while people are speaking.
[00:22:30] Tunde Ogunlana: Of course, man, that's my point. And so. And they're performing for social media. They're on the phone with the cable news host about. Hey man, watch. I'm gonna say this and you're gonna play this clip.
[00:22:38] James Keys: I want you to clip this part. I got this.
[00:22:41] Tunde Ogunlana: This. You've talked about how much time they've got to use of do fundraising. They don't even pay attention to legislation.
[00:22:47] James Keys: So.
[00:22:47] Tunde Ogunlana: And then the greater thing is too, James, the public, right, the medium we're used to is such a short attention span now. People didn't even tune into C span over the last 30 years when that was on as a live way for us to see it. There's no way anyone's going to listen to people debating stuff for hours now. So I.
[00:23:05] James Keys: The backlash, this energy that we're seeing right now, you're saying that the way things go right now, it's actually very difficult for this to translate into any large scale action.
[00:23:17] Tunde Ogunlana: Correct.
[00:23:17] James Keys: Because the disconnect between how the sausage can get made, so to speak, and how we process information now.
[00:23:26] Tunde Ogunlana: Correct. Because think about the question I read is to me profound. What are we trading away when we allow private enterprise and the state to quietly eliminate our ability to move freely without a digital seat? But what have we talked about, James? I got a watch now that can listen to me. I got a camera I'm looking into that can be turned on by someone else if they want to. I got a tv, a smart TV with a camera phone in here. I got my phone with a camera and sorry, not camera phone, a microphone. I got a phone with a camera and microphone. I got an iPad with, you know, meaning just in this room.
[00:23:59] James Keys: You got doorbell with a camera. Yeah. I've got a home, you know, like, what is it Alexa? You know, you got.
[00:24:05] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, so I guess. No, so, so seriously, we might have two dozen entry points in my home between all the cell phones and everything else, like television, the teller, you know,
[00:24:13] James Keys: I'll put it in the show notes. They just got. LG is out here, you know, with their TVs, you know, just they've been discovered, you know, scanning your, your, your net where your WI FI network and sending, you know, like communicating with the home base and all, like. Yeah, what's happening?
[00:24:25] Tunde Ogunlana: So, so that's what I'm saying is that is exactly. So the thing is, is that it's too late is my point. Meaning for us to have this debate, we should have had it 20 years ago. Because for us to debate this now is a waste of time. Because industry, that's why I started this with realizing that corporate America already beat the system.
[00:24:43] James Keys: So it's a security or surveillance industrial complex as you're saying now in a sense, you know, been birthed. And I don't think it's pointless. I mean we can always pull it back, you know. But the question of whether or not there are. You can have a system sustained amount of political will. Because the thing about the backlash, and I want to move to one other topic before this, but the thing about the backlash is when it's driven by emotion the way that it is, then it also can dissipate pretty quickly. Once, once the next thing that people get all angry about pops up then or is given to, is fed to people, you know, like the next thing, oh, you're gonna get really mad about this, you know, with the screens and so forth. So you know, like it's kind of a moment. And as you point out, we may not be in a position to be able to capitalize on that from a legislative standpoint or actually make, put guardrails on, you know, whether it be industry or government and so forth. There's things that are happening by decree, which is kind of the best that our governmental systems seem to be able to do right now. But those are, as I pointed out before, those seem to be heavy handed and short sighted. You know, like it's not, it's not thought out, like hey, can we, can we. For certain situations when this might be something that's really helpful, you know, we got a music fest going on. Hey, we may want to be able to set up things and here. But hey, on this person's street or these streets just connecting neighborhoods, like what are we doing? You know, like.
[00:25:59] Tunde Ogunlana: But well, you know, people don't want thoughtful leaders.
[00:26:02] James Keys: But yeah, to your point, we don't do the thoughtful leader thing anymore, more or less, you know, like it's like, no, can you. We do entertaining leaders. Which gets to the Neil Postman thing, which I'm not going to go into the last point I wanted to get to though today is talking about.
And I know you, you touched on this a little bit already, but I want to go a little deeper how, how the use of so much surveillance changes a society and the people in it, you know, and like, do you see the, the increase in growing surveillance from private and public sources do you think that can then create or do you think that would or could or potentially create changes, looking forward, further changes, you know, not just in, in the community, like the communication changes have happened. What about the surveillance changes or the changes that can happen because of surveillance?
[00:26:48] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, I think. Well, that's right. I think I like the imagination a little bit to see how far it can go. Because as part of the research, just getting ready for this discussion, you know, I'll switch real quick to the people changes going back. And this is why I brought up earlier the evolutionary thing, because building on that here in this part of the conversation, there was something called the panopticon effect, which is that we all tend to be on a little bit better behavior when we know someone's watching us.
So how does that permeate to an entire society of millions of people when they know that they're being surveilled at all times?
Then you've got things like the erosion in civic trust. I was reading an interesting one about the flock cameras and how that could cause that. Because what I was saying is that with law enforcement using more AI, they're going to naturally make mistakes and they're going to pick people up that are innocent. And we've. I've seen this already in some videos on YouTube where the police body cam where the cop showing up to someone's house, arresting them and the person's like, has no idea what they're talking about and the cop is unfortunately not the nicest person in that moment. And they're being very aggressive to the person and it comes out later, after the person's already been taken to jail and hold off, that the AI system was wrong, that person was totally innocent and all that. So with the erosion of civic trust, the article, the part that I was reading was saying that as these kind of mistakes happen more, it's going to cause the public to, let's say, distrust law enforcement because law enforcement is going to be less directly connected to people and is going to be using technology more and more. And I think that's the key right there.
[00:28:32] James Keys: I think law enforcement's always made mistakes, but I think that with the mistake is because of human error. I think people generally, you know, again, there's plenty of people who have mistrust for law enforcement and trust is an earned thing. So when people have mistrust for you, it's probably because of something that. Or something you did or didn't do as far as earning it. But yeah, the, the idea when it's human Error, like true error, not bias or anything like that. People tend to have more grace for that. When it's machine error, it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, like you're just did something because of machinery era people error. People are going to have much less kind of grace for that. It's like no, no. So I felt more offended by that. With the story you just told versus if it was like, oh yeah, you know, this clerk did this and then they put the wrong name. It's like, oh yeah, that kind of stuff happens. Like I'm just in my own mind, I'm thinking about that.
[00:29:22] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah.
[00:29:22] James Keys: For me, I'll tell you this though.
I think that it's, it's kind of, it's the creep. The creep is the right word because I think that these kind of changes, all of the things you're describing end up having you end up pushing society to your society and your culture to. I think because it'll create cultural changes, you'll have a more top down hierarchical society in a scenario where there's so much surveillance. You just said people are going to be, try to conform more and stuff like that. Less likely to challenge authority, less likely to speak up against injustice and so forth. And then also it's going to encourage people in power, people with control to abuse that power. And that control. I mean we've already seen that on a small level where you got reports of police officers using this stuff to track around ex girlfriends and stuff like that. Like the temptation to be able to do that kind of stuff, to have that kind of tool at your disposal is a lot, you know. And so this is why over the course of time the law has been, there's things like Miranda rights and there's things like you got to have a warrant to wiretap or you know, again, these things have been weakened over time, but that's why these things were put in place. Because these technological things and also just smashing and grabbing, running up in somebody's house is something that it can incur. I don't want to say encourage, but it can make people more tempted to abuse the power. So I think yeah, you're going to have a more top down society, more abuse of power, all these things, unless we can actually get a handle on this. And my concern with, and you hear me say this a lot, is that prior generations seem to have learned this lesson and so they tried to get this stuff under control. But it seems like what every few generations people have to relearn these same lessons. Like you didn't have to tell Benjamin Franklin what would happen if you have too much surveillance, too much power, concentrated. Yeah, he knew, you know, but it seems like people are going to have to learn that again now in order to then appreciate. And then you hope that you can kind of put the genie back in the bottle. But once people appreciate, like, oh, yeah, it's a really bad thing. Like we won't be able to, you know, try to root out injustice in society with this much going on. Because the society will be set up to protect injustice if that's the status quo.
[00:31:31] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah.
[00:31:31] James Keys: So, any last thoughts?
[00:31:33] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, yeah, I think it's just a follow on that. I think it's interesting the way you bring it up because it gets me thinking of this kind of the issue we have and why. I think the digital age, you know, we're gonna have to fine tune and update the Constitution and how we deal with these things. These ideas of, like you said, Benjamin Franklin understood what power looked like as he was trying to escape King George. Yeah, but it was in the 1700s.
[00:31:59] James Keys: Run up in your house and. And you're like, why are you guys running up in my house and.
[00:32:03] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, no, exactly. And so. And so. And that's a great point again, that's why to me, I love history because it's the. Why. Why was the Constitution and the Bill of Rights created in the first place, to your point? Because redcoats used to be able to go up in somebody's house on the king's decree. And just there was no, there was no protection for the citizen. So we're gonna have to relearn that now in the digital age. And I think part of it is it's difficult because it's no longer. I think we got to get creative where it's not just governments anymore. And in America we have been conditioned to revere corporations. And I think that if you think about it, James, think about what we've discussed just generally, right? Ring cameras, so that the ring camera can get the image from the street. You've got a Tesla which has cameras all over it. You've got now the meta glasses, which have cameras. You have all this stuff, right? So law enforcement, the idea of a warrantless search or seizure is different than it was decades ago because you could harmonize all the different images and data and metadata from all these different companies and still get a really good idea of what somebody's doing. Right. The idea of surveilling them and is that a way.
[00:33:12] James Keys: We're way beyond wiretap.
[00:33:14] Tunde Ogunlana: That's what I mean, so.
[00:33:15] James Keys: So.
[00:33:15] Tunde Ogunlana: So it's not only governments now, it's corporations that have more power than governments, actually, in many ways. So that's one thing. And then I'll leave with this, James, and then we'll be done. I just want to give some anecdotal because as we're talking, it made me remember something of how I felt. And I think feelings are important, right, because we're humans.
I tried to reach out to my congressperson earlier this year, a congresswoman over my district, and I reached out to their office on an email because I wanted to go have a meeting.
It's my representative, right? And I take it serious. I'm American. And so I got an email back that they don't have time to meet with me. So I didn't feel good, number one.
Number two is, so then I wanted to look at this person's town hall, because I wanted to go to the town hall and maybe get on the microphone and ask a question, right? Like, how come you're not stopping what I'm seeing every day on the news? And so. And so.
And I wanted to do that, James, as a citizen of my country who wants to participate.
We're in 2026. We're way past this Covid stuff and all that. You know, my congressperson this year has only given town halls on Zoom that. And I just want to talk about how that makes me feel as a constituent. I hate it. It makes me feel like this person is trying to run away from, from the responsibility of speaking to us, the public that they're probably more concerned with controlling how we ask questions and who gets to pipe up and who doesn't via a Zoom bunch of boxes and having their staff control that versus allowing us to go meet in an auditorium in person so I can see her face to face. And maybe I would lose my temper and pipe up. And she doesn't want to deal with that. So I wanted to express that because this is the difference between the digital age and the age that at least you and I grew up in. And I think half of people, because we're middle aged, half people that are older than us is this is the type of control that authority will be able to have on us, where they may be able to get so insular that we will not be able to go see them. We will not be able to be like Hal. There is 2001. There is a defense.
[00:35:23] James Keys: You're correct. But if you really wanted to meet with her, all you had to do was write a Check.
Which is a problem.
Like, don't get me wrong, but that is the way. And that's. That's part of the problem here, is that if you're saying, hey, I have a donation here. Okay, you send a donation. Okay, yeah, yeah. Let's look at the calendars. And so if you don't have a. Don't. If you're not coming through with a big check, then it's like, yeah, yeah, get. Be a box in the zoom, and we might unmute you for 10 seconds.
[00:35:46] Tunde Ogunlana: You know, sad.
[00:35:48] James Keys: You know, go ahead.
[00:35:49] Tunde Ogunlana: What's that Is. That's such a funny joke. No, but that's. It's fat sad, because that's such a funny joke. But it's so true because as you said it. No, the first thing I thought of myself is actually, he's right. That's the cost of doing business. Maybe I should tell him I got a campaign check and I want to come in.
[00:36:05] James Keys: I'll only bring it to you in person. Yeah.
[00:36:09] Tunde Ogunlana: Now, I gave him a meeting, so hold on for the audience. Next show, I'm going to try it. And we'll see you on the next show.
[00:36:14] James Keys: Hey, man, don't be over here conspiring to deceive anybody on our show, man.
[00:36:19] Tunde Ogunlana: I'm not. I'll try it. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to call the office. We'll see what happens.
Oh, man. If that check will cash her now, it's a different story.
[00:36:29] James Keys: You, over here, tell us. Get yourself arrested, man. Come on.
You're recording yourself. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You can't blame surveillance.
[00:36:37] Tunde Ogunlana: You're recording yourself. Let me clean it up. It'll be a bad check.
It'll be a bounce check. Not a bad check. Okay?
[00:36:45] James Keys: It's not cleaning it up, so.
[00:36:47] Tunde Ogunlana: All right, I think we're going to make sure, man.
It's not illegal. If I don't have money in the account, stop digging.
[00:36:53] James Keys: So we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:37:01] Tunde Ogunlana: I'm Tunde All right, we'll talk soon.
