BJ

Benn Jordan

Things Benn Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Benn Jordan has been a guest on The 404 Media Podcast and Decoder with Nilay Patel .

Recently: “Benn Jordan thinks the surveillance problem is much bigger than Flock” on Decoder with Nilay Patel (October 2026); “How Benn Jordan Discovered Flock's Cameras Were Left Streaming to the Internet” on The 404 Media Podcast (January 2026).

What They Said

“I'd like to bring people back towards solutionism because, you know, I don't want surveillance at all, but we don't live in Benjordistan. We live in a democracy. And a lot of people are okay with it to some degree.” — Benn Jordan, Decoder with Nilay Patel

Jordan, who has spent the past year exposing security holes in Flock's license-plate cameras, says compromises like open, unchangeable audit logs and a DMV opt-out could have been made cheaply a year ago. Now trust is gone and some people are destroying cameras, and he wants to steer critics back toward fixes.

Decoder with Nilay Patel · 2026-10-15 Permalink → Listen →
Decoder with Nilay Patel Around 40:37 into the episode
Benn Jordan

…ethical, and legal matter, but we're nowhere close to that. And it just feels like all that is pouring fire on the conspiracy theories in a way that you're in the center of the storm here. I'm wondering if you can find a rational set of policy outcomes here that tamps down on those flames. My

Speaker 1

so, like a year ago, or a little over a year ago, when my first video on Flock came out, if the company's response and the government's response to it was, okay, audit logs are now going to be open and they're going to exist

Benn Jordan

…down, your kids are going to go missing. Like just that, that type of thing. Now, how can you fix this? Like now, people are just destroying cameras, right? And now people are just threatening executives of these companies because that's what they do when they get taken this far out. And so that's my big problem now: I'm trying, like, really, if I have any goal in this or any dog in this fight, I'd like to bring people back towards solutionism because, you know, I don't want surveillance at all, but we don't live in Benjordistan. We live in a democracy. And a lot of people are okay with it to some degree. Most people are not okay with it from polling I've done. Most people are not okay. With it, if it doesn't involve a warrant. But yeah, I think that somewhere, somewhere along there, there's a solution where nobody's happy, but everybody's content. And I'd like, if I could do anything right now, it would be bringing people back towards a path where a solution can be found.

Nilay Patel

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Benn Jordan

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Speaker 1

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