Speaker 1: Jeff Dornick, founder and CEO of Pickax. An author and editor,
Speaker 1: Jeff published and co authored Church and State Now the
Speaker 1: Left use the Church to Conquer America and social injustice,
Speaker 1: exposing the false gospel of the social justice movement. His
Speaker 1: forthcoming book, Following the Leader is currently available for pre order.
Speaker 1: His website and we encourage you to check it out
Speaker 1: is Pickaxe p c Kax dot app to learn so
Speaker 1: much more as we'll be finding out about what Jeff
Speaker 1: Dornick is all about. And Dornick is spelled do r nik. Jeff,
Speaker 1: thank you for being on the Doctor Sky experience. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your time. I presume that you're on the West coast,
Speaker 1: is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm out here in California, so it's a little
Speaker 2: bit earlier out here than for youself.
Speaker 1: Well. Absolutely, and it's always a prosing honor to listen
Speaker 1: to people like yourself that bring to bring forth to
Speaker 1: the audience here. So many topics about America and how
Speaker 1: to keep us on the strait and not narrow, but
Speaker 1: of course the wide expand that America has with its
Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftyeth anniversary. Jeff, I got to begin
Speaker 1: with tell us how you got started and what you do,
Speaker 1: and then let's segue to your shows. And again the
Speaker 1: main topic I think of this particular iteration, as we
Speaker 1: call it an episode, is all about these picks, excuse me,
Speaker 1: all about these flock cameras that we need to know
Speaker 1: so much more about to tell about a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself. How you got started?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So I first got into podcasting actually back
Speaker 2: in probably like twenty seventeen. I started a Christian show
Speaker 2: called just called Conversations with Jeff. I would sit down
Speaker 2: and I'd interview different pastors and theologians and all that,
Speaker 2: and I had that show for several years and you know,
Speaker 2: it builds it up, started a Christian podcast network, and
Speaker 2: then I ended up having a job at an advertising
Speaker 2: agency out of New York, and I was a VP
Speaker 2: of operations. And then COVID hit and they locked everything down,
Speaker 2: and so they let everybody go that wasn't actively working
Speaker 2: on a campaign. And because you know, if you can't
Speaker 2: have an author, how do you have a VP of operations?
Speaker 2: So I ended up getting let go the day after
Speaker 2: my birthday, which is when they locked down the entire
Speaker 2: world pretty much in March of twenty twenty and so
Speaker 2: that day I was supposed to interview a guy and
Speaker 2: I called him. I was like, I got a cancel
Speaker 2: because I just got lost my job, and he pitched
Speaker 2: me on the idea of starting a political podcast network together,
Speaker 2: which we did and then we built that up was
Speaker 2: quite successful. It was called Freedom First Network. And then
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: pitch an investor on an idea for a social media platform,
Speaker 2: and the whole idea was building something that was truly
Speaker 2: free speech, because I saw on x what was happening
Speaker 2: with Elon purchasing Twitter and turning into x is. They
Speaker 2: have a policy called freedom of speech, but not freedom
Speaker 2: of reach, which means they'll let you say what you want,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean that they actually have to let
Speaker 2: anybody see it. So the idea for pickax was to
Speaker 2: have a free speech social media plot as well as
Speaker 2: one without algorithmic manipulation. And so I pitched it to
Speaker 2: an investor, I got it fully funded, started building it out,
Speaker 2: and then we officially launched it here in February. And
Speaker 2: now we're growing by leaps and bounds and just continuing
Speaker 2: to find technological solutions to different problems that we're facing,
Speaker 2: especially in regards to freedom of speech and freedom of
Speaker 2: reach and expression and all that so.
Speaker 1: Amazing, well congratulations on that as we bring you to
Speaker 1: the vast audience here of talk radio seventy seven WABC,
Speaker 1: around the nation and around the world. But some of
Speaker 1: the interesting topics here, and I think this is important.
Speaker 1: I throwed the question out always a question to the
Speaker 1: audience to hear what they have to say, and what
Speaker 1: we call a theater of the mind, and the question
Speaker 1: once again is where do we draw the line between
Speaker 1: public safety and government surveillance? And if I can take
Speaker 1: the moment just to bring this into focus. Flox automated
Speaker 1: license plate reader cameras are designed to help law enforcement
Speaker 1: identify stolen vehicles and solve crime, but critics warned the
Speaker 1: technology technology excuse me, It can create searchable records of
Speaker 1: people's movements and raise serious questions about privacy, data sharing,
Speaker 1: and government overreach. Tell us more because the LAPD is
Speaker 1: you're going to tell us, recently halted the use of
Speaker 1: FLOCK cameras, and that's a big agency. And I'll jump
Speaker 1: in later with some of my personal experiences in the
Speaker 1: video surveillance world, believe it or not, Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: please continue, Jeff, this is a fascinating story that I'm
Speaker 1: sure affects so many people or soon will.
Speaker 2: Right well, you know, it's it's really interesting, especially with
Speaker 2: the flock cameras, because I've I've gone, I've talked about
Speaker 2: this on a variety of shows, and and the way
Speaker 2: that especially talking with you know, some some people that
Speaker 2: are in law enforcement as well as well as not,
Speaker 2: it's interesting because you can make the argument from both
Speaker 2: the law enforcement perspective, which oftentimes is we're trying to
Speaker 2: keep people safe, we're trying to track the bad guys.
Speaker 2: You know, if there's a guy that steals a car,
Speaker 2: we can immediately you know, hop on there using the
Speaker 2: flock cameras and track it dow. And then there's the
Speaker 2: other people that are obviously concerned about the constitutional rights
Speaker 2: and privacy rights and the mass surveillance and all that.
Speaker 2: So really the way the way to understand what's going
Speaker 2: on with the flock cameras is, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: basically like security cameras that are on steroids that are
Speaker 2: tied in with artificial intelligence. And so if if you're
Speaker 2: contracted let's say let's say with the city, then oftentimes
Speaker 2: they would have like a police you know, the police
Speaker 2: department would have access to it. So if if there's
Speaker 2: an identify, if there's identifying markers for a particular vehicle,
Speaker 2: the police would be able to type in, you know,
Speaker 2: when we're looking for a white truck with a with
Speaker 2: a dent on the on the back of the truck
Speaker 2: with this license plate, and they can use the artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence in order to basically scan all the flock cameras
Speaker 2: and be able to pinpoint either where it is or
Speaker 2: see the route that it actually took. And so you know,
Speaker 2: from from that standpoint, you can see the the immediate
Speaker 2: benefit to law enforcement on you know, a quick quicker
Speaker 2: turn around time on tracking somebody down, being able to
Speaker 2: actually investigate see where somebody actually went, and all that.
Speaker 2: On the flip side, you start dealing with your right
Speaker 2: to peaceably assembly, You start dealing with your privacy rights
Speaker 2: and freedom of movement and all of that where you
Speaker 2: could really see the potential harm and abuse of these
Speaker 2: flot cameras. And I always use the example imagine, if
Speaker 2: you know, because I live out here in California, where
Speaker 2: we had the crazy lockdowns with under Gavin Newsom. Imagine
Speaker 2: if Gavin Newsom had the ability of using these Flot
Speaker 2: cameras during COVID where you know, they would have been
Speaker 2: able to know immediately who was going where, where you are,
Speaker 2: you know, because there was a period of time where
Speaker 2: you weren't even allowed to go out on the freeway
Speaker 2: after a certain after a certain time at night unless
Speaker 2: you were specifically going somewhere that was approved. Like imagine,
Speaker 2: if you had the Flot cameras, they would know exactly
Speaker 2: where you went. That would deal with the contact tracing,
Speaker 2: It would deal with are you breaking the lawn going
Speaker 2: to church on Sunday? They would know who went where,
Speaker 2: who was associated with who. It would have been just
Speaker 2: mass tyranny and far worse than we even experienced.