September 2, 2026 at 10:31 Within the last few days, two important state actions have dealt a big blow to automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks. This is just the latest proof of the growing tide of public opposition to mass surveillance. After years of successful grassroots battles to pull these cameras from local streets, bipartisan momentum is sweeping the country.

On August 28, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned state agencies from spending public funds on Flock cameras. The order dropped just as The Texas Tribune prepared to publish an investigation revealing that a state agency had quietly funneled at least $30 million into building a sprawling surveillance network.

Then on August 31, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) issued a memo, announced by Governor Ron DeSantis, ordering the removal of all ALPRs from the right-of-way on state highways within 30 days. The order revokes all previously approved permits to install ALPRs, and bars transportation officials from issuing future permits.

FDOT officials stated that “the recent exponential increase in deployments along our roadways, coupled with concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes merit immediate action to preserve Floridians’ sovereignty and quality of life.” FDOT’s action has been followed by a surge of local governments in Florida canceling or pausing their vendor contracts.

Much more work remains. Many ALPRs in Florida are not on state highways, but sit on city streets, county roads, residential driveways, and shopping center parking lots—and FDOT's order doesn't touch any of them. Likewise, the Texas directive leaves local agencies free to use city, county, federal, and private funds to install cameras.

This week’s good news follows years of pushback from local advocates that has seen dozens of cities sever ties with surveillance companies. According to some metrics, during the last 30 days, an average of three localities per day has halted contracts with Flock. Other advocates have been resisting ALPRs in statehouses and court houses, and by blowing the whistle with investigative activism.

The moves in Florida and Texas also illustrate the power that the executive branch can wield to curtail mass surveillance with almost immediate results. We hope that the California Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Transportation will take notice and initiate steps to curb this technology, starting with removing the ALPRs that U.S. Border Patrol and the Drug Enforcement Administration have installed on California highways.

EFF’s position remains: ALPR mass surveillance – the indiscriminate, continuous collection and retention of location data on every driver, regardless of suspicion – should not exist. This past week’s actions in Texas and Florida are good steps forward, but we are still far from the finish line. We will continue working alongside community groups to keep cameras off local streets, while urging judges and state lawmakers to impose enforceable restraints on this warrantless mass surveillance.

PewDiePie’s AI ambitions have finally become a reality after months of documenting his journey into building his own free AI platform.

As revealed in a video titled “MY trillion $Dollar Project is finally OUT!”, PewDiePie has officially launched Odysseus, a free self-hosted AI workspace designed to give users an alternative to popular platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.

Over the last year, the YouTuber has been diving deep into AI development, building custom systems to run open source models on his own hardware, and aiming to create a tool that offered the same convenience as mainstream AI platforms without relying on cloud services or handing data over to major tech companies. Well, now that project has finally arrived. PewDiePie launches free self-hosted AI workspace Odysseus

According to the official description, “Odysseus is a self-hosted interface for talking to language models – chat, autonomous agents, tools, model serving, email, research, and more. Local-first, privacy-first, and no telemetry. Just you and your models.”

The interface is essentially designed as an all-in-one AI workspace where users can connect local models or external APIs, run autonomous AI agents, perform deep research tasks, compare multiple model outputs side by side, and manage documents directly inside the platform.

In the launch video, PewDiePie showcases the interface’s various features, demonstrating how it can handle research tasks, manage conversations, and operate as a private AI assistant without relying entirely on third-party services.

Despite all that, a major focus of the platform is privacy. Odysseus is marketed as a local-first experience, meaning users can keep their conversations, files, and personal data on hardware they control rather than sending everything to external servers.

The project is also completely open source and free to use. On the website, PewDiePie describes it as having “No sales team, no demo request, no Trojan horse,” while encouraging users to download, modify, and host it themselves.

That philosophy was summed up during the launch with one of the project’s most direct messages aimed at major AI companies: “The war on big tech has just begun.”

About to start my 3D printing journey and I see FreeCAD can become frustrating due to crashes and bugs. Was wondering what software would you recommend that works on Linux?

Tangential: Would it be useful to create a wiki woth these kinds of FAQs in the community info section? I see the Reddit ones have an extensive wiki for example, might be useful here

Edit: thanks everyone for the suggestions and clarification, will check all of these out!

I'm planning to build several WiFi connected devices for home automation: an AC remote control and air quality sensors. These devices would send data and be controlled through a local server. I'm considering two approaches: running custom software on a server PC (hardware to be determined) or integrating with Home Assistant's protocols and purchasing their hardware. Would using Home Assistant be excessive for this use case?

I'm surrounded by Airbnbs where I live. Has any one had any experience with halting the expansion of Airbnbs? Politically or legally even. Saw one host operating a few dozen listings in Seattle which is outrageous (probably found a loophole). Can't have that with a housing crisis.

Any tips help! Thanks!