URGENT: What to know before No Kings protests

The David Pakman Show

David Pakman

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4.6 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David speaks with career public defender Eliza Orlins about the growing scope of ICE-enabled surveillance and why it should concern everyone, not just non-citizens. Orlins outlines a sprawling, largely unaccountable dragnet powered by commercial data brokers, license-plate readers, toll and DMV records, app-based location tracking, and an emerging push for real-time social-media monitoring—often sidestepping warrants and eroding Fourth Amendment protections. The pair discuss how these tools can be repurposed beyond immigration to target journalists, dissenters, and protest movements, and how legal guardrails like Posse Comitatus or voting-rights protections are being weakened in practice, even when they still exist on paper.

They also focus on practical safety for this weekend’s protests: consider leaving your phone at home, don’t post identifiable photos of others, avoid engaging with agitators, and if approached by police, assert your right to remain silent and ask if you’re free to leave. Despite the dark backdrop, Orlins emphasizes “joy as resistance” and points to the research suggesting that sustained, nonviolent participation at scale—the 3.5% threshold—can still check authoritarian drift.

Follow Eliza Orlins on social media

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elizaorlins

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eorlins/

Substack: https://substack.com/@elizaorlins

Transcript

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0:00.0	What you are about to hear is a recent substack live conversation I had with Eliza Orleans,
0:06.2	a career public defender who has been covering ICE's new social media surveillance efforts,
0:11.7	as well as unlawful surveillance as a whole. With the no king's protest happening this weekend,
0:17.6	we wanted this out in your feed today. In this discussion, we cover what's
0:22.1	actually being monitored, why it affects citizens and non-citizens alike, and practical
0:28.2	steps for showing up safely and peacefully. If you're planning to attend or you know someone
0:33.7	who is, this is worth a listen. We are live with Eliza Orleans, who is a career
0:39.1	public defender for 15 years and has been covering the surveillance methods and mechanisms and
0:46.8	tools that ICE has been using. You know, Eliza, I'm really glad. Glad sounds weird because it's such
0:53.9	a horrible thing, but I'm glad to be able to talk to you about this in the sense that. I think a lot of people have no idea that this is even going on. So maybe first just sort of lay it out. When we talk about ICE surveillance, what's going on generally?
1:08.0	Well, David, I'm thrilled that we're having this conversation because as horrible
1:11.2	of a topic as this is, like it genuinely couldn't be more imperative that folks understand
1:17.1	what is going on and how they can protect themselves. You know, I think that mass surveillance
1:22.9	has been going on for a very long time, but the ways in which it is getting more and more nefarious
1:28.1	is deeply alarming. And so everyone should be aware of this big, like, drag net that they've
1:35.5	created and the ways in which they're funding it so that they can keep eyes on every single
1:42.1	thing that you do in your life, essentially.
1:50.7	Now, talk a little bit about the tools and techniques that are used, but also a lot of people in the audience might be thinking, well, I was born in the United States and like, that's it.
1:56.2	I have nothing to do with ISIS goals, priorities, whatever.
2:00.4	What about those people and why is this still a concern for them, which I assume is the vast
2:04.8	majority of the audience?
2:06.6	Yeah.
	...

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