2026-06-27 –, Prime Dome
The surveillance state is exploding. Flock cameras blanket the country. Palantir watches everything. ICE buys location data by the truckload. Age-verification mandates are being baked into operating systems. And the developers building tools to push back are getting arrested.
We are losing this fight. But we don't have to.
Past generations of hackers already wrote the playbook for winning fights like this one. Phil Zimmermann beat the U.S. export-control regime by publishing PGP source code. Cult of the Dead Cow forced Microsoft to take security seriously by handing out 10,000 CDs of a Windows exploit at DEF CON. Matt Blaze killed the Clipper Chip with a single peer-reviewed paper. We can follow the same playbook.
This talk walks through how they succeeded, and what the community needs to do right now to win current surveillance war.
Intro: Who I Am, and Why I'm Standing Here
Naomi Brockwell, President of the Ludlow Institute. Lead drafter of H.R. 8470.
I. Why We're Losing the War on Privacy
A. The surveillance state metastasized through doctrinal loopholes the courts refuse to close.
B. Surveillance tech outpaces privacy protection from the courts.
II. The War Just Escalated
Three new fronts:
• AI
• ID mandates and age verification
• Arresting developers of privacy tools
I used to think we could just use privacy tools and reclaim privacy personally. But then developers of privacy tools started being arrested, and I realized these tools might cease to exist. Tech-only resistance is being criminalized. Without a simultaneous policy fight, we lose the right to build the tools at all.
III. How We Win the War on Privacy
History of how the hacker community has rallied support and succeeded in pushing for reform.
Case I. Phil Zimmermann
Case II. Cult of the Dead Cow
Case III. The Clipper Chip
IV. The Pattern: What Every Successful Hacker-Driven Reform Has in Common
Takeaway: the hacker community has won this fight three times in three decades against opponents with more money, more lawyers, and more power. Let's do it again.
V. Call to Action
The surveillance state is real. It's been built by private companies and the government working together, and it's accelerating. We win the same way every previous generation of hackers has won.
Naomi Brockwell
• President, Ludlow Institute (non-profit focused on helping people protect their privacy)
• Creator, NBTV (privacy education channel with 1M+ subscribers across platforms)
• Lead drafter of H.R. 8470, the Surveillance Accountability Act, introduced to the U.S. House on April 23, 2026. The bill closes the third-party doctrine loophole, bans warrantless ALPR, biometric, and location dragnets, voids contractual waivers of Fourth Amendment rights against the government, and creates a private right of action against federal agents who violate the Fourth Amendment.