Welcome to Stupid State Stories, a podcast that dives into the absurd, illiberal, and downright oppressive ways governments mess with their own people. From bizarre laws and overreaching bureaucracies to outright abuses of power, each episode unpacks real stories and obvious hallucinations of state overreach—think petty tyrants, ridiculous regulations, and the occasional dystopian nightmare. With sharp wit, manufactured statistics, and a keen eye for the ridiculous, we explore how the state’s heavy hand shapes lives, often with unintended consequences. Tune in for a mix of outrage, disbelief, and dark humor as we expose the dumbest things done in the name of control.
The Fourth Amendment didn't die, it got outsourced. The government can't search you without a warrant, so it stopped searching you and started subscribing, with your money. Our guest Susan Peena of Third Party Solutions walks us through the catalog: doorbell footage requests that got reformed in 2024 and quietly un-reformed in 2025, a geofence warrant program that worked backwards from everyone at the bank to one name until the Supreme Court said six-to-three in June that it's a search, gunshot microphones whose algorithm pleads the trade secret, body-cam evidence held hostage behind a storage subscription, AI-written police reports carrying on a perjury tradition cops named themselves, and officers querying databases at two in the morning about someone they care about. There is one search tool that satisfies every requirement of the Fourth Amendment. It's called a warrant. Free since 1791. Everything else renews annually.
The real vendors behind our fictional guest: Ring, Axon, SoundThinking, and Flock Safety.
See how many police departments partner with the doorbell company: https://www.eff.org/pages/map-amazon-ring-police-departments (https://www.eff.org/pages/map-amazon-ring-police-departments)
Sources:
- https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enforcements-use-of-geofence-warrant-was-a-search (https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enforcements-use-of-geofence-warrant-was-a-search)
- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ring-announces-it-will-no-longer-facilitate-police-requests-footage-users (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ring-announces-it-will-no-longer-facilitate-police-requests-footage-users)
- https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/ring-community-requests-lets-police-ask-for-user-videos-a2437818485 (https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/ring-community-requests-lets-police-ask-for-user-videos-a2437818485)
- https://news.wttw.com/2024/02/13/mayor-brandon-johnson-cancels-shotspotter-contract-fulfilling-major-campaign-promise (https://news.wttw.com/2024/02/13/mayor-brandon-johnson-cancels-shotspotter-contract-fulfilling-major-campaign-promise)
- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/effs-guide-getting-records-about-axons-ai-generated-police-reports (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/effs-guide-getting-records-about-axons-ai-generated-police-reports)
- https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43 (https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43)
- https://www.ilsos.gov/news/2025/august-25-2025-giannoulias-audit-finds-license-plate-reader-company-in-violation-of-state-law.html (https://www.ilsos.gov/news/2025/august-25-2025-giannoulias-audit-finds-license-plate-reader-company-in-violation-of-state-law.html)
- https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows (https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows)
3 Oct 2026
Vain Voting Voodoo
Democracy's got a math problem. In 1951 Kenneth Arrow proved that with three or more candidates, no ranked voting system can satisfy four reasonable fairness conditions at once, and picked up a Nobel for it in 1972.
Play with the math yourself: https://ncase.me/ballot (https://ncase.me/ballot)
Sources:
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem)
- https://arxiv.org/html/2303.00108v2 (https://arxiv.org/html/2303.00108v2)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington,_Vermont_mayoral_election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington,_Vermont_mayoral_election)
- https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Repeal_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2026) (https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Repeal_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2026))
16 Sept 2026
Utopia's Unarmed Unmaking
The deadliest killer of the twentieth century wasn't war, and it wasn't crime. It was government. R.J. Rummel's democide tally counts 262 million people murdered by their own states, six times the century's combat deaths, and nearly every regime that ran up that number took the guns first. From the Weimar Republic's gun registry to Cambodia's killing fields, from Chavez's gun ban to Bondi Beach, the recipe never changes: register, reassure, restrict. The state keeps its rifles. You get a brick.
Sources:
https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM (https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM)
https://reason.com/2014/05/15/be-antigovernment-and-proud (https://reason.com/2014/05/15/be-antigovernment-and-proud)
https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-bondi-attack-the-islamic-states-strategic-shifts-and-jihadi-tactics-in-australia (https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-bondi-attack-the-islamic-states-strategic-shifts-and-jihadi-tactics-in-australia)
https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqxql12317qo (https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqxql12317qo)
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4.5 / 5
2 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 14 / 100
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Quality
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YouTube
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Engagement
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