Florida drivers may soon see fewer high-tech eyes monitoring their highway commutes after state officials ordered local police to strip automated license plate readers from state roads, dealing a blow to private surveillance vendors like Flock Safety while drawing a hard boundary against what Gov. Ron DeSantis warns is an expanding “digital AI surveillance state.”

“If you want to get in your car and you want to go down to Buc-ee’s in St. Augustine, it’s really none of the government’s damn business if you’re doing that, right? What we don’t want in the state of Florida is to have a digital AI surveillance state where everything we’re doing is being tracked at all times,” DeSantis said at a Monday news conference.

“There’s obviously times when I think it’s probably been useful, but where is this data going?” the governor continued. “They claim that the companies aren’t going to misuse it, but no one’s watching that. And I know you can make some money selling cameras, but you really can make a lot of money if you can sell people’s data.”

DeSantis’ comments come as the Florida Department of Transportation announced in a one-page memo Monday that it was revoking existing permits for automated license plate readers within state highway rights-of-way and giving law enforcement agencies 30 days to remove existing devices.

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FDOT said the action was prompted by the rapid expansion of automated license plate readers, along with reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and surveillance schemes. The license plate readers record vehicle sightings, feed searchable databases and, when agencies choose to share data, can connect searches across jurisdictional lines.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a press conference at Florida International University in Miami on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (Getty Images)

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which are often small, solar-powered cameras mounted on poles, buildings or police cars, can capture vehicle license plates and locations as drivers pass by. Flock Safety, one of the leading ALPR vendors, has rapidly expanded its business with law enforcement, municipalities and businesses in recent years.

The ACLU says about 120,000 Flock cameras are currently installed nationwide.

“I guarantee you every sheriff in Florida can point to examples where it’s been used appropriately and probably effectively. And I have no doubt that that’s the case. But you also have to say, okay, how could this be misused?” DeSantis said.

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Discussion within the XRP community has intensified around a date that some market analysts believe could mark a pivotal moment for Ripple. Dunes, a crypto expert on X, highlighted how several circulating riddles and digital media posts appear to point toward March 22, 2026, as a key date. The analyst has found certain clues in these riddles that connect with macro financial events and significant developments surrounding Ripple and XRP. 

Why March 22 Could Be Key For Ripple And XRP

On March 14, Dunes published a breakdown on X, arguing that three anonymous figures in the XRP community have dropped clues that independently point to the same date, March 22, as a critical moment for Ripple and XRP. Dunes stated that he had decoded a series of cryptic social media posts over the years and connected the dots, suggesting that the patterns within them may be more than mere coincidence. 

The first figure Dunes referenced is ‘BabaCugs,’ a well-known riddler in the XRP community. He highlighted a post in which BabaCugs wrote: “Stop looking at February, it’s actually April.” The post also pointed to an image by another well-known riddler, @bearableguy123, titled “So it begins,” which prominently featured the number 2-14.    

Dunes argued that 2-14 should not be interpreted as February 14. Instead, he suggests that 14 represents a day and 2 represents the month in the Ethiopian calendar system. Under that framework, the date 2-14 also aligns with October 24, 2025, on the standard Gregorian calendar. 

According to the analyst, this date corresponds to a real-world event, marking the day Ripple Prime, the prime brokerage platform created after the acquisition of Hidden Road, went live. Dune’s analysis describes Ripple Prime as the central mechanism of a new financial system where XRP’s liquidity plays an irreplaceable role. 

Another part of the analysis references an older riddle shared by BabaCugs, who wrote: “4 days after JB is 13.” Dunes connects this clue to a cryptic post by another riddler, @TheFirstDecider, in 2020, who also made a post, stating “4 days after the death of my hero JB is the last chance to buy.”

Notably, the analyst interprets JB as Japanese Bonds and links the timeline in the cryptic messages to a Bank of Japan rate decision meeting on March 18 and 19. Counting four days forward from that window, it lands directly on March 22, 2026, which also corresponds to day 13 of month 7, known as Magabit, in the Ethiopian calendar. 

Dunes noted that @bearableguy123 was the riddler who introduced the Ethiopian calendar trick in the XRP community, with posts dating back as far as 2018. He stated that @bearableguy123 had made a famous XRP price prediction that could only be interpreted using the Ethiopian system, where 2018 in that calendar corresponds to 2026 in…