During a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee this month, government officials discussed developments in digital identity technologies and central bank digital currencies. These technologies are terrifying to civil liberty advocates because of their potential to turbocharge government oversight and surveillance capabilities.

Democrat legislators expressed support for these surveillance tools while decrying legislative efforts aimed at halting the progress of CBDCs.

Digital IDs, in particular, received strong support from Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois. He endorsed them to be enforced to protect against artificial intelligence, whatever that means. Additionally, he commended the digital ID systems implemented in countries like India, Estonia, and Korea for their ability to police the web.

“A secure digital ID biometrically synced to your smartphone allows individuals to remotely verify that they are who they say they are, saving costs, reducing the likelihood of fraud, and to allow individuals to defend themselves against deepfake identity fraud,” Foster said.

Foster asked about the benefits of having digital IDs during the COVID-19 pandemic and their usefulness in online transactions. While fawning over India's digital ID system, he failed to address the various controversies associated with it, such as significant privacy concerns, financial exclusion for non-participants, and the implementation of mandatory digital ID checks in certain sectors.

Hearing Entitled: Fostering Financial Innovation: How Agencies Can Leverage Technology to Shape...youtu.be

Foster described the digital ID systems in India, Estonia, and Korea as voluntary, highlighting that these countries offer secure digital identification.

However, he’s lying, as the digital ID is not optional in Estonia. From birth, Estonian citizens are integrated into the system with an assigned identity code.

Charles Vice, the director of financial technology and access at the National Credit Union Administration, informed the committee that the NCUA is exploring digital ID technology. He mentioned that several credit unions have already initiated pilot programs for digital ID and spoke positively about the introduction of mobile digital driver's licenses in various U.S. states.

Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts shifted the committee's discussion to central bank digital currencies, emphasizing the importance of the United States not lagging behind other nations in CBDC development. If China does something, then we must follow suit, I guess.

With a straight face, he expressed frustration that some of his colleagues on the subcommittee support legislation that would halt CBDC development. Rep. Lynch failed to articulate the myriad of reasons why many are concerned about implementing CBDCs.

Critics of CBDCs, including lawmakers advocating against CBDC-focused bills, argue that such currencies could lead to increased surveillance of financial transactions and potentially enable the control of consumer purchasing choices.

Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio approached the topic of CBDCs with skepticism during his questioning of Michael S. Gibson, director of the division of supervision and regulation at the Federal Reserve. Davidson's concerns centered on the hiring efforts of the San Francisco and Boston Federal Reserve Banks for CBDC development roles. He pressed Gibson for clarity on the Federal Reserve's research into CBDCs and whether this research signifies a move toward more comprehensive CBDC development.

“You hire people that write code, it starts seeming like you’re developing and building versus researching,” Davidson said.

Gibson claims it’s only for research and that the Federal Reserve is “a long way off from the thinking about the implementation of anything related to a CBDC.”

However, we've been hearing members of the Fed itself sounding the alarm about the implementation of the digital dollar.

The Fed's Neel Kashkari on CBDC:\n\n"If they want to monitor everyone of your transactions you could do that (...) And if you want to directly tax customer accounts you could do that (...) So I get why China would be interested. \n\nWhy would the American people be for that?" #CBDC

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The differing viewpoints expressed during this hearing highlight the broader ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans in the ongoing debate over digital technologies such as digital IDs and CBDCs.

Republicans and civil libertarians tend to approach these technologies with skepticism, focusing on the overwhelming risks and harmful implications. This concern has led to the introduction of various bills aimed at limiting or outright banning these technologies. Democrats generally view these technologies as progressive innovations that will bring equality.

Even if you assign the best of intentions to these organizations that would implement CBDCs and digital ID (which, after the last few years, why would you?), the level of control we would be handing over to the central banks is frightening. With the click of a button, they could shut off banking access to anyone they deem an enemy. Preppers, anti-war leftists, religious dissidents, “cryptobros,” or the political bogeyman du jour could all be simply unbanked. If you don’t think that’s possible, ask the Canadian truckers.