Month: July 2022

Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches… Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

– Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting in Maryland v. King

Be warned: the DNA detectives are on the prowl.

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup waiting to be matched up with a crime.

Suspect State, meet the Genetic Panopticon.

DNA technology in the hands of government officials will complete our transition to a Surveillance State in which prison walls are disguised within the seemingly benevolent trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and the need to guard against terrorists, pandemics, civil unrest, etc.

By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

It’s getting harder to hide, even if you think you’ve got nothing to hide.

Armed with unprecedented access to DNA databases amassed by the FBI and ancestry website, as well as hospital newborn screening programs, police are using forensic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database, to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

By submitting your DNA to a genealogical database such as Ancestry and 23andMe, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

It no longer even matters if you’re among the tens of millions of people who have added their DNA to ancestry databases. As Brian Resnick reports, public DNA databases have grown so massive that they can be used to find you even if you’ve never shared your own DNA.

That simple transaction—a spit sample or a cheek swab in exchange for getting to learn everything about one’s ancestral makeup, where one came from, and who is part of one’s extended family—is the price of entry into the Suspect State for all of us.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.” It can also be used to predict the physical appearance of potential suspects.

It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”

Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to “crack” a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving, especially when it helps them crack cold cases of serial murders and rapists.

After all, who wouldn’t want to get psychopaths and serial rapists off the streets and safely behind bars, right?

At least, that’s the argument being used by law enforcement to support their unrestricted access to these genealogy databases, and they’ve got the success stories to prove it.

For instance, a 68-year-old Pennsylvania man was arrested and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a young woman almost 50 years earlier. Relying on genealogical research suggesting that the killer had ancestors who hailed from a small town in Italy, investigators narrowed their findings down to one man whose DNA, obtained from a discarded coffee cup, matched the killer’s.

In another cold case investigation, a 76-year-old man was arrested for two decades-old murders after his DNA was collected from a breathalyzer during an unrelated traffic stop.

Yet it’s not just psychopaths and serial rapists who are getting caught up in the investigative dragnet. In the police state’s pursuit of criminals, anyone who comes up as a possible DNA match—including distant family members—suddenly becomes part of a circle of suspects that must be tracked, investigated and ruled out.

Victims of past crimes are also getting added to the government’s growing DNA database of potential suspects. For instance, San Francisco police used a rape victim’s DNA, which was on file from a 2016 sexual assault, to arrest the woman for allegedly being involved in a property crime that took place in 2021.

In this way, “guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in a technological age in which one is just a DNA sample away from being considered a person of interest in a police investigation. As Jessica Cussins warns in Psychology Today, “The fundamental fight—that data from potentially innocent people should not be used to connect them to unrelated crimes—has been lost.”

Until recently, the government was required to at least observe some basic restrictions on when, where and how it could access someone’s DNA. That was turned on its head by various U.S. Supreme Court rulings that heralded the loss of privacy on a cellular level.

For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Maryland v. King that taking DNA samples from a suspect doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court’s subsequent decision to let stand the Maryland Court of Appeals’ ruling in Raynor v. Maryland, which essentially determined that individuals do not have a right to privacy when it comes to their DNA, made Americans even more vulnerable to the government accessing, analyzing and storing their DNA without their knowledge or permission.

It’s all been downhill since then.

Indeed, the government has been relentless in its efforts to get hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America, by warrantlessly accessing our familial DNA shared with genealogical services such as Ancestry and 23andMe, or through the collection of our “shed” or “touch” DNA.

Get ready, folks, because the government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

This has been helped along by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget).

For example, Rapid DNA machines—portable, about the size of a desktop printer, highly unregulated, far from fool-proof, and so fast that they can produce DNA profiles in less than two hours—allow police to go on fishing expeditions for any hint of possible misconduct using DNA samples.

Journalist Heather Murphy explains: “As police agencies build out their local DNA databases, they are collecting DNA not only from people who have been charged with major crimes but also, increasingly, from people who are merely deemed suspicious, permanently linking their genetic identities to criminal databases.”

All 50 states now maintain their own DNA government databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. Increasingly, many of the data from local databanks are being uploaded to CODIS, the FBI’s massive DNA database, which has become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.

Even hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It’s part of the government’s mandatory genetic screening of newborns. In many states, the DNA is stored indefinitely. There’s already a move underway to carry out whole genome sequencing on newborns, ostensibly to help diagnose rare diseases earlier and improve health later in life, which constitutes an ethical minefield all by itself.

What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

Just recently, in fact, police in New Jersey accessed the DNA from a nine-year-old blood sample of a newborn baby in order to identify the child’s father as a suspect in a decades-old sexual assault.

The ramifications of this kind of DNA profiling are far-reaching.

At a minimum, these DNA databases do away with any semblance of privacy or anonymity.

The lucrative possibilities for hackers and commercial entities looking to profit off one’s biological record are endless. It’s estimated that the global human identification market is projected to reach $6.5 billion by 2032.

These genetic databases and genomic technology also make us that much more vulnerable to creeps and cyberstalkers, genetic profiling, and those who would weaponize the technology against us.

Unfortunately, the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—continues to lag far behind the government and Corporate America’s encroachments on our rights.

Moreover, while much of the public debate, legislative efforts and legal challenges in recent years have focused on the protocols surrounding when police can legally collect a suspect’s DNA (with or without a search warrant and whether upon arrest or conviction), the question of how to handle “shed” or “touch” DNA has largely slipped through without much debate or opposition.

As scientist Leslie A. Pray notes:

We all shed DNA, leaving traces of our identity practically everywhere we go… In fact, the garbage you leave for curbside pickup is a potential gold mine of this sort of material. All of this shed or so-called abandoned DNA is free for the taking by local police investigators hoping to crack unsolvable cases… shed DNA is also free for inclusion in a secret universal DNA databank.

What this means is that if you have the misfortune to leave your DNA traces anywhere a crime has been committed, you’ve already got a file somewhere in some state or federal database—albeit it may be a file without a name. As Heather Murphy warns in the New York Times: “The science-fiction future, in which police can swiftly identify robbers and murderers from discarded soda cans and cigarette butts, has arrived…  Genetic fingerprinting is set to become as routine as the old-fashioned kind.”

As the dissenting opinion to the Maryland Court of Appeals’ shed DNA ruling in Raynor rightly warned, “A person can no longer vote, participate in a jury, or obtain a driver’s license, without opening up his genetic material for state collection and codification.” Indeed, by refusing to hear the Raynor case, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its tacit approval for government agents to collect shed DNA, likening it to a person’s fingerprints or the color of their hair, eyes or skin.

It’s just a matter of time before government agents will know everywhere we’ve been and how long we were at each place by following our shed DNA. After all, scientists can already track salmon across hundreds of square miles of streams and rivers using DNA.

Today, helped along by robotics and automation, DNA processing, analysis and reporting takes far less time and can bring forth all manner of information, right down to a person’s eye color and relatives. Incredibly, one company specializes in creating “mug shots” for police based on DNA samples from unknown “suspects” which are then compared to individuals with similar genetic profiles.

Of course, none of these technologies are infallible.

DNA evidence can be wrong, either through human error, tampering, or even outright fabrication, and it happens more often than we are told.

What this amounts to is a scenario in which we have little to no defense against charges of wrongdoing, especially when “convicted” by technology, and even less protection against the government sweeping up our DNA in much the same way it sweeps up our phone calls, emails and text messages.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s only a matter of time before the police state’s pursuit of criminals from the past expands into genetic profiling and a preemptive hunt for criminals of the future.

The US Air Force grounded its fleet of fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets due to new concerns over ejection seat safety just days after the Navy grounded planes for the same reason. 

Air Combat Command (ACC) spokeswoman Alexi Worley confirmed to Breaking Defense that ACC-controlled F-35s are in temporary stand-down while explosive cartridges used inside ejection seats to help propel the pilot from the plane in emergencies are inspected. 

“ACC’s F-35s do have Martin-Baker ejection seats, and on July 19, began a Time Compliance Technical Directive to inspect all of the cartridges on the ejection seat within 90 days.

“Out of an abundance of caution, ACC units will execute a stand-down on July 29 to expedite the inspection process. Based on data gathered from those inspections, ACC will make a determination to resume operations,” Worley said. 

ACC controls the majority of the USAF F-35s. These stealth jets are deployed in other major commands, including United States Air Forces in Europe, Pacific Air Forces, and Air Education and Training Command. The number of affected F-35s was not immediately known. 

“Since CADs [cartridge accentuated devices] are used in the ejection process, a faulty CAD may not allow all the functions necessary to take place that would allow a complete and safe ejection.

“While the aircraft are flyable, I don’t think too many pilots would be willing to fly knowing they may not be able [to] eject,” Michael Cisek, a senior associate at the aviation consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, told Breaking Defense. 

On Thursday, the Air Force revealed that 300 training aircraft were temporarily grounded because of ejection seat safety fears. Other services, including the Navy and Marines Corps, have also halted flights of some fixed-wing aircraft. 

The defect discovered comes a week after the United Kingdom’s Eurofighter Typhoons halted ‘non-essential’ flights over malfunctioning ejection seats. 

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

I have been writing about the concept of decentralization since around 2006, well before the threat of the woke takeover and the culture war became obvious. The idea is a rather simple one (most ideas that work are simple):

If the corrupt system does not or will not provide what the public needs or wants then the public should provide those necessities for themselves. If they are successful then the system has two choices – It can fade away quietly as the decentralized economy takes over, or, it can try and STOP the public from building their own production using force. If the system uses force, then it exposes its true nature as authoritarian and it encourages rebellion. One way or another, the corrupt system will be eliminated.

We have already seen this with the alternative media over the past decade. When I started my first website (Neithercorp) 16 years ago, there were very few of us out there presenting the truth to the public and the mainstream media was still very much in control of the narrative. Today there is an endless array of alternative news websites and YouTube channels and the MSM is utterly dying (except maybe Fox News). Their audience numbers are crumbling while our audience numbers are rising. We are winning the news war because we offer something they don’t – The facts.

The alternative media has proven that decentralization can and does work, but there are many other areas of our culture which have not been decentralized in the slightest. Most popular media is still well under the control of people that espouse extreme cultural Marxism and globalism. Woke ideology is a communist-like movement and such movements spend a lot of time and energy seeking to disrupt the foundational culture of a nation. They do this because once the old culture is in ruins they can then introduce their own aberrant and tyrannical culture in its place. They are culture killers, and they do this deliberately because it is a methodology for gaining power.

Proponents of woke ideology will claim that they have nothing to do with Marxism or communism (while openly admitting they are trained Marxists). They will claim that Marxism and communism are purely economic movements. This is a lie. All communism is predicated on cultural destruction; this is a historic FACT. We can see parallel similarities between the social justice movements of today and movements like the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China from 1966 to 1976. Any heritage, media or religion that competes with the communist model is targeted for erasure and this is what is happening right now in America.

In terms of western entertainment the methods are rather predictable – Leftist try to avoid producing their own original content if they can. Why? Because most of them are pathetic storytellers. Why? Because narcissists don’t have imaginations. Instead, they take existing stories and hijack them as vehicles for their propaganda.

They exploit an established franchise that people love and then reboot it. The reboot uses the name and nostalgia to lure in audiences. But the story and characters have no resemblance to the original mythos or lore, and audiences soon discover that their beloved characters are being murdered right in front of them. I suspect this is done with a particular element of joy, as leftists take pleasure in destruction far more than creation.

They will inject as many aspects of “critical theory” into every product that they get their hands on. This means diversity quotas in stories where it makes no sense. They claim that every movie, TV show, comic and video game must “reflect our modern world.” Translated that means: They think they get to determine what represents the “modern world.” Their movement uses minorities as a shield from criticism. If you don’t like their propaganda, then you must be “racist.” They think they own all minorities and rage against any black or brown person that leaves the leftist plantation.

They force concepts of “equity” into every production. We already have equality of opportunity in the west, so, they had to invent a new terminology that demands equality of outcome. Equity is about special treatment and protections for any group that serves leftist interests at the time. It’s about forcing people to give up what they have worked so hard for, what they have earned through merit, and making them hand it over to the system for redistribution to the loyal soldiers of the system. You are supposed to subsidize your own enslavement.

They flood all entertainment media with LGBT and gender fluidity agit-prop. The concept of the nuclear family is erased in favor of over-representation of a tiny minority of people, and some of these people never asked to be “represented” by the political left anyway. Leftists don’t care. They have anointed themselves as the shepherds of all “marginalized” groups. If you are gay then they own you and they own your successes. You didn’t build it, they did. The vast majority of new media is overwhelmingly gay to the point that many Americans in polling actually believe that around 25% of the population is homosexual when the real number is closer to 4% including bisexuals and those that identify as trans .

Finally, globalism is the overarching religion of the left, and this destructive concept is making its way into many media products. The notion is that all ideals and beliefs deserve to be respected equally – This is a lie. Not all ideals are equal, and some beliefs are psychotic.  Beyond that, leftists don’t respect all ideals equally; they despise concepts like freedom, meritocracy and decentralization.

There are good reasons why we don’t live in a homogenized world and we are divided into separate nations and separate tribes: Because not all tribes are equal. Some are garbage, with garbage principles and garbage leadership. I don’t want to share a tribe with the communist Chinese who commit genocide and religious intolerance and who abuse the citizenry. I don’t want to share a tribe with a Muslim nation ruled by Sharia Law that murders gay people and treats women like property. I don’t want to share a tribe with leftists who seek to undermine society and rewrite history.

Globalism is the worst idea imaginable. Many tribes is a good thing, because discrimination helps humanity to separate and survive against immoral and destructive groups that seek to covertly or overtly homogenize.  The last thing we need is grotesque globalist cultism invading our entertainment.

So, how do we fight back?

Conservatives, libertarians and liberty minded people have finally started to take the culture war more seriously, but now we need to take action to stop the saturation of leftist propaganda within our media. This means we need to produce our OWN media, including entertainment media.

For decades, conservatives ignored the danger of leftists infecting pop culture, movies, television, comic books and video games. Many believed that these things were downstream from politics and that as long as we held our ground in the political arena everything would be fine. This was a huge mistake. Pop culture is not downstream from politics, both flow in tandem with each other. If you think that movies, video games and comic books are just meaningless “nerd stuff,” then you have been duped. Younger generations are highly influenced by such content.

I covered this idea briefly in a recent article ‘Amazon’s Woke Lord Of The Rings Is The Death Rattle Of Social Justice Content.’  I noted that the massive negative fan reaction to Amazon’s woke plans indicated a sea change in the way Americans are viewing the entertainment they consume.  They are no longer passive, and this is a good thing.

They are fighting back against the propaganda implanted into these shows and movies but they also need non-woke stories to fill the void. If you don’t offer them an alternative, then they might just watch whatever is put in front of them. The brainwashing will be perpetual.

Some courageous individuals and companies are taking steps to build an alternative entertainment media, but we need far more. Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire is fighting back with their own film production company, and from what I have seen so far the movies they have made are top notch.

Libertarian and YouTuber Eric July has recently launched his own comic book company and comic world called the “Rippaverse.” The company’s first comic book release has already garnered around $3 million in purchases, which proves that yes, there is indeed a market for this type of content and people are hungry for any media which is not woke.

Eric July has since been attacked relentlessly by the mainstream media (yes, over a comic book). As I have noted when it comes to decentralization, once the system attacks you, you know you are a threat to their power. They attack because they are afraid.

Comedian Andrew Shulz decided to buy back his own comedy special from an unnamed streaming service because they sought to censor his anti-woke jokes. He is now offering the special (called “Infamous”) on his own website.

We definitely need more of this. More creators taking a stand and building real alternatives to Hollywood and the woke corporate cabal. If you can’t stand leftist media and would rather watch nothing, then maybe it’s time for you to make the kind of content you would like to see?

I am going to be putting my money where my mouth is very soon and releasing my own comic book campaign. I have been working on the project for around 3 months and have put together a great team. I hope to release the campaign in a couple of weeks. My feeling is that if I can tell an entertaining story, then I should. I want to continue with my economic and political analysis, but I also think it’s important to provide people with mental relief and a short escape from some of the harsher realities of our times.

Leftists and woke corporations do not want you to be able to escape. They want their ideology in your face 24/7 until you give up and submit.

The existing franchises that we used to take for granted when we were children are gone; they are all owned by people with dishonest intentions that hate American culture and want to see it debased into oblivion. We have to accept this fact, move on from the old stories and old content, and make our own. We have to become the new sages and storytellers of our age because no one is going to do it for us.

Some people might argue that all of this is meaningless. Why worry about media and culture when we are in the middle of an economic crisis? What these folks don’t seem to grasp is that part of the reason we are in this mess is because we allowed our own cultural decline. We became apathetic in our vigilance and let mentally and ideologically unstable people take over platforms of influence. No longer. Their time is coming to an end. We are going to take it back; every piece of it, and we will do that by building a decentralized media army from the ground up.

In the latest example of U.S. sanctions sparking new financial ties between out-of-favor countries, Iranians will soon be able to make payments with Russia’s Mir bank cards. The move will provide some relief to everyday Iranian people and businesses victimized by economic sanctions. 

“I think this payment system will be activated in Iran soon,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Medhi Safari said Wednesday, according to Russia’s RIA news. Mir translates into both “the world” and “peace.”

The Mir card system was introduced by Russia’s central bank in 2015 after MasterCard and Visa were forced by the U.S. sanctions regime into terminating business with several Russian banks. Up to that point, MasterCard and Visa accounted for 90% of payments in Russia. After Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, remaining Russian banks lost their Visa and MasterCard relationships.  

Mir’s reach has spread to many other countries and territories, including South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Work is underway to enable the cards’ use in Cuba and the United Arab Emirates. More than 100 million Mir cards have been issued to date. 

Russia’s Mir arrangement with Iran is just the latest of many examples of tightened economic relations between the two targets of U.S. sanctions.

• “The two are also working to create a rival to the SWIFT payments messaging service that underpins cross-border payments across the global economy,” reports Reuters.​​

• On Tuesday, Iranian economic minister Ehsan Khandouzi announced that the U.S. dollar had been officially replaced by the ruble in Iran’s trade with Russia, and that work is underway to replace the dollar in business with China, Turkey and India. 

• Also this week, Iran and Russia entered a deal by which Iran will supply aircraft parts and maintenance services to Russia. 

• On July 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Tehran and met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi, along with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.  

• On the eve of Putin’s visit, Russian gas producer Gazprom and Iran’s national oil company signed a $40 billion deal in which Gazprom will help develop oil and gas fields, and complete liquefied natural gas facilities and gas export pipelines. 

• In June, Iranian state media announced a test of a new trade route linking Russia and India via Iran.  

Despite the West’s economic warfare, the ruble is actually stronger against the dollar today than it was before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To the extent sanctions encourage a growing list of countries to engage in non-dollar-denominated transactions, a weaponized dollar may ultimately explode in America’s face. 

Authored by Suzanne Burdick,

The authors of a new report on digital identity systems warned “the actual and potential” human rights violations arising from the digital ID model can be “severe and potentially irreversible.”

The 100-page report — “Paving the Road to Hell? A Primer on the Role of the World Bank and Global Networks in Promoting Digital ID” — published by New York University’s (NYU) Center for Human Rights and Global Justice urged human rights organizations to heed the threats posed by a global push for digital IDs.

The NYU researchers said many proponents — including the World Bank — portray digital IDs as a means to achieving greater inclusivity and environmental sustainability when, in fact, the systems are likely to do just the opposite.

According to the report, the digital ID has been dressed up as an “unstoppable juggernaut and inevitable hallmark of modernity and development in the 21st century,” causing dissenting voices to be “written off as Luddites and barriers to progress.”

The authors argued for open debate “with full transparency and involving all relevant stakeholders,” including the most marginalized and most vulnerable.

The authors, who include Christiaan van Veen, L.L.M., special advisor on new technologies and human rights to the United Nations, urged the human rights community and related civic society organizations to ensure that global decisions about the adoption of digital ID systems are not hastily made but are based on “serious evidence and analysis.”

Where digital ID systems threaten human rights, the NYU researchers said, such endeavors should be “stopped altogether.”

Who’s really profiting?

“Governments around the world have been investing heavily in digital identification systems, often with biometric components,” the authors said in a statement.

Digital ID systems that frequently collect biometric data — such as fingerprints, iris or other facial feature recognition — are being adopted to replace or complement non-digital government identification systems.

According to an Access Now special report, in India in October 2021, digital ID systems — or “Big ID programs” as Access Now called them — are being pushed by a market of actors who sell and profit from digital ID systems and infrastructure, often while endangering the human rights of the people they’re supposed to benefit.

The NYU researchers reached the same conclusion:

“The rapid proliferation of such systems is driven by a new development consensus, packaged and promoted by key global actors like the World Bank, but also by governments, foundations, vendors and consulting firms.”

Digital ID proponents argue the systems can contribute to inclusivity and sustainable development, with some going so far as to consider the adoption of digital ID systems a prerequisite for the realization of human rights.

But the NYU researchers said they believe the “ultimate objective” of digital ID systems is to “facilitate economic transactions and private sector service delivery while also bringing new, poorer, individuals into formal economies and ‘unlocking’ their behavioral data.”

“The promises of inclusion and flourishing digital economies might appear attractive on paper,” the researchers said, “but digital ID systems have consistently failed to deliver on these promises in real world situations, especially for the most marginalized.”

The authors added:

“In fact, evidence is emerging from many countries, most notably the mega digital ID project Aadhaar in India, of the severe and large-scale human rights violations linked to this model. These systems may in fact exacerbate pre-existing forms of exclusion and discrimination in public and private services. The use of new technologies may furthermore lead to novel forms of harm, including biometric exclusion, discrimination, and the many harms associated with ‘surveillance capitalism.’”

The benefits of using digital ID are “ill-defined” and “poorly documented,” the NYU authors said.

“From what evidence does exist, it seems that those who stand to benefit most may not be those ‘left behind,’ but instead a small group of companies and governments,” they wrote.

They added:

“After all, where digital ID systems have tended to excel is in generating lucrative contracts for biometrics companies and enhancing the surveillance and migration-control capabilities of governments.”

More harm than good, especially for world’s most marginalized

The authors did four things in their report.

First, they examined the human rights impact of national digital ID systems and argued that a cost-benefit analysis of digital ID systems suggests they do more harm than good — especially for the world’s most marginalized individuals.

“Through the embrace of digital technologies, the World Bank and a broader global network of actors has been promoting a new paradigm for ID systems that prioritizes what we refer to as ‘economic identity,’” the authors wrote.

They added:

“These systems focus on fueling digital transactions and transforming individuals into traceable data. They often ignore the ability of identification systems to recognize not only that an individual is unique, but that they have a legal status with associated rights.

“Still, proponents have cloaked this new paradigm in the language of human rights and inclusion, arguing that such systems will help to achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals.”

The authors added:

“Like physical roads, national digital identification systems with biometric components (digital ID systems) are presented as the public infrastructure of the digital future.

“Yet these particular infrastructures have proven to be dangerous, having been linked to severe and large-scale human rights violations in a range of countries around the world, affecting social, civil, and political rights.”

Prioritizing ‘economic identity’

Next, the researchers looked at how an “identification for development” agenda driven by multiple global actors came into being.

They discussed the digital ID system called Aadhaar that is currently being tried out by the government of India and the digital ID system promoted by the World Bank —  Identification for Development, commonly called the ID4D Initiative.

The ID4D Initiative draws inspiration from the highly criticized Aadhaar digital ID system in India.

In the Aadhaar system, individuals are voluntarily assigned a 12-digit random number by the Unique Identification Authority of India — a statutory authority backed by the government of India — that establishes the “uniqueness” of individuals with the help of demographic and biometric technologies.

This digital ID model, NYU report authors said, is dangerous because it prioritizes an “economic identity” for an individual.

The model is not about an individual’s identity alone, confirmed Joseph Atick, Ph.D., executive chairman of the influential ID4Africa, a platform where African governments and major companies in the digital ID market meet.

It’s about their economic interactions, Atick said.

The ID4D model “enables and interacts with authentication platforms, payments systems, digital signatures, data sharing, KYC systems, consent management and sectoral delivery platforms,” Atick announced at the start of ID4Africa’s 2022 annual meeting in mid-June, at the Palais de Congrès in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The authors of the NYU report criticized this model:

“The goal then, is not so much identity as it is identification. The three interlinked processes of identification, registration, and authorization are an exercise of power.

“Through this process, one actor acknowledges or denies another actor’s identity attributes. Individuals may be empowered through the process of identification, but such systems have long been used for the opposite purpose: to deny rights to certain groups and exclude them.”

Third, the authors assessed the nitty-gritty details of how the World Bank and its network of proponents of digital ID systems worked to implement an “identification for development” agenda around the globe.

They explained how the funding and governance of the ID4D Initiative operate, and claimed the World Bank and its corporate and governmental partners are “manufacturing consensus” by presuming that the shift to a digital ID model is inevitable, desirable and required for human progress.

But this “manufactured consensus” lacks a basis, they said.

“Concrete and robust evidence of the purported benefits associated with digital ID systems is rarely provided, it is merely asserted that digital ID will lead to inclusion and development,” the authors wrote.

3 steps privacy advocates can take

Finally, the authors outlined what human rights organizations and other civil society actors can do by highlighting three modes of action:

• “Not so fast!” Organizations can demand that governmental adoption of digital ID systems not be rushed.

The authors wrote:

“Before any new or augmented digital ID systems are rolled out nationwide, it is vital to establish an evidence base and take all necessary steps to anticipate and mitigate possible harms in advance. Baseline studies, research into the specific context, cost-benefit analyses, value for money analyses, and impact assessments are necessary and should be demanded every step of the way.”

• “Make it public.” The design and possible implementation of a digital ID system need to be thoroughly discussed in democratic forums, including public media and Congress or parliaments.

“Civil society organizations should demand openness with regard to plans, tenders, and the involvement of foreign governments and international organizations,” they said.

• “We are all stakeholders.” While the World Bank presents itself as a respected advisor to governments who should be allowed to shape and create governments’ digital ID policies, it is only one actor.

“It is important to realize,” the authors wrote, “that, ultimately, everyone has a stake in systems of identification, digital or otherwise, which are essential to recognize individuals and effectuate their human rights.”

They added:

“More and more organizations and experts are beginning to grapple with the rapid spread of digital ID around the world, from digital rights organizations to groups representing people with disabilities, and from experts working on social and economic rights to development economists.

“As this range of organizations grows, it will be crucial to share experiences, learn from one another, and coordinate advocacy.”

Human rights alliances can ‘reimagine’ the ‘digital future’

According to the report, multidisciplinary and geographically diverse alliances can not only help to ensure digital ID systems are not deployed “in the harmful ways described in this primer,” but can “also help reimagine what the digital future without the particular model of ID systems promoted by the World Bank and others could look like.”

They said:

“As digital ID systems are determining the shape of governments and societies as we hurtle into the digital era, questions as to their form and design — and their very existence in the first place — are critical.

“What alternative visions can we offer that will better safeguard human rights and preserve the gains of countless years of struggle to improve the recognition and institutionalization of rights?

“When we bring together actors who want a society where the human rights of every individual and group are protected, what kinds of digital ID systems might we imagine? How might digital ID systems be designed to truly promote human well-being?

“How would this alternative, rights-fulfilling vision differ from the economic, transactional identity described here, as promoted by the World Bank and others? Indeed, would we have digitalized identification systems at all?”

The authors did not provide answers to these questions.

Rather, they aimed to “bring together the excellent work that our partners, colleagues, and others have tirelessly undertaken around the world” and facilitate collaboration “to ensure that the future of digital ID enhances, rather than jeopardizes, the enjoyment of human rights.”

China blasted the White House in a Friday foreign ministry press conference, charging the US administration with lying after a Biden spokesperson said the president raised the issue of Uyghur Muslim genocide and forced labor camps with Xi in their over two-hour Thursday phone call.

The controversy started when White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters soon after the call that Biden “raised genocide and forced labor practices by the [People’s Republic of China],” explaining that is something the president “always does” when he speaks with Xi.

According to White House Press Secretary, “genocide” & “forced labor” came up in last night’s call between Chinese & US Presidents. That is disinformation. pic.twitter.com/sKdZQfqVnJ

— Spokesperson发言人办公室 (@MFA_China) July 29, 2022

“This is, as we’ve said, that anytime the president has an opportunity, he raises that when he meets with another leader, and called on [the] PRC to cease its ongoing human rights abuses across China,” she followed with.

Except Beijing now says this was cut out of whole cloth, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian vehemently rejecting this account in a Friday statement, saying:

“I can tell you that allegations of ‘genocide’ and ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang are pure lies.”

“You said the White House press secretary claimed that ‘genocide’ and ‘forced labor’ came up in last night’s call. That is false information.”

Curiously, neither the Chinese government’s nor the White House’s call readouts mention anything regarding the Uyghurs in particular, but only an ultra-broad “discussed a range of issues” phrase was used by the Biden administration in its press release.

In follow-up, The New York Post questioned the Biden administration about the matter, with a National Security Council spokesman saying, “I’m not going to get into a back and forth with a PRC government spokesperson.”

The NSC official added, “The president raised concerns about human rights with President Xi, as he always does. He was crystal clear about his concerns. He also raised the need to resolve the cases of American citizens who are wrongfully detained or subject to exit bans in China.”

…so somebody is indeed lying, given the clear discrepancy. 

Meanwhile, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is en route to the region on her Asia tour, which might include an ultra-provocative stopover in Taiwan…

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” Analysts warned at a top-level think tank forum that open options in military and comprehensive countermeasures ranging from economy and diplomacy from China will wait if Pelosi gambles to visit Taiwan island. https://t.co/zDDsidxb3m

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 29, 2022