Trump using border security to expand mass surveillance capabilities
As predicted by The Strident Conservative, Donald Trump is using the border security issue to expand government’s mass surveillance capabilities and ultimately give Big Brother what it needs to track anyone and everyone it chooses.
Earlier this month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents put out a call for tech companies to pitch real-time face recognition technology that can capture everyone in a vehicle, and not just those sitting in the front seats (via Wired.com):
United States Customs and Border Protection is asking tech companies to send pitches for a real-time face recognition tool that would take photos of every single person in a vehicle at a border crossing, including anyone in the back seats, and match them to travel documents, according to a document posted in a federal register last week.
The request for information, or RIF, says that CBP already has a face recognition tool that takes a picture of a person at a port of entry and compares it to travel or identity documents that someone gives to a border officer, as well as other photos from those documents already “in government holdings.”
“Biometrically confirmed entries into the United States are added to the traveler’s crossing record,” the document says.
An agency under the Department of Homeland Security, CBP says that its face recognition tool “is currently operating in the air, sea, and land pedestrian environments.” The agency’s goal is to bring it to “the land vehicle environment.” (Emphasis mine)
Real-time face recognition? Biometrically confirmed? Air, sea, and land? If these things sound familiar, it’s because they were included an article I posted just days after Trump’s 2024 victory; warning how he would use border security to launch biometric digital IDs and expand the surveillance state.
It’s been his goal from the very beginning:
“We will finally complete the Biometric Entry/Exit Visa Tracking System which we need desperately. It will be on land, sea, and air. We will have a proper tracking system.”
Trump and his Republican buddies, who were in control of Congress at the time, attempted to implement a biometric digital ID in 2018 when they were pretending to be working on a fix for DACA. I use the word “pretending” because Trump had twisted himself in knots trying to look like he was dealing with the DACA problem while simultaneously promising to take care of illegals because he had such a “big heart.”
In an effort to help their fearless leader achieve his goals, the Republican-controlled House introduced the Securing America’s Future Act of 2018 (H.R.4760), a 400-page monstrosity authored by Rep Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Encompassing everything from education and the workforce to Homeland Security and the military, this so-called immigration bill contained a tiny little detail about biometric identification in the form of a National ID card that would be required for every American.
According to Ron Paul, SAFA gave the government many liberty-killing powers:
- It would have allowed federal bureaucrats to include biometric identification information on the card, potentially even including fingerprints, retinal scans, or scans of veins on the back of hands, which could easily be used as a tracking device.
- It would have been required for all US workers, regardless of place of birth, making it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the US who didn’t obtain an ID card.
- It would have required every employer to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government, meaning that any time a citizen applied for a job, the government would know.
- They would have ultimately required “ID scans” to make routine purchases, as well.
This ID card had the capacity to be used as a tracking device, and it would have been required to hold a job, open a bank account, or get on a plane.
Wait a minute. Get on a plane? Now where have we heard that recently?
Enter the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program launched in 2005 known as the REAL ID Act. Though allegedly created to improve airport security in post-9/11 America, REAL ID is just another next step toward the creation of a surveillance state — a primary objective of the new Trump administration — that will give government the ability to track your every move.
Allegedly created to establish federal standards for driver’s licenses, the REAL ID Act requires everyone applying for a driver’s license to provide the DMV with their social security number, proof of legal residence, and two proofs of their home address. Additionally, the REAL ID Act gives DHS the authority to mandate, as it sees fit, the inclusion of additional items to put in the government database, such as various “biometric” identifiers like retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA.
The Republican/Democrat duopoly denies that the REAL ID turns state driver’s licenses into national ID cards capable of giving government the ability to spy on Americans because states have no mandate to implement REAL ID. However, history shows us that REAL ID is only one piece of government’s puzzle.
How long before these biometric ID cards will be required before government allows you to make routine purchases? Before you answer that question, consider this: the Central Bank Digital Currency currently being pushed by tyrants in both parties in Washington would have that exact power — making a biometric digital ID card the perfect companion to CBDC and the coming social credit system.
And let’s not forget success government had when other forms of digital IDs were created during the previous “crisis” known as COVID-19. Current and former officials around the globe believe that COVID created the perfect timing to create a digital ID card program as the solution to dealing with the lockdowns and social distancing laws created during the so-called pandemic.
Donald Trump took several steps to make America a testing ground for a digital ID during the so-called pandemic via Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner. It was Kushner who, in cooperation with his father-in-law, proposed the creation of a Patriot Act for healthcare and a government/private sector partnership to create a new “surveillance and data collection system” capable of tracking Americans’ COVID status.
The technology being developed and used to address border security will make it easier for government to expand its mass surveillance capabilities and track our every move, thus creating a society where liberty can be destroyed at the push of a button. It begins by declaring a “national emergency” at the border and it ends with facial recognition, martial law, and a government that holds full control over who they will allow to move and who they won’t.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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