From Freedom to Fingerprint: The Digital Dollar is a Surveillance Weapon

T.J. Johnson Mar 31, 25

We’re Not Being Forced—We’re Complying

They’re not kicking down the door. We’re handing them the keys.

The quiet rollout of central bank digital currencies—CBDCs—isn’t being forced on us with tanks or troops. It’s arriving through our phones, our debit cards, our “tap to pay” convenience. This is not modernization. This is financial pacification—and most Americans don’t even realize they’re surrendering their last shred of economic autonomy.

No Competition Allowed: The War on Alternatives

Philip Lane of the European Central Bank recently doubled down on the need for a digital euro. Not to empower people—but to eliminate competition. Competing payment systems? Gone. Stablecoins? Replaceable. Cold, hard cash? Already halfway to the grave. The state wants one pipeline for your money—and total control over the faucet.

A Generation That Never Held Freedom

You don’t need a conspiracy to see the writing on the wall. Walk into any college classroom. I did. Out of 30 students, not a single one carried a dollar bill. Not one coin. They live on Venmo, Apple Pay, and plastic. They’ve never held privacy in their palms, because they’ve never been taught to value it.

Cash use among young people has collapsed. From 28% to 13% in five years. And once that generation becomes the majority, CBDCs won’t need to be mandated—they’ll be expected. That’s what makes this so terrifying: The people cheering this on don’t even know they’re being digitized into submission.

Killing the Dollar Abroad Hurts the Vulnerable

Globally, the dollar is still king. But even that won’t protect us. There’s over $2.3 trillion in U.S. currency circulating worldwide, and most of it exists outside our borders—as a lifeline for people suffering under corrupt or collapsing regimes. Erase paper dollars, and you erase hope in places like Argentina, Venezuela, or Lebanon.

They Say It’s About Crime—It’s Really About Control

And the justifications? Always the same: “We need to stop crime.” Sure. But the moment every transaction is tracked, the state doesn’t just know what you buy—it knows who you are. It knows what books you read. Where you protest. Where you eat. Who you tip. It builds a profile—and that profile can be used to score you, flag you, or freeze you.

Cash is freedom. Period.

The Next Step: Negative Interest, No Escape

And here’s the kicker: without cash, the government can do things they’ve only dreamed of doing before. Think negative interest rates. Imagine logging into your account and seeing your balance slowly shrink just for existing. With cash, you could say “hell no” and pull your money out. But with a CBDC? You can’t pull anything. Your money isn’t yours. It’s a number on a screen they control.

The IRS Will Love This—The Poor Will Suffer

Then there’s taxation. Informal labor. The babysitter. The street vendor. The guy fixing a car in his driveway. All of them survive because of cash. The informal economy is 7% of GDP in the U.S.—small, but vital. Low-income households rely on it. In fact, those making under $25,000 use cash for 36% of their payments. Digital dollars won’t just track them—they’ll punish them.

Force them into formal banking systems they can’t afford. Impose fees they can’t dodge. And rob them of the small freedoms they do have.

Convenience Is a Lie—And a Trap

Yes, tapping your phone at a register is slick. But it comes with a cost: a financial system that watches your every move and judges your worth by your spending habits. Once cash is gone, resistance becomes economic suicide. And don’t think it’ll take decades. The number of “card-only” businesses is exploding. The window is closing.

This Is a Civil Liberties Emergency

This isn’t just a financial shift. It’s a moral crisis. A civil liberties emergency hiding in plain sight. If we allow the convenience of digital currency to eclipse the rights of the individual, we are not advancing—we are surrendering.