Scanned

Book excerpt: Unprecedented levels of government surveillance; loss of privacy through corporate data mining; centralized digital currency; behavioral tracking and control: Is this the digital future we’ve been sleepwalking towards? “Nick Corbishley has the frenetic energy of someone who has seen too much. His book is fantastic.”—Russell Brand, “Under the Skin” podcast Untold millions of people in “democracies” all over the world were barred from accessing basic services in 2021—from earning a living or traveling within their own country—because they lacked proper digital identification surrounding the vaccine. For many, 2021 will be remembered as the year that basic, long-standing bioethical principles such as bodily autonomy, bodily integrity, and the informed consent of the patient ended. In Scanned, investigative journalist Nick Corbishley examines and exposes the lies and overreach that underpin the wholesale erosion of personal freedoms that is continuing to happen at an alarming rate. In clear language supported by rigorous research, Corbishley uncovers how the rollout of vaccine passports, digital IDs and centralized digital currency not only represents an unprecedented violation of privacy and bodily autonomy, but how it perpetuates the idea that a “small” collective sacrifice will allow us to return to normality. Today, digital “health” IDs threaten to go totally global, with the World Health Organization’s tacit endorsement. On all five continents governments and corporations are quietly but quickly rolling out digital ID programs. At the same time, 90% of the world’s central banks are exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC), with half of them already developing an electronic version of their fiat money. These interlocking initiatives threaten to radically reconfigure the way societies and economies function. If successful, they will facilitate the single largest expansion of totalitarian power in history, exposing citizens to unprecedented levels of government and corporate surveillance, data mining, and behavioral control. The stakes could not be higher. And if things continue on the current path, Corbishley makes clear, getting back to “normal” is never happening. Put simply, instead of a return to normality, we will see the creation of a starkly different form of existence in which most of us will have virtually no agency over our own lives.