‘We must refuse to give up cash’

 

PETER HITCHENS: ‘We must refuse to give up cash’…

“… [Think] what you will lose if cash is entirely pushed out of use, as the authorities plainly want …

“How long before the state knows everything our banks know about us, especially if Sir Anthony Blair’s revived plan for electronic identity records comes to pass.

“If every transaction is electronic, then every transaction is recorded …

“Your bank, and those who have access to its systems, will actually know where you are, often to within a few yards, every hour of the day …

“In this country, we have seen people ‘de-banked’ because they failed to be the right sort of person.

“How, in a cashless society, could a de-banked person actually survive? …

“In China, an elaborate system of ‘social credit’ can be used to prevent people targeted by the state (allegedly for non-payment of fines or taxes) from travelling within the country.

“In 2018, it stopped 17million people from buying air tickets and 5.5million from taking long-distance trains because they had low ‘social credit’ scores.

“Such power is more or less limitless, once it is operating.

“Combined with perpetual surveillance, it is the Beehive State in action.

“By the simple act of refusing to give up cash or to let it be abolished, we can stand in the way of this dismal danger …”

https://archive.is/Snf1r