Escape the Digital Purse Seine

purse seine - a large wall of netting deployed around an entire area or school of fish. The seine has floats along the top line with a lead line threaded through rings along the bottom. Once a school of fish is located, a skiff encircles the school with the net. The lead line is then pulled in, “pursing” the net closed on the bottom, preventing fish from escaping by swimming downward.

Due to the relatively short lifespan of human beings, it can be difficult to put our own life experiences in perspective with history. This is why we have the saying, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” Combine a lack of historical knowledge with the fact that human nature doesn’t change much, and you have a recipe for human-caused misery, repeated over and over.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado, we see an example of human nature gone awry, with lethal results. From the first, the reader is privy to Montresor’s disgust toward Fortunato, and his desire to exact revenge for a perceived insult. As the story progresses it should be evident to Fortunato that Montresor has ill intent, but Fortunato cannot imagine the evil, so he continues into the depths of the catacomb, willingly walking toward his own demise while being plied with wine and called “friend.” Even as Montresor is about to place the last stone that will seal Fortunato’s death in chains behind the brick wall, Fortunato calls it a good joke that they will laugh about later. Montresor agrees, drops his torch into the opening, places the final brick, and piles old bones of his ancestors in front, where half a century later “no mortal has disturbed them.”

There are analyses interpreting Poe’s story, and its intended message, but surely one lesson is to pay attention when all the signs indicate that you are in a bad situation, even as others try to convince you of their solicitude and concern for your well-being. This is the dire situation of humanity today, in the form of the digital prison that is being formed right before our eyes under the guise of convenience, efficiency, and safety.

Casting the net:

While most of us go about our lives working, playing, taking care of ourselves and our families, and interacting with others who are equally engaged in similar life activities, the tech and surveillance industries are barreling forward with plans to change everything. The partnerships forming and strengthening among corporate, tech, academia, and government are explained and celebrated with all the right language and ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

For example, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, framed his recent announcement that digital ID will soon be mandatory in order to work in the United Kingdom, as a policy that will appeal to all “decent, pragmatic, fair minded people.” Starmer intoned that mandatory digital ID would address the illegal migrant problem, and help the U.K. to “tackle poverty, conflict, climate change…” Besides, wheedled Starmer, now you won’t have to search through a drawer for your latest utility bill to show proof of residence; you can just show your digital ID. So convenient.

That citizens feel no need for digital ID, and don’t want it, is not of concern to the tech billionaires and their corporate, academic, and government partners, only insomuch as they have to deal with the populace’s viewpoints. That is, in democratic societies they have to at least try to appeal to the public. In tyrannies, the purveyors of advanced technology only have to convince tyrants that it will help them better surveil and control their people. Money is exchanged and tyranny is strengthened.

Those who have already been caught in the purse seine:

Currently in North Korea, Dictator Kim Jong Un uses the death penalty for citizens caught watching and sharing foreign films. Kang Gyuri, who escaped in 2023, told the BBC that three of her friends were executed after being caught with South Korean content. Aided by advances in technology, the North Korean state has increased surveillance and control over “all aspects of citizens’ lives,” according to the UN Human Rights Office.

Meanwhile in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spends more money surveilling its own citizens than it does on its military, using cameras and smart phones to track their every move, all while coordinating with scientists and tech companies to develop increased capacities for monitoring facial expressions, gait, and under-the-skin signals of dissatisfaction with the government.

In the past couple of years, video and photos have shown us Venezuelan citizens protesting Dictator Nicolas Maduro’s unlawful rule, Cuban citizens protesting power blackouts and food shortages, and Iranian men and women calling for women’s rights. These uprisings, remarkable because they so seldom happen in dictatorships, have been crushed by the governments in each of their countries. There is no doubt that surveillance cameras and cell phone tracing were used to locate protestors, many who have been imprisoned and even killed, just for questioning their governments.

Covid vaccine passports were precursors to Digital ID:

It would be a comfort to think that these types of oppressive events cannot occur in western democracies, but that would be untrue. Have you processed that in the free world today there are surveillance cameras at store entrances, on city light poles and traffic lights, in parking lots, at the self-checkout, in the waiting room of the hospital, in school and hotel hallways, and on your neighbors’ doorbells?

One need only look back on the pandemic to see how tenuous our freedoms have become. The Covid virus was used to shut down society and suppress human rights, concurrent with banning people from the public square for not wearing a mask, and later for not taking the Covid shots. Within this framework came the push for vaccine passports, touted by billionaires and government leaders as the way to “get back to normal.”

“It’s so convenient,” they told us. You just show your vaccination status and you’re on your way. Unless you’re in China, where the CCP changed protesting citizen’s Covid status from green to red on their digital IDs, preventing them from accessing public transport, food, and all other aspects of society.

Naomi Wolf, feminist author and journalist, who was a political advisor to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, is the CEO of a tech company. Wolf released a video in March 2021 titled, “Why Vaccine Passports Equal Slavery Forever.” Wolf, author of The End of America stated, “The vaccine passport platform is the same platform as a social credit system like in China that enslaves 8 billion people…Once this platform rolls out, any other function can be linked to it with no problem.”

The Covid vaccine passport did not take firm hold, although it had an oppressive run in places like New York, Israel, and Austria. Still, it is the stated intent of the United Nations to ensure that everyone on the planet has a digital ID by 2030. In 2022, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), one of 15 specialized agencies in the United Nations system, announced plans in Bucharest, Romania, to “accelerate the world’s digital transformation” in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

“We just don’t need the vast majority of the population”:

Also in 2022, Yuval Noah Harari, of the World Economic Forum (WEF), stated that he could “understand and connect to the deep resentment of people, in many places around the world.” He expressed that their discomfort is justified, stating,

The future is about developing more and more sophisticated technology, like artificial intelligence [and] bioengineering, Most people don’t contribute anything to that, except perhaps for their data, and whatever people are still doing which is useful, these technologies increasingly will make redundant and will make it possible to replace the people.

The WEF is tightly connected to the United Nations, through a Strategic Partnership signed in 2019, in which they agreed to implement the 2030 Agenda, merging the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with the WEF’s plans for a “Great Reset” of Capitalism. The WEF’s “Great Reset” can be summed up in the now infamous video where they announced that in 2030 “you will own nothing and you will be happy.” The WEF/UN partnership identifies six areas of focus – climate change, health, digital cooperation, gender equality, empowerment of women, and education and skills – with a plan to “strengthen and broaden their combined impact by building on existing and new collaborations.”

They use words that evoke support from most people, but the actual agendas of these supranational organizations are harmful to humanity. Indeed, OpenAI, an artificial intelligence organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, states that its aim is to develop “safe and beneficial” artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.”

Imagine for a minute what it means to push forward with technology intended to “outperform humans at most economically valuable work.”

Harari notes, that in contrast to past eras when great civilizations were built upon the strength and industry of its workers, with the advancements in AI, “We just don’t need the vast majority of the population.”

Dennis Meadows, an honorary member of the Club of Rome, and a member of the WEF, wrote the original depopulation book Limits of Growth in 1972. Meadows stated years later that Earth can only support 1-2 billion people, but posited, “We could even have 8 or 9 billion, probably, if we have a very strong dictatorship which is smart…If you had a smart dictatorship and a low standard of living, you could have it...” Meadows continues, “We have this fantasy that we will somehow solve climate change but without giving up our material standard of living, and for sure not doing that politically incorrect thing to try to talk about birth rates.”

We’re not talking here about the normal cycle of a new technology rendering some labor force skills obsolete, therefore requiring education for different jobs. People like Harari, Meadows, and other elites in their circle, are talking about eliminating the need for most people.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior”:

Others may not be interested so much in eliminating people, as they are interested in tracking and controlling them. Multi-billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, invited by President Trump to the White House on more than one occasion, is heavily invested in AI development. Ellison states that the “AI Revolution” is “a much bigger deal than the Industrial Revolution, electricity, whatever – everything that has come before.”

In an interview with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Governments Summit on February 13, 2025, Ellison extolled the virtues of AI for treating cancers, and improving crop yields worldwide. “The secret is to get all of that data in one place. Without having the basic data, [AI] cannot answer the questions about your country well.” It might be wise to check first with the farmers to see if they really want a tech mogul surveilling and advising them on farming practices.

Ellison, who practically salivates at the idea of access to whole countries’ data made it even clearer in a September 2024 Oracle financial analyst meeting why he is in favor of A.I. technologies, when he enthusiastically envisioned an Orwellian future, free of crime due to constant surveillance:

The police will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching and recording everything that’s going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching and recording everything that’s going on. We’re going to have supervision…

The mantra today is that personal data is the new big commodity. Most just shrug their shoulders at the thought, others feel mildly uncomfortable but still participate in a growing surveillance system. It used to be only criminals were fingerprinted. Then a few high profile cases led to mandatory fingerprinting for many people in educational and religious employment, among other jobs.

Entering the net - trading autonomy for security and/or convenience:

Meanwhile, the requirement to give personal information to access apps and websites grows, and the freedom to work, associate, and travel becomes more and more limited to you carrying the “correct” identification. For example, you can no longer travel on commercial airlines in the U.S. without a passport, or “Real ID,” which is the gold star the Federal government required all 50 states to include in their driver’s license designs. Real ID was implemented after the TSA, bomb-sniffing dogs, biometric face scans, intrusive body scans, and invasive pat downs at the airport.

With the increasing emphasis on security, tracking, and data, is the world safer? The public assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, the security-camera documented murder of Iryna Zarutska on a North Carolina commuter train, the trans-addled ambush of students participating in Mass at the Annunication Catholic Church in Minnesota, the mass shooting and burning of Latter-day Saints during a church service in Michigan, and the knife attack on Jewish faithful gathered for Yom Kippur at a London synagogue, would say no.

Yet, on cue, the call is always for ever more security in the wake of horrific acts.

Tightening the net:

Starmer’s imposition of digital ID was followed a few days later by the European Union’s announcement that beginning October 12, 2025 a passport is not sufficient for travel in EU countries. Specifically, fingerprints and facial scans will be required at border crossing points within the EU for all non-EU nationals.

The benefits of the EU “entry/Exit System” are explained as “making border checks more modern and efficient, making travel across borders easier and faster, preventing irregular migration, and increasing the security in the Schengen Area,” (the 29 countries of the EU).

Once again they’re employing the “efficient, easier, faster, safer” mantra, combined with claims of preventing irregular migration. To that they’ll easily add preventing terrorism, tracking drug cartels and illegal drugs, and other societal ills.

As a side note, efficiency is not a virtue. Every dystopian story is full of societies that run at peak “efficiency” while the human beings within them are treated as children to be controlled, and as something to be punished if they step out of line.

Concurrent with the EU rolling out biometric border crossing requirements, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the third largest cruise line behind Carnival and Royal Caribbean, opened the world’s first “fully biometric” cruise terminal in the world on October 15, 2025. The facility is capable of processing up to 36,000 passengers daily, “using facial recognition and digital identity verification through 18 biometric face pods and 22 E-gates.” Cruise Report Advisor calls MSC a “transformative force in the cruise industry…inspiring global ports to adopt similar innovations.”

But why? Why do we need border checks, facial scans, fingerprints, and other restrictions? Who does this benefit? Not you or me. Not the countries involved. It benefits only those with financial ties to the technology, and the power that comes with its use. The MSC Miami Cruise Terminal cost $450 million to build. Strange, isn’t it, that MSC would spend so much money just so our wait times are reduced? Of course, collecting the unique biometric markers of every cruise passenger might have some financial benefit on the world information market, but let’s not think about that. Let’s just have a good time.

Over the past few decades, illegal migration has been pushed on a massive scale by complicit government “leaders” throughout Europe and in the U.S., destabilizing our countries. Now they want to “protect” us by implementing biometric technologies that would have allowed Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators to succeed in their failed attempts to rule the world. And they want us to go along with it voluntarily, luring the undiscerning with promises of efficiency, convenience, and safety.

The surveillance and control wall is being built around us, brick by brick.

It’s all designed to help you:

At the World Governments Summit, Tony Blair stated to Larry Ellison, “You’re revolutionizing the way the government works, right? The services it provides, the way that it operates…How can AI help a government operate more efficiently, more effectively, you know – give a more direct and better service to the citizen?”

Ellison replied “[A]s long as countries will give it, will put their data, their health care data, all of it in a single place where we can use AI to help manage the care of all the patients and the population at large. We can deliver a very, very high quality service.” Service to whom?

Comedian and commentator Russell Brand wryly summarizes the views of these supranational organizations and the billionaires who support them in this take:

Now one thing we could do to help you a bit more is get all this fragmented data all over there, passport over there, health information over there, nice and consolidated to help - not Tony Blair, not Larry Ellison, not globalism, not even some proposed or indicated at least world government - but you. Can’t you feel the help?

Busybody supranational organizations:

The World Governments Summit where Ellison and Blair conversed, is a non-profit (always look for that magical moniker) formed by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, in 2013. It’s vision? “To inspire and enable the next generation of governments.” It’s mission? “To become the global platform for shaping future governments.” Why is anyone from a Western democracy participating in a summit on world governments, promoted by a sheikh in Dubai?

Keir Starmer’s September 26, 2025 announcement of mandatory digital ID was made at the Global Progress Action Conference hosted in London. What is Prime Minister Starmer doing announcing a United Kingdom ID policy at a conference hosted by “a progressive think tank” 501(c)(4) non-profit from the U.S.? Global Progress Action is an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which states it is designed to:

defend and promote liberal democracy and inclusive societies, at a time when democracy faces threats from both foreign autocrats and domestic illiberal forces. By addressing the underlying roots of social unrest and building policy ideas for inclusive and sustainable economies, the initiative sets out a policy direction that can advance progressive solutions for societies around the globe.

That’s a big goal for a little ol’ non-profit that the Internal Revenue Service categorizes as a “social welfare organization.”

Starmer states that Brits will not be required to carry their digital ID. It will solely be for the purpose of proving citizenship status in order to enter legal employment. Notably, the immigration crisis in the U.K. developed in spite of there already being a requirement to show proof of citizenship to secure work. Digital ID isn’t going to solve the problems the British government created by indiscriminately opening its borders over the past several decades. But it will allow for thorough tracking of all U.K. citizens.

Using digital ID to close the net:

Naomi Wolf explained in 2021 that if citizens accept digital ID, freedom is over. Wolf states,

There’s no coming back from this…there won’t be any choice. There won’t be Capitalism. there won’t be free assembly, there won’t be privacy, there won’t be choice in anything you want to do in your life, and there will be no escape.

Investigative journalist Whitney Webb, in an interview with Neil Oliver in August 2024, pointed out that Silicon Valley teamed up early on with the National Security State, which allowed them to become monopolies engaged in public private partnerships. For example, Google and Oracle have CIA origins, and everyone from Peter Thiel to Elon Musk have huge contracts with the U.S., and other governments, to provide their technology services.

Webb states that digital ID is essential to the UN/WEF Agenda 2030, noting that biometric digital IDs are going to be rolled out as a solution to illegal migration, voter fraud, cybercrime, and hacking, among other ills of society.

Webb predicted, correctly, that digital ID will be promoted as convenient and efficient, while not emphasizing the fact that those who own the technology, own the information, and have control because they are in charge of “the infrastructure, the software, and the platforms.” Webb states, “I think people need to consider that this ‘convenience’ is really the carrot, and maybe there will be a stick at some point.”

AI and digital technologies are not organic innovations:

When thinking about disruptive technologies over the past centuries, one observation that seems quite clear is that despite the displacement of some workers, over time the technologies increased the availability of food, fuel, consumer goods, and convenience for much of the world’s population. Electricity, sanitary water systems, indoor plumbing, automobiles, air travel, mass production of food and goods, appliances to aid with the day-to-day work of living, all have raised the standard of living for more people than in any other period of history.

Changes in technology have always been disruptive; that’s why we call them revolutions, starting with the Industrial Revolution of the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries. However, what some call Industrial Revolution 5.0, or the 5^th Industrial Revolution, (click here for an explanation of the other four), is significantly different. The merging of humans and machines is arguably not a push for improving the conditions of humanity, but rather a movement toward dehumanization.

That’s why we get this sentence from the article on MSC’s new cruises, “This collaboration marks the first end-to-end biometric cruise experience, where guests become their own passports, redefining convenience, security, and luxury from home to ship.” (emphasis added)

Warning voices:

There are many warning voices as the elite’s plans move full-speed ahead with AI technology. Journalist Bev Turner states, “Leaders lacking empathy are not troubled by reducing humanity to a mere data set upon which they can keep tabs, and at that point, we the people are nothing more than a commodity which can be monetized…We all need to become hypervigilant to the 2030 UN Agenda. Its endgame is control - where and when you travel, what you eat, who you can see, what you can say.”

The genie is out of the bottle with regard to digital technologies and AI, and certainly these technologies are not inherently nefarious or without beneficial purpose. However, what should be happening side-by-side, and even ahead of these developing technologies is the passage of laws and rules that will assure our Constitutional rights, and basic human rights, are protected in the face of these powerful technological developments. That does not appear to be happening.

In a recent interview about his new book, Against the Machine, philosopher and author Paul Kingsnorth states he has a sense, “We are living inside something that is quite inhuman, and becoming more and more inhuman. It’s a system that you can feel encroaching upon you and it becomes tighter and tighter...” Kingsnorth refers to Robinson Jeffers’ poem The Purse-Seine, prompting the title of this article. Kingsnorth noted the the fish do not sense captivity until the drawstring pulls tight and it’s too late.

Whitney Webb has been observing the machinations of the elites for some years, and is aware of the net being pulled tighter. Webb offers hope that we can prevent the tyranny of the globalists and the rising biometric state by refusing to participate. Digital ID and biometrics only work if the regulated cooperate. There are vast efforts and resources being made to try to normalize the invasive technological and even transhumanist agendas, but those driving these efforts are not all powerful.

GB broadcaster and podcaster Neil Oliver states, “I live in Sterling, which is a medium-sized town in Scotland. I talk to all sorts of people…across the demographic. I don’t know anybody who wants lab grown meat. I don’t know anyone that speaks up in favor of milk that’s derived from maggots, who wants to eat insects, who favors CBDCs over other means of exchange. I don’t know anybody who wants to live in a 15-minute city or who wants a digital ID. So although these things are being dangled over us, sort of Damocles style, there is no popular support for them…” Oliver rightly sees this as a source for optimism.

Webb agrees, but says the online environment is compromised enough that it will be manipulated to look like people are in favor of the technocracy the elites are planning. She states that the pushback will have to come in the analog world, starting at the local level, “talking to real people, making real human connections. That’s the only way we can beat this anti-human future that we’re being led into.” Webb, Oliver, Kingsnorth, Wolf, and others emphasize the importance of becoming more capable and self-reliant in our day-to-day lives in analog ways – gardening, sewing, learning how to fix things, reading an actual book, cooking. Also, they emphasize the importance of participating in community organizations and making connections in person, rather than spending so much time online.

Fortunato walked to his death, lulled by Montresor’s promise of Amontillado, and his feigned concern for Fortunato’s health. What would have happened if Fortunato at any point chose not to continue into the catacombs? Once he was chained to the wall, it was too late. It’s important we determine which aspects of the AI revolution we will allow into our personal lives, and which ones we won’t.

They can’t close the net if we don’t cooperate:

Many of us grew up learning the story of Rosa Parks, who said “No,” when told to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Her simple “No” fanned the flame of the Civil Rights movement. Ultimately, it is the small actions of integrity and human connection, performed by each one of us each day, that create a strong pushback against the anti-human forces threatening our continued existence as autonomous, free people.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and founder of Courage.Media, among many other roles, is an unabashed proponent for freedom and Western values. During her lifetime, Ali has gone from being part of a tribal clan in Somalia, to being indoctrinated with Marxism in public school, to joining the Muslim Brotherhood, becoming a prominent atheist alongside friends such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, and through a deep depression that eventually brought her to Christianity. With regard to fighting the battles of our time, Ali states,

Bad things happen when good people do nothing about bad things happening. And good people always have a reason – look after your children, go to your job, and so on and so forth, and it’s not because we are bad people that we do nothing. It’s because we are so focused on the good things that we take for granted, that we end up focusing and not fighting…

Each of us is at a crossroads. Like Fortunato, will we walk willingly into our demise because we can’t imagine the evil intent of others? Will we go along with digital ID or biometric scans because we want to travel in Europe or take that next cruise? Will we take the next mandated injection during a future health crisis (real or manufactured), because our job or college admission is threatened? Will we agree to digital ID because it’s convenient and it’s easier to go along than to fight?

Ali speaks of the forces working against us in these times, gently chides us for having gone along with so many of them in the name of tolerance, and says that this has brought us to the brink of destruction. Ali states,

It is no longer about posturing. It’s about survival. It’s about self-preservation. And it’s our responsibility, those of us who have lived in America and in Europe, and who have benefitted from the fruits of what others fought for and died for, our duty is to pass it on to the next generations…Either we collectively commit suicide or we stand up - demographically, morally, spiritually, economically, militarily – to the forces, the barbaric forces that are here, the Woke, the Islamists, the Marxists. We better stand up to them while we can.

To Ali’s list of the barbaric forces working against us, I will add the transhumanists and those who are building our digital biometric prisons, and to her challenge that we stand up while we can, I say “Amen.”

Edited lightly on 10-26-25 and 10-27-25 to correct formatting and typos, and add a couple of links.

Thank you to Brownstone Institute for republishing this article on November 10, 2025 in the Brownstone Journal

https://brownstone.org/articles/escape-the-digital-purse-seine/