It’s coming. Have no doubt about it. Governments, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Rockerfeller Foundation, Gavi and Microsoft, have been working hard on developing a vaccine passport for years now and covid provides the perfect storm for them to usher in a new era. It’s hard not to imagine them all sat there in the black leather chairs rubbing their hands in glee at the massive profits and unforeseen levels of control that they are on the cusp of gaining access to.
ID2020 Times it Perfectly
Since 2016, the ID2020 Alliance has advocated for ethical, privacy-protecting approaches to digital ID. In their own words:
For the one in seven people globally who lacks a means to prove their identity, digital ID offers access to vital social services and enables them to exercise their rights as citizens and voters and participate in the modern economy. But doing digital ID right means protecting civil liberties and putting control over personal data back where it belongs... in the hands of the individual. Every day, we rely on a variety of forms of identification to go about our lives: our driver’s license, passport, work badge and building access cards, debit and credit cards, transit passes, and more.
But technology is evolving at a blinding pace and many of the transactions that require identification are today being conducted digitally. From e-passports to digital wallets, online banking to social media accounts, these new forms of digital ID allow us to travel, conduct business, access financial and health records, stay connected, and much more.
Back in September 2019 in the now alien pre-covid world, the ID2020 Alliance announced the roll out of a digital identity program with the Government of Bangladesh; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and new partners in academia, government and humanitarian relief.
Digital ID is being defined and implemented today, and we recognize the importance of swift action to close the identity gap,” said Dakota Gruener, executive director of ID2020, in an announcement. “Now is the time for bold commitments to ensure that we respond both quickly and responsibly. We and our ID2020 Alliance partners, both present and future, are committed to rising to this challenge*.”
Fast forward a few months and they certainly got their “challenge”. Not only does covid open up the opportunity for them to start to roll out their vision of everyone having a vaccine passport, doing so will potentially be the start of their so-called “new normal” where all our assets are digitised and controlled via people’s smart phones… . Big tech must be creaming their pants.
This may sound great for some but it is unprecedented and means that the data of anyone using the vaccine passport, or other similar future developments, will be monitored and tracked at all times. This constitutes the biggest expansion of the surveillance state ever seen in the world and has far-reaching impacts on our civil liberties.
The Plan
In Europe, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, plans to implement the Digital Green Certificate, which has three primary objectives: providing proof of vaccination, recovery, and/or results of a recent covid test. According to her this should ultimately represent a “path to gradual, safe, and lasting reopening,” by enabling citizens to “move safely and freely in the European Union. Such certificates shall be available for all EU citizens and respect non-discriminatory and data protection standards.”
Oh, wow. It’s about freedom then…. I must have completely missed that one. Great. So, when we will be free then? When we’ve all had the (experimental) vaccine?
Honestly, the ability of these kind of people to turn meanings on their head is so Orwellian it’s untrue. The Digital Green Certificate is not about freedom. Not one bit. It is about control over you, your body and your data. It really is that simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be tripping. Oh, wait, it seems that this must be some really strong trip as much of humanity seems to be on it… Freedom is slavery. Test the healthy. War is Peace. Herd immunity through mass vaccination… They have lost the plot.
Despite current recommendations from the WHO, which discourages national authorities from mandating covid immunisations passports numerous countries such as - Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, Austria, and Greece are considering introducing vaccine passports. Similarly, Asian and American governments are considering such a move. In contrast, the French government has expressed its concerns regarding passports.
Israel has been at the head of the pack in many ways with its response to covid and this is certainly the case with the vaccine passport. Indeed, the government has now issued a green-pass, allowing individuals to attend gym classes, theatres, concerts, and hotels; use of such certificates has extended to those wishing to sit inside restaurants and bars. Yet, while this approach has already allowed about 5 million citizens to return to some “normality,” the process of implementing and enforcing the use of these passports remains problematic, mainly from logistic, legal, and ethical aspects.
In addition to national measures, large private actors (e.g. British tour operator Sage and British Airways) are considering introducing vaccine passports. Travel insurers may also look to operate a two-tier system charging higher premiums for unvaccinated individuals.
A Modern Monty Python in Motion
In the UK the response from the government has been comical, to say the least. Back in February 2021, the vaccine minister - Nadhim Zahawi - said: “Vaccine passports would be “discriminatory” and the government has “no plans” to introduce them in Britain”.
In December 2020, the Cabinet Minister and general whopper, Michael Gove dismissed reports customers may need to have the jab to go to pubs or sports events. He added: “I certainly am not planning to introduce any vaccine passports and I don’t know anyone else in government [who is].”
By March 2021, Gove, was launching a charm offensive to persuade sceptical MPs to back a domestic covid passport scheme, the strongest indication yet that the government intends to press ahead with the plan.
All this coming from the man who famously hosted cocaine fuelled party on the day he condemned middle-class coke users.
Indeed, it seems that this was all probably irrelevant anyway as the government itself started laying the foundation for vaccine passports way before any of this with them funding eight vaccine passport schemes despite claiming 'no plans' for rollout.
Oh how we howled…. ho ho ho. Honestly, why are we even listening to these people anymore?
Anyway, I digress, where were we?… ah yes… The Modern Monty Python Sketch. Now enters the dark villain of the piece, Tony “War Criminal” Blair who is leading the crusade for the vaccine passport. According to him “digital health passports are an invaluable weapon in containing the spread of the virus” and the “UK needs to take the lead on developing and implementing them”. Thanks for that Tony. Now jog on back to the Hague.
Seeds of Hope and Resistance
Leading in the push back against the vaccine passport are two states in America – Texas and Florida – where Gov. Ron DeSantis and Gov. Greg Abbott, have enacted legislation to outlaw vaccine passports in April.
"It's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society," Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a recent press conference.
Such passes were unnecessary, and he expressed privacy concerns over large corporations' handling of vaccine data. "You want the fox to guard the henhouse?" he said. "Give me a break."
Civil society has also started to wake up to this threat to civil liberties. To date (23rdth April) 344,848 in the UK have signed a petition to stop this. In Europe 281,134 have signed a petition .
Russell Brand has started to sit up and put his neck above the parapet on the issue. Big up!
The awesome Kit Knightly from the equally awesome Off Guardian highlighted how the EU has been looking to increase the scope and power of vaccination programmes since well before the current “pandemic”.
Lockdown Skeptics has provided it’s usual, regular high-quality content on the issue.
Civil Liberties group - Big Brother Watch – have been relentless in their advocacy to highlight that this is the most draconian infringement of our human rights that we have seen proposed in our lifetimes. They need our support.
Cool dude, John Bush, has also been exploring How to Opt Out of Immunity Passports and Improve Your Quality of Live While You’re at It in his Live Free Now show.
Finally, over 1,200 Christian leaders, to their great credit, have also signed a letter to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning against the introduction of vaccine passports, which would “risk creating a two-tier society, a medical apartheid in which an underclass of people who decline vaccination are excluded from significant areas of public life”. Its signatories also state that there are “no circumstances” in which they would close their church doors to those who do not have a vaccine passport.
So Watch Exactly Is the Risk Posed by the Vaccine Passport?
According to the human rights group, Liberty
It is impossible to have immunity passports which do not result in human rights abuses. We should all be able to live our lives free from unnecessary interference – any form of immunity passport would rob us of that. And history tells us that once we give up these hard-won rights, we rarely get them back.
Even the introduction of a voluntary passport to prove if you’ve had a vaccine could result in many being blocked from essential public services, work or housing. Meanwhile once these passports have been created for one purpose – like travel – it would be all too easy for their use to be extended and abused.
This would result in a two-tier system in which some people can access freedoms and support while others are shut out – with the most marginalised among us hardest hit.
This has wider implications, too. Any form of immunity passport could pave the way for a full ID system – an idea which has repeatedly been rejected as incompatible with building a rights-respecting society.
What’s more, the public have good reason not to trust those in power with large-scale digital projects involving access to our personal data.
We have seen countless data cock-ups over the course of the pandemic. Figures recording coronavirus cases have mysteriously been lost, police records have been wiped, and apologies for data-breaches have been issued to various groups.
What’s telling is that in all conversations about immunity passports, little attention is paid to privacy protection or data access. In desperately looking for a way out of endless lockdowns, people are not giving serious consideration to how immunity passports would jeopardise our freedom in the long-term.
That means rejecting strategies like immunity passports which are based on exclusion and division.
Without doubt, the vaccine passport points towards a potential widening societal divide between those who are vaccinated and those who are not. Those with certification of covid immunisation might be permitted to travel, work, go to the gym, play sports, attend entertainment events, dine in restaurants, and ultimately, return to “normal” life. According to Clare Wenham of the London School of Economics: “From an ethical point of view vaccine passports are completely unacceptable. You’re going to create a two-tier system and history shows that when you create division within society it leads to civil unrest. It’s vaccine apartheid.”
In their report, A Terrible Great Idea? COVID-19 ‘Vaccination Passports’ in the Spotlight, academics from Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy & Society highlight how a vaccination passport is effectively a shorthand for a requirement to discriminate. In their own words “the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated yet again that the Emperor is naked”.
To round things up for this week, I am going to leave you, my dear reader, with the words of a somewhat surprising source – one of Pfizer's former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy and Respiratory, Dr Mike Yeadon. If you haven’t seen what he has been saying about covid, please check him out and dig deeper here. This is a brave man who has put his good name and potentially his life on the line to question the narrative. In his words:
If these types of health passport are introduced it is setting a precedent and I fear that our freedoms and civil liberties are being slowly taken away under the guise of “safety” by power drunk politicians more interested in money than people’s health.
It’s strange to me that the entire western economy has been ground to a halt to protect a demographic of people who are in the latter stages of life. Harsh but fair when it’s so blindingly obvious that the government are relentlessly pushing the experimental vaccines onto the same vulnerable groups that they profess they are trying to “protect”. I wonder if the 3rd wave is, in fact, a means to try and cover up all the excess deaths from the vaccines? It’s highly unusual to have a wave of flu in peak summer, is it not?
This government knew there was going to be an exceedingly high number of adverse events for these vaccines, otherwise they wouldn’t have tendered for an AI software system to process the excessive volumes they were expecting.
Please don’t promote the vaccine passport anymore, as it’s monumentally unethical when the medium-and long-term effects of these vaccines are currently unknown. The public don’t deserve any of these draconian measures being suggested.
Please stand up for the people. Do not condemn them.
Those who think vaccine passports are good or at least ok, I’m addressing you.
If you were a vulnerable person and have been vaccinated, you’re protected. You don’t need to know others’ immune status. Note, even if they’ve been vaccinated, that doesn’t guarantee they can’t carry a single virus particle and donate it to you. So it doesn’t help you or make your safer to know everyone else has been vaccinated.
If you’ve declined vaccination for example because you’re not at risk from this virus, noting younger people are at MORE risk from influenza than from Covid19, you also don’t need to know anyone else’s immune status.
Vaccination protects those who need it. Vaccine passports protect nobody.
But vaxpass is useful to our overlords. It’ll be the worlds’ first, common format database, operable anywhere from Bolton to Bogata, containing your unique digital ID and an editable health status flag (initially about vaccination status).
Who controls that database and any algorithm governing what it permits and denies has absolutely totalitarian control over every aspect of your life.
Imagine a future in which a valid Vaxpass is required to enter a sport ground or museum. Invalid Vaxpass, no entry.
Now imagine the rules are hardened up (they will be). Now you can’t enter large shopping malls or hotels without a valid pass.
Further? Sure, why not. The algorithm is tweaked and now you cannot enter large supermarkets or any public transport.
A tyrannical step might be a Visa / MasterCard tweak that requires a valid Vaxpass BEFORE a terminal will open up for a purchase transaction.
Now you can’t even buy a bottle of water. Or fuel. Or anything.
Ping! Your Vaxpass orders you to report for your top up vaccine. If you don’t, your pass expires. Do you think you’ve got a choice?
Ping! You’re reminded to bring your grandson in, too, as his mother hasn’t. If you don’t, your pass becomes invalid, as does the babies mothers’ pass. Still think you’ve got a choice?
The fact that I can easily come up with examples must tell you at least that the potential for utterly totalitarian control of the entire population forever lies like a worm at the centre of this beyond-Orwellian future.
It’s not speculative. We’re told this system is about to happen. You’ll be coerced to be vaccinated or you’ll rapidly be marginalised.
Once you’re vaccinated, the limited freedoms they allow you can be withdrawn at any moment.
Don’t kid yourselves that “no one would be this evil”. I refer you to numerous examples during the last century. There are plenty of evil people and the only difference here is SCALE and the irreversible nature of it.
Now you’ve seen what is so easy to do to take complete control of a whole society, you MUST object and find ways to prevent a vaccine passport system from coming into being. By any and all means necessary.
Finally, to those who say this is all a series of unfortunate and incompetent errors, please watch this documentary. Long before you get to the end, you’ll realise, as I did with mounting horror, that this is absolutely not incompetence. It’s rehearsed and exercises like this have been war gamed for years if not decades. It’ll perhaps change your thoughts as to the origins of this mess and crimes.
But please, one thing: do not say you weren’t warned.”
