In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
The simple answer is to reject the cashless society.In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused.Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisely what these people want and is exactly why we can't give it to them.I'll take inconvenience over slavery any day of the week.This isn't some sort of anarcho-libertarian paradise opinion, I have no issue with there being a well functioning justice system.But yeah, if you want to seize assets, get a court order and go and lock someone in a box and take their things, don't take the cowardly way out and pretend that you've just flipped a database key and it's not really a big deal.By the same token, if you tell me there's been a murder on my street I'll give you the CCTV footage of my door cam. If you ask me for a backdoor, I'll tell you where to shove it. That's what being a member of a free society is, that seemingly minor distinction is one of the most important things we have and better minds than mine have sought to elaborate on why.Even a child is able to understand that force is still force regardless of whether it involves the direct visible physical kind.