The Nyumba Kumi initiative, enabled by the adoption of a Digital Identity card and integrated into the larger Safaricom Surveillance Camera system, would be a powerful tool of control as it reaches in to all aspects of the individual’s life. That is to say, beyond movement, the Digital Identity Card would enable control of all social and economic transactions of individuals, society-wide. And this is no exaggeration; this is the vision as articulated by the Government of Kenya itself.
To paint a picture, today many buildings and institutions are inaccessible without Identification Cards. The manual nature of the system makes it impossible to scale without significant financial cost and inconvenience.
But the Digital Identity Card coupled with legislation that requires all institutions to acquire Digital Identity Card Access-Control and Readers systems, would enable the system to not just track an individual within metres of accuracy and record all transactions (this is all already possible) but to also embargo an individual at atomic transaction level. This is to say, today while it is possible to track and trace individuals and entire populations, it is not possible to finely control or limit movement and transactions.
But with the Digital Identity Card and Digital Cash (Cashless System), it will be possible to lock an individual out of society not just economically but physically. As all socio-economic institutions will authorize through the “single source of truth” Digital ID infrastructure. That is, the buildings we currently cannot enter because a watchman will not let us in will be inaccessible because a door will not let us in, and this will extend all the way in to the economic system.
We will all live in a massive open door prison-complex, but when you are blacklisted you will essentially be incarcerated out in the open. It will be possible to banish you from society without physically pursuing you to physically remove you.
Activists in the West politically resisted Digital Identity Cards, as they are alert to the danger this portends as it gives unknown people virtually unlimited power over society, and the USA has not succeeded in implementing this system upon its citizens. This has not stopped it from pursuing its implementation over other societies. An example, in 2014, Cabinet Secretary Ole Lenku and Deputy President William Ruto after a visit to the United States, said that Kenya was working with the US and Israel to implement the Digital Identity Card system. This resistance is now by and large inconsequential. The entry point for the Digital Identity system has been determined by global elites to be the financial system, whose powerful convenience makes resistance futile.
This World Economic Forum vision is faithfully followed through and executed by the local comprador.
The entry point for this Digital yoke is the financial system and not the political. It will sneak up on the population. M-Pesa, which is the primary financial transaction infrastructure for the population provides the ultimate Digital ID platform nexus as an intersection for finance and mobile communication.
What is important to keep in mind here is not so much that we are building a prison-complex around ourselves, but that we are building someone else a prison-complex around themselves. This is not a secret. Edward Snowden revealed to us we do not own our phones, because we do not own the software on our phones. According to the Daily Nation, Ms Gatabaki gleefully informs us we do not even own the Digital ID system financially i.e. it has been paid for by someone else, an unknown entity.
That we do not own the Digital Access-Control Prison-Complex on any level, neither technical nor financial is not a secret. Ms Gatabaki revealed all….
Ms Gatabaki captures the insidious nature of the entire project best with her boast
“We will reach a point where you will not get basic public services without presenting your digital ID”.
The inverse use of the system that Ms Gatabaki is NOT talking about is its use a blacklist. It will, after full implementation, be possible to completely lock an individual socially and economically out of society.
What she may not be seeing is the fact that, by this system, it will also be possible to lock an individual out PHYSICALLY too, that is, not just socio-economically.
In Africa, the state system provides little in service. The government is largely extractive. For most of the plebeian masses, getting blacklisted would probably be a boon equivalent to filing “chapter 11” in the United States. One would be safe from the taxman and all debtors, rechanneling economic transactions through alternative channels probably at some cost in the form of transaction fees and commissions. What we need to understand is that this blacklist will not limit itself to the economic and administrative domain, as Ms Gatabaki’s statement seems to imply. It will be capable of locking an individual out socially.
Remember society has evolved to a point where all transactions even social are expressed via the digital infrastructure. The new polity is, the Network Society.
This system is so effective that, not only will a blacklisted individual be unable to communicate or trade, they could even be unable to physically access many public spaces. It will make total lock-out and lock-down of an individual possible on a society-wide scale with a single checkbox. This is the true nature, purpose and ability of the Digital ID Card system, the technological cornerstone of the evolving British East Africa Protectorate Police State.
Legislative
Executive Order No 9066 of 1942
The Nairobi Metropolitan Command initiative led by Hon. Aden Duale aimed at turning Nairobi in to a Military area has a dark past and a deeply insidious purpose.
It has an American history exhibited by Executive Order No. 9066 of 1942 signed by the then President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizing in a state of war, military commanders to declare areas of the US as military areas from which any and all persons may be excluded. It was used against people with foreign enemy ancestry.
One just needs to replace the word America/US with Kenya and persons with Muslims/Somalis to understand the port of Hon. Aden Duale’s proposed Metropolitan Command Initiative Bill.
The American financed Kenya Military, which is in a state of war with Somalia, could one day incarcerate Nairobi Somalis and intern them in camps or prisons just as the American government did to the Japanese then.
Hon. Aden Duale’s proposed bill would be a legislatively driven Coup d’état, a case of civilian body politic “voluntarily” surrendering governance to the Military, given it would place the Capital city under Military rule. We would be under Martial law but by writ of civilian legislature. It is important to state here, this would be a cul-de-sac, no exit. You cannot legislate the military out of the streets. In Caesar’s words “Alea iacta est,” the die would essentially be cast.
The fact that the initiative is led by a Somali and Muslim would give it legitimacy that translates to a carte blanche for the military in its internment of Muslims or Somalis. The Operation Linda Nchi as a historical reference should give sufficient guidance to the scale of violence this legislation will open to the targeted populace.
GOV.UK Counter Extremism Bill and Snooper’s Charter Version +254
The Attorney General’s proposals to regulate religious institutions and social media were an attempt to directly import legislation from the United Kingdom. His efforts completely mirrored Theresa May’s equivalent efforts in wording and timing with her 2015 Counter-Extremism Bill and Snooper’s Charter. Fortunately, the strong resistance by members of the clergy blunted his attack against his own people for and on behalf of imperialism.
The clergy understood that the definitions of extremism and terrorism are deliberately and essentially vague. The terms extremist and terrorist can therefore be used against any individual or group of individuals as and when those who wield the tools of power decide. This is how it came to be that the Leader of Opposition Raila Odinga was accused by the Police Spokesman at the time of “spreading dangerous ideologies…”, quoting from the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2012, when he rallied the public in calling for resignation of the leadership of the Electoral Body.
Fascist Surveillance
A Corporate private sector that executes the role and functions meant for the Government in Security and Surveillance. The Safaricom Surveillance Camera project coupled with deepening voice and data signal transmission surveillance.
Angular Perspective
The combination above has no counter beyo nd mass informed intransigence, as it is State. But it does raise critical questions.
The legislative pillars create a legal cover and political context for the Police State. The technological tools will amplify and compound its ability, bio power and reach exponentially. This assembly of tools turns the territory into an open prison-complex. It grants a very small group the ability to see and control movement of large populations at a macro level and individuals at the micro level with pinpoint precision.
There are vital questions these developments raise. These are vital issues that all strata of society need to be attuned to and to engage, because as we will reveal in our next issues…
…We neither own nor control a single aspect of this powerful system of control.
The history indicates none of these are native initiatives. Ms Gatabaki and Ole Lenku revealed the entire Digital Identity initiative is foreign funded, owned and executed but did not specify who owns the identity management system no why and how the Government of Kenya handed the chain to the yokes on the population’s necks.
The representatives in the Parliament lack both the ideological depth and drive to propose or drive such complex and malevolent legislations.
Counterterror bills were passed in over 100 countries in a span of less than 15 years.
It is public knowledge local legislator can only unanimously pass their perks. No one would seriously tolerate contemplation of the idea that Aden Duale Leader of House Majority ideated the concept of declaring Nairobi Metropolitan Command. Neither could any stretch of the imagination legitimately propose the native military generals as the protagonists of such an initiative. And we do recognize their industry in what is locally termed “tender-preneurship”.
At least, the synchrony of timeline of Theresa May’s proposals for the Snooper’s charter and Kenya’s Attorney General revealed his ventriloquist.
Who guaranteed the Safaricom GoK Surveillance Project at a time when the country’s S&P credit rating was Non-Investment grade speculative “Negative”? The GoK’s credit rating did not qualify it for direct private sector financing. And to believe Bob Collymore’s submission that Safaricom trusted the GoK with 14 Billion of its shareholder’s money (of which the GoK is already paying harsh interest rate penalties for delayed instalments repayments, literally proving the point it is a less than attractive debtor) in his words “as stakeholders we have to be partners in the war on terror…” in other words out of the goodness of his heart would qualify one as politically incompetent.
These are the important questions. Questions we will endeavour to look deeply into, in the coming issues.
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