Speaking to a packed audience on the final day of the 2023 Bitcoin Conference in Miami, Fla., Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decisively built Bitcoin into his campaign platform, saying the cryptocurrency must be defended against what he called “invasive surveillance.”
“We live in a time now that technology has dangerously expanded the capacity for governments and corporations to control our lives,” Kennedy said. “Distant, impersonal multinationals and authoritarian technologies have usurped realms of human activity that were once private or held by the community.”
Kennedy added that these technologies monitor movements, communications, and transactions, pointing to the trucker protest in Ottawa, Canada, in 2022 as an example.
He said Bitcoin won him over when he witnessed the Canadian administration using surveillance and data tracking systems to block truckers who were protesting COVID mandates from accessing their bank accounts in a bid to end the demonstration.
“When I witnessed this cataclysm, this devastating use of government repression, I realized for…