Thread by @VigilantFox

The walls of your digital prison are closing in.

What seems harmless is quietly becoming the perfect surveillance tool.

It won’t just watch you. It will control you.

Picture a $5,000 fine ripped from your account instantly—no judge, no jury, no appeal.

How close are we to a future where freedom itself can be shut off like a switch?

🧵 THREAD

It's no secret that the surveillance state is growing, especially as AI capabilities advance. And yet many people still aren't fully aware of just how pervasive the surveillance network has become.

Glenn and Eric Meder from Privacy Academy have been battling for our personal liberties and our privacy for years, and they agree—it's getting scarier by the day.

We’ve reached the point when the government itself is talking about AI surveillance in the homes of private citizens. That is an actual conversation happening in the US as we speak.

Glenn and Eric say there is a solution to all of this, and it isn't too late. They join us today to discuss.

Glenn Meder opened the interview by tracing his passion for privacy back to Edward Snowden and the Patriot Act. But it was COVID that turned his concerns into urgency. What he witnessed, he said, was “COVID tyranny”—a globally coordinated campaign to “crush our liberties.”

Their weapon wasn’t just laws and mandates, but the technology itself. Surveillance has become the linchpin of authoritarian control, and Glenn is urging people to wake up to how quickly it’s being turned against freedom.

Maria pressed the point further, warning that repression didn’t stop with the pandemic—it accelerated. In Canada, retroactive prosecution for speech was floated. In the UK, she noted, there are now “30 arrests a day” for nothing more than opinions posted on the internet.

Eric added that he now avoids the UK entirely out of fear he’d be one of those arrested. The crackdown, he explained, is hidden behind the “Online Safety Act,” which claims to protect children but is really, in his words, “all about how do we gather more control.”

The message was chilling: COVID wasn’t just a moment of government overreach, it was the launchpad for a new era of censorship and surveillance, where even your words can put you behind bars.

FREE webinar on Wednesday, September 10th

In Glenn’s upcoming class, he’ll reveal easy, actionable steps anyone can use to protect their privacy online.

The class is free—sign up at the link below to reserve your spot.

privacyacademy.com/pulse

Glenn then painted a darker picture of where surveillance has already gone. In Texas and Australia, citizens are being forced to prove their age just to access search engines and app stores.

He made it clear that this has nothing to do with protecting kids. “Google, Microsoft, Apple, they have AI on our computers right now that is watching us. It’s taking a screenshot of our screens every second.”

That AI, he explained, is like having “an FBI agent looking over your shoulder 24/7, never blinking.”

“This is already in place,” he warned, stressing that the acceleration is so fast, people should be terrified of where it’s heading.

The conversation turned to digital IDs and the “digital twins” governments are building to track us in real time.

Glenn tied it directly to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), warning that the danger isn’t just in the digital format—it’s in the programmability.

With CBDCs, punishment won’t even require arrest. “You’re just going to get a $500 fine instantaneously… There’s no appeals process.” The money, he said, would be pulled from your account on the spot.

“They’re going to train you like a dog, and it's going to be very effective,” Glenn added, making it clear this system isn’t about finance at all—it’s about “total control and total manipulation.”

When the topic shifted to VPNs, Maria pointed out that governments, like in the UK and Australia, are already planning to monitor their use.

Glenn admitted not all VPNs are trustworthy, but insisted that the right one remains a crucial tool. Then he took it a step further, framing the issue as a matter of principle.

“I don’t promote going against the government. I promote liberty and standing up for liberty,” he said. Using a VPN, he argued, isn’t rebellion—it’s defending “our God given rights” from illegitimate state power.

His warning landed with force: if VPNs are banned, every citizen must decide—
“Are you going to just comply or are you going to stand up for your God given rights?”

The interview closed with a sweeping look at what’s at stake. @zeee_media directed viewers to the free Privacy Academy webinar, noting it would give people real steps to protect themselves against the surveillance state.

Glenn followed by explaining that privacy is more than personal safety—it’s the front line in the fight against CBDCs, digital IDs, and social credit systems.

He stressed that people must “get their own house in order” first, controlling their data before they can take the fight to their communities. The old prepper model of hiding away, he warned, is no longer an option.

“What they’re trying to do is enslave humanity,” Glenn said. Once the system is locked in, he added, reversing it will be nearly impossible. “We have a small window of time that we can stop this.”

Maria echoed the urgency, pointing out that the plan is to corral people into heavily surveilled smart cities, not let them “willy nilly live out in the bushes.”

Eric brought it full circle with a sobering observation: “Our smart devices are Trojan horses… social media is designed to create addictions… and then it’s designed to manipulate you.” Yet he ended on a rare note of optimism, saying that if people take back control of their technology, we could build one of the freest societies the world has ever known.

The conclusion was unmistakable: liberty itself is on the line, and only awareness and action can preserve it for future generations.

Thanks for listening. Watch the full interview below. We hope this conversation opened your eyes to just how deep the surveillance state runs—and why protecting your privacy matters more now than ever.

Sign up for Glenn’s upcoming class:
privacyacademy.com/pulse