Bubbles of Freedom
How privacy tech can help you defend yourself from obedience enforcement systems (aka social credit systems)
Le Monde has published a long article describing the hellish life of Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the ICC in The Hague.[^1]
The U.S. has sanctioned Guillou for authorizing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes in Gaza.[^2] As Arnaud Bertrand writes:
“Guillou’s daily existence has been transformed into a Kafkaesque nightmare. He cannot: open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company; make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it); conduct online commerce, since he can’t know if the packaging is American; use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American); access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts; conduct virtually any financial transaction.”[^3]
A similar de facto obedience enforcement system—widely known as a social credit system—already exists in the United States.[^4]
Many who disobeyed or spoke out against U.S. COVID policy suffered the same censorship, debanking, cancellation, and de-platforming.[^5]
Although Trump campaigned on rolling back the predatory state, authoritarian policies have mostly expanded under his administration.[^6]
Using fear and hatred of immigrants as the primary justification, the administration has:
...sharply increased enforcement of the Real ID law. Without a Real ID-compliant document, it is now extremely difficult to legally work or travel domestically.[^7]
...massively increased staffing and funding for DHS and ICE. The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA) directs roughly $170 billion in additional funding to immigration and border enforcement over four years (FY 2026–2029), on top of regular appropriations.[^8]
This includes tens of billions for detention expansion and enforcement operations, likely doubling detention capacity to more than 100,000 beds and making ICE the single most heavily funded law‑enforcement agency in the federal government.[^8][^10]
Put differently: by 2029, OBBBA‑driven spending leaves ICE with a budget larger the entire budget of the U.S. Marine Corps.[^10]
ICE plans to hire 30,000 new staff by 2029—a 44% net increase.[^9]
...expanded surveillance of social media and other digital traces of immigrants and visa holders.
DHS collects social‑media accounts from visa applicants and travelers at scale,[^11] and combines this with existing financial‑surveillance rules (AML/KYC, Suspicious Activity Reports).
This produces a de facto dragnet over both what immigrants say online and how they move money.
The de facto social credit system aka government obedience system is likely to intensify in the near future:
New passenger vehicles will soon be required to include government-mandated “impaired-driving prevention” technology that can remotely disable the car.[^12]
Fixed and drone-mounted surveillance cameras are being installed at an accelerating pace.[^13]
Many of the same institutional ecosystems—and in some cases the same people—who enforced government-dictated censorship on social-media platforms during the COVID era now hold senior safety and policy roles at leading AI companies. Unsurprisingly, they continue to heavily censor and bowdlerize chatbot outputs, as systematic tests of “AI censorship” have already documented.[^14]
How can we defend ourselves?
Ultimately, the only lasting solution is for a majority of citizens to punish politicians who vote for these measures at the ballot box and, when necessary, through civil disobedience.
In the meantime, decentralized, private, open-source technology can create bubbles of freedom—protected spaces where people can communicate, transact, and organize without being easily monitored or punished.
The following tools are already battle-tested and effective:
Privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies (Monero, Zcash, Zano, etc.)
Private messaging apps (Signal, Session, SimpleX, DarkFi IRC)
Open-source, locally run AI models (Llama, Mistral, Qwen, etc.)
Decentralized social media (Nostr, Mastodon/Pixelfed, PeerTube, Odysee)
Decentralized file sharing (BitTorrent, IPFS, Sci-Hub/LibGen mirrors)
Paid VPNs with strong no-log policies (Mullvad, IVPN, ProtonVPN)
Privacy-hardened operating systems (GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, Tails, Qubes OS, hardened Linux distributions)
The more communication and commerce we conduct in a decentralized and private manner, the less leverage obedience-enforcement systems have.
They can’t freeze money they don’t know you hold.
They can’t censor speech they never see.
They can’t fire you from a job they can’t trace.
Want help to build your bubble? Subscribe to my newsletter here on Substack. In addition, please connect to me on Signal at archerships.43. I’ll add you to my private group: libertygardeners.
Bibliography
[^1]: “Nicolas Guillou, French ICC Judge Sanctioned by the US: ‘You Are Effectively Blacklisted by Much of the World’s Banking System,’” Le Monde, November 19, 2025, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/nicolas-guillou-french-icc-judge-sanctioned-by-the-us-you-are-effectively-blacklisted-by-much-of-the-world-s-banking-system_6747628_4.html.
[^2]: Ibid.
[^3]: Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand), thread on US sanctions against ICC Judge Nicolas Guillou, November 2025, https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1991352574390227129.html.
[^4]: Hans A. von Spakovsky, “Sleepwalking Into a China-Style Social Credit System,” Heritage Foundation, February 13, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/big-tech/commentary/sleepwalking-china-style-social-credit-system.
[^5]: New Civil Liberties Alliance, “Massive Government Censorship During and About Covid,” accessed November 22, 2025, https://nclalegal.org/massive-government-censorship-during-and-about-covid/.
[^6]: NPR Staff, “Hundreds of Scholars Say U.S. Is Swiftly Heading Toward Authoritarianism,” NPR, April 22, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/1245255095/trump-democracy-authoritarianism-competitive-survey-political-scientists.
[^7]: J.D. Tuccille, “With REAL ID, America Now Has National ID Cards and Internal Passports,” Reason, May 23, 2025, https://reason.com/2025/05/23/with-real-id-america-now-has-national-id-cards-and-internal-passports/.
[^8]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “Secretary Noem Commends President Trump and One Big Beautiful Bill Signing into Law,” July 4, 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/04/secretary-noem-commends-president-trump-and-one-big-beautiful-bill-signing-law; see also American Immigration Council, Brennan Center, and NILC analyses of OBBBA’s immigration and detention funding (summarized in discussion).
[^9]: USA Today Graphics, “ICE Drops Age Limit to Boost Recruitment. Charts Show How Agency Is Growing Under Trump,” USA Today, August 7, 2025, https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/08/07/no-age-limit-for-ice-budget-increase/85558104007/.
[^10]: Snopes Staff, “Unpacking Claims Trump Admin Budgeted More Money for ICE Than US Marine Corps,” Snopes, July 8, 2025, https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/08/trump-ice-budget-marines/.
[^11]: Associated Press, “US Immigration Officials Look to Expand Social Media Data Collection,” accessed November 22, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/social-media-immigration-applicants-handles-dhs-f67b480abebff7e451056be17572593d; see also U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “DHS-OPS-PIA-004 Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative,” https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhs-ops-pia-004f-publicly-available-social-media-monitoring-and-situational-awareness.
[^12]: H.R.1137 – No Kill Switches in Cars Act, 119th Cong. (2025), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1137 (referencing the existing mandate in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, § 24220).
[^13]: Martin Robbins, “The US May Be Heading Toward a Drone-Filled Future,” MIT Technology Review, September 30, 2025, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/30/1124470/the-us-may-be-heading-toward-a-drone-filled-future/.
[^14]: Matt Novak, “We Tested AI Censorship: Here’s What Chatbots Won’t Tell You,” Gizmodo, September 20, 2023 (updated 2025), https://gizmodo.com/we-tested-ai-censorship-here-s-what-chatbots-won-t-tel-1851370840.