Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vows to defend Bitcoin against ‘invasive surveillance’

Roughly a month after he announced his willingness to run in next year’s U.S. presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared he will defend Bitcoin (BTC) against what he describes as “invasive surveillance”. 

During a speech he gave on the final day of the 2023 Bitcoin Conference in Miami, Kennedy declared the top crypto won him over when he realized the Canadian government was using surveillance and data tracking systems to prevent truckers protesting against pandemic measures from accessing the funds in their bank accounts. 

“We live in a time now that technology has dangerously expanded the capacity for governments and corporations to control our lives,” the politician said, as quoted by Decrypt. 

“Distant, impersonal multinationals and authoritarian technologies have usurped realms of human activity that were once private or held by the community,” according to the presidential candidate. 

Party rival blasts Biden’s tax proposal

The politician also criticized President Joe Biden’s proposal to impose a 30% tax on energy use for BTC miners, claiming it would necessitate the development of an invasive surveillance system to analyze miner energy usage.

Kennedy is the son of U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy’s nephew. In an April 19 speech during which he unveiled his bid to challenge President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 2024, he blasted the pharmaceutical industry, social media platforms he accuses of censorship, Biden’s commitment to the war in Ukraine, but also former President Donald Trump’s “lockdown” of the U.S. early in the pandemic, The New York Times reported. 

“This is what happens when you censor somebody for 18 years,” Kennedy said during his speech, making a reference to his claims that social media platforms and mainstream media outlets have not given him a fair hearing. 

“I got a lot to talk about. They shouldn’t have shut me up for that long because now I’m really going to let loose on them for the next 18 months. They’re going to hear a lot from me,” according to Kennedy. 

The paper observes that, while polls indicate that up to 50% of Democrats want someone besides Mr. Biden as the party’s 2024 nominee, no party leader has mounted a challenge to the sitting president, enabling “fringe presidential aspirants from both parties who run to bring attention to a cause, or to themselves“.