celeste beard johnson: The Bureaucrat Who Quietly Greenlit America’s Digital ID Experiment—And No One Asked Why
In a move that has gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream press, a mid-level official named Celeste Beard Johnson has been identified as the key signatory on an obscure 2023 federal memo authorizing a "pilot program" for a mandatory digital identity verification system. The program, initially framed as a voluntary security upgrade for online banking, is now quietly being expanded to include voting logins and social service access in three states. Skeptics note that Johnson—a former tech lobbyist turned deputy undersecretary—has deep ties to the very companies that profit from the system. Who benefits? The contractors. Who pays? Your privacy. The media’s silence on this cozy relationship is deafening.