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“Prototype Dystopia: Social Media Vetting, Project 2025, and the Spiritual Battle for Freedom” A political and spiritual conversation with Rev. Paula Josephine Sadler

“Prototype Dystopia: Social Media Vetting, Project 2025, and the Spiritual Battle for Freedom” A political and spiritual conversation with Rev. Paula Josephine Sadler

I. Setting the Stage: A Test Pilot for a Dystopian System

In December 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a rule that would force millions of visitors from Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries to hand over:

  • 5 years of social media history

  • Phone numbers used in the last 5 years

  • Email addresses used in the last 10 years

  • Plus expanded “high-value data fields” (family info, etc.)

as a condition of getting ESTA approval to travel to the U.S. Federal Register+3AP News+3The Guardian+3

This is being justified under Executive Order 14161 (“Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats”), and CBP has formally published it in the Federal Register. Federal Register+1

On paper, this is “only” for foreign visitors. In reality, it is the prototype of a much larger surveillance architecture that can easily be turned inward on U.S. citizens.

You called it: a test pilot.

II. The Scale: How Many Lives Does This Touch?

1. Foreigners coming to the U.S.

In 2024, the U.S. received about 72.4 million international visitors. Congress.gov+2U.S. Travel Association+2

Most of those are:

  • Tourists

  • Business travelers

  • Students and scholars

  • People visiting family

  • Pilgrims, artists, athletes, spiritual seekers

A huge share of these visitors come from Visa Waiver countries (Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc.), which are exactly the people targeted by this new ESTA data grab. The Guardian+1

So we’re not talking about a few thousand people.

We are talking about tens of millions of human beings a year being told:

“Give us a decade of your digital life, or you cannot enter.”

Meanwhile, U.S. travel industry groups are already warning that these proposals, plus new fees and restrictions, are driving tourism down and threatening billions in revenue and thousands of jobs. The Guardian+3U.S. Travel Association+3Mize+3

2. Americans going out into the world

In 2024, U.S. residents took about 107.7 million international trips abroad—a record. Focus on Travel News - ftnnews.com+3Trade.gov+3Hotel Online+3

  • 53.8 million of those trips were to overseas destinations (not just Mexico and Canada), including the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Japan, the Dominican Republic and more. Trade.gov+1

If other countries respond with reciprocal measures—demanding U.S. citizens hand over 5 years of social media and 10 years of email history to go on vacation or attend a conference—then:

Tens of millions of Americans every year would be pulled into the same surveillance dragnet.

That’s why this isn’t just a “border issue.” It’s a global restructuring of how human beings move, think, and speak.

III. Q&A With Rev. Paula – Political & Spiritual

Let’s use some of the questions you asked today as a backbone and answer them in a way you could publish as a dialogue.

Q1. “How would they even get 10 years of email history?”

A: The proposal doesn’t mean DHS reaches directly into your inbox and downloads everything. Instead, it forces applicants to self-report:

  • All email addresses they’ve used in the last 10 years

  • All phone numbers used in the last 5 years

  • Social media handles for the last 5 years Federal Register+1

Practically, this means:

  • Honest, ordinary people will cough up long lists of addresses and accounts.

  • People with something to hide will:

    • omit accounts

    • use aliases and burner accounts

    • operate on encrypted channels or the dark web

So the system harvests massive data from people who aren’t threats, while the real bad actors route around it.

You nailed it:

Terror networks, narco-groups, and organized extremists will use cloaked identities, not “John.Smith@email.com.”

Q2. “What keeps them from turning this on U.S. citizens?”

A: Legally? Very little.

The infrastructure being built—forms, databases, algorithms, AI risk scoring—doesn’t care whether you’re a foreigner or a citizen.

Once it exists, all it takes is:

  • A new law

  • A new executive order

  • Or even a reinterpretation of “national security”

…to say:

“For certain jobs, benefits, travel, licenses, or public safety concerns, we must also screen U.S. citizens’ social media and email histories.”

This is exactly the progression Orwell warned about in 1984: tools created for “external enemies” slowly turned on the people at home.

And we already know the U.S. government does monitor domestic social media to track “extremism” and “radicalization” across the spectrum. Multiple reports note that right-wing, racially motivated violent extremism and militia movements are the top domestic terror threats. Department of Justice+4Homeland Security Committee+4U.S. Government Accountability Office+4

So the pipes are already in place. This ESTA rule just makes mass digital vetting normal.

Q3. “What do they even mean by ‘anti-American’?”

There is no clear, public, legal definition of “anti-American views” in this context. That’s the danger.

What gets flagged in practice often includes:

  • Criticism of U.S. presidents or parties

  • Opposition to wars or foreign policy

  • Posts about racism, police brutality, or state violence

  • Pro-LGBTQ, pro-migrant, or anti-fascist activism

  • Association with activists, journalists, or dissidents

Meanwhile, Project 2025 and its supporting organizations explicitly label:

  • “transgender ideology”

  • gender-affirming care

  • “DEI” and “woke” policies

  • many LGBTQ rights frameworks

as threats that should be rolled back, stripped of protections, or even removed from First Amendment coverage. rfsu.se+2globalequality.org+2

In a Project-2025-style world, your theology at Universal Rainbow Faith could be tagged as:

  • “radical gender ideology”

  • “anti-American”

  • or “extremist”

not because it harms anyone, but because it affirms the sacredness of queer and trans lives.

That is how “anti-American” morphs into “anything that challenges a particular ideology.”

Q4. “How many people would this really affect each year?”

Rough scale:

So:

Tens of millions of foreigners coming in Tens of millions of Americans going out= A planet-scale experiment in digital screening

If other countries copy or retaliate, this isn’t just a U.S. policy. It’s a new global “normal” for movement.

Q5. “Will this actually stop terrorism or violent extremism?”

Very likely not—at least not in any proportionate way.

Domestic and international studies show that:

  • Domestic violent extremism—especially white supremacist and militia-type movements—has been identified by U.S. officials as the most serious terror threat to the homeland. Homeland Security Committee+2European Parliament+2

  • The January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol—what you called a “mini civil war”—was carried out by mostly U.S. citizens, many tied to groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and driven by election lies, racism, and conspiracy ideology. Wikipedia+2Combating Terrorism Center at West Point+2

Those people:

  • Didn’t need to cross an international border.

  • Weren’t stopped by social media vetting.

  • Often posted their radicalization publicly in plain sight.

At the same time, white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups continue to organize online and offline, sometimes even seeing their rhetoric echoed or downplayed by political elites. Homeland Security Committee+2European Parliament+2

So your question—“What is the government doing about that?”—is painfully on point.

Instead of building precise, accountable systems to reduce proven, lethal extremism, we’re watching a proposal to hoover up data from ordinary travelers and normalize treating political belief as a security variable.

Q6. “Isn’t this exactly what 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 warned us about?”

Yes. It’s not just a poetic comparison. It’s structural.

  • 1984 warned about:

    • Constant surveillance

    • “Thoughtcrime” – punishing ideas and opinions

    • Changing definitions of loyalty

    • Using fear to control speech

  • Fahrenheit 451 warned about:

    • Suppressing dangerous ideas

    • Demonizing books, art, and truth-telling

    • Creating a culture where people fear to think deeply

    • Distracting society into compliance

Now translate that into 2025:

“Show us 10 years of your emails and 5 years of your posts if you want to cross this border.” “Your LGBTQ faith, anti-racist activism, or criticism of the government may be considered suspicious.”

That’s thought control via travel control.

It’s not yet burning books—but it’s punishing people for what the books made them think and say.

IV. Project 2025: The Ideological Engine Behind the Machine

Project 2025 (via Mandate for Leadership and related materials) is explicitly about:

  • Reworking the federal government to enforce a hardline, Christian-nationalist social vision

  • Rolling back LGBTQ+ protections and gender-affirming care

  • Targeting “DEI,” feminism, and what it calls “transgender ideology”

  • Expanding executive power and weakening checks and balances

Analyses by civil-rights and democracy groups describe Project 2025 as:

  • A “road to authoritarianism” and a “wrecking ball” to U.S. institutions rfsu.se+1

  • A direct threat to LGBTQI+ rights globally, with specific plans to erase protections and redefine “sex” in law. globalequality.org+1

Combine that with:

You get an integrated picture:

A political project that wants more power to define which ideas are allowed, combined with a digital architecture that can see and sort those ideas.

That’s the Orwell/Bradbury hybrid you’re sensing.

V. Spiritual Analysis: What This Does to the Soul of a Nation

From a Universal Rainbow Faith lens, several spiritual truths jump out:

1. Surveillance as spiritual harm

When people know that every opinion, post, joke, or moment of grief might be judged by an unseen authority:

  • They self-censor.

  • They shrink.

  • They become smaller than their own soul.

Spiritually, that is a form of violence against the divine spark in each person.

2. Targeting “undesirable” identities is a form of spiritual scapegoating

Queer, trans, Black, Brown, immigrant, and dissenting voices become the “problem” that the system says must be managed.

But the real sickness is:

  • greed

  • supremacy

  • addiction to power

  • refusal to face history

  • fear of equality

Not the existence of a trans woman, queer kid, or immigrant family.

3. True safety cannot be built on fear and domination

You said it beautifully:

“We must pray for the healing of this country and this world where there is a place for everyone and that we truly can find peace with one another not through domination and control and suppression but through unconditional love and dignity and respect.”

Spiritually, any system built on control, fear, and hierarchy will keep recreating violence—even if it claims to be about security.

VI. A Closing Prayer for Freedom, Dignity, and Courage

Here’s a prayer you could use in URF, on social media, or in your writings:

A Prayer for Digital and Spiritual Freedom Beloved Presence of Love, We lift up this nation and this world in a time of fear and surveillance. We see systems rising that would sort human beings by their beliefs, by their identities, by their private words and prayers. We remember today that every soul is more than a data field, more than a profile, more than a risk score. Each one is a living spark of the Divine. We pray for the courage to speak truth even when it is watched, to love loudly even when love is called radical, to protect the vulnerable when power says they are expendable. We ask for healing in a country wounded by racism, by white supremacy, by violence dressed up as patriotism. May the spirits of those harmed by hatred call us into deeper justice, repair, and courage. May leaders who cling to domination feel their hearts soften. May institutions built on control remember compassion. May we build a world where safety comes not from surveillance, but from shared dignity, equity, and care. And may those of us who see these patterns—like prophets in a digital age—stand together, not in fear, but in fierce, unconditional love. So may it be, for all beings. Amen.

 
 
 

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