Catherine Austin Fitts: The control grid enforces surveillance and fiscal control, AI is central to managing financial data, and the push towards a cashless economy raises privacy concerns | Tucker Carlson

Digital control systems are reshaping privacy and power dynamics in the financial world.

Listen on The Tucker Carlson Show

Share

Add us on Google by Editorial Team | Powered by Gloria Mar. 3, 2026

Key takeaways

• The control grid is a digital infrastructure designed to enforce surveillance and control over individuals.
• Programmable money is shifting power from legislative bodies to bankers, allowing them to control fiscal policy.
• Surveillance infrastructure is rapidly expanding in US communities, funded by taxpayer dollars.
• Surveillance systems are increasingly integrated with weaponry, including autonomous systems.
• AI is being developed to manage financial and spatial data within a digital control grid.
• The integration of programmable money, digital ID systems, and local hardware forms a comprehensive control system.
• Central bankers are moving towards real-time control of financial transactions, similar to a social credit system.
• Biometrics are crucial in digital ID systems, facilitating surveillance and control.
• Central bankers are nudging society towards a cashless economy through regulations.
• The financial system is transitioning to greater central control by bankers over fiscal policy.
• Digital surveillance and programmable money are central to discussions on privacy and monetary policy.
• The implications of centralized control over money are critical for understanding current economic trends.
• Surveillance technology’s integration into local governance raises privacy and civil liberties concerns.
• AI’s role in societal control mechanisms is a strategic focus in its development.
• The interconnectedness of technologies facilitates control over individuals.

Guest intro

Catherine Austin Fitts is president of Solari, Inc. and publisher of The Solari Report. She previously served as managing director at Dillon Read & Co. and as Assistant Secretary of Housing under President George H. W. Bush. Drawing on her Wall Street and Washington experience, she warned about mortgage fraud and prevailed in an eleven-year lawsuit against the Department of Justice.

The implications of the control grid

• The control grid is a process or an infrastructure that allows digital technology to be used to assert phenomenal surveillance and control of people.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The control grid enables digital technology to enforce surveillance and control over individuals.
• Understanding the implications of digital surveillance is crucial for discussions on privacy.
• Programmable money plays a role in societal control through monetary policy.

• Programmable money allows the bankers who’ve been running monetary policy to now control fiscal policy and essentially replace legislatures.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The shift in power dynamics related to money and governance is significant.
• Centralized control over fiscal policy impacts economic governance.
• The control grid’s role in societal control mechanisms is a strategic focus.

Expansion of surveillance infrastructure

• Surveillance infrastructure is being rapidly developed across US communities.

• For example, if you look at the local hardware and now people are seeing it… many communities across the United States that are entering into contracts paid by the taxpayers to put up cameras all around their neighborhood that track license plates and keep that data.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The integration of surveillance technology into local governance raises privacy concerns.
• Surveillance systems are increasingly integrated with weaponry, including autonomous systems.

• We are now moving into building out the kind of surveillance systems that can literally track, identify, and integrate with not only our existing weaponry but ultimately autonomous weaponry.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The implications for security and ethics are significant.
• The expansion of surveillance technology is a critical trend for privacy and civil liberties.
• Understanding the extent of surveillance technology is crucial for addressing privacy issues.

AI and the digital control grid

• AI is primarily being developed to build a digital control grid that manages financial and spatial data.

• AI is very good at tracking things that can be expressed mathematically and financial transactions and spatial movement can be expressed mathematically… to build that digital control grid and to manage that data.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The strategic purpose of AI development is linked to societal control mechanisms.
• The integration of programmable money, digital ID systems, and local hardware is essential for establishing a comprehensive control system.

• There are three sort of pillars that I track one is the programmable money… the second is the digital id… and then the local hardware.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• Understanding how these components interact is crucial for grasping the control grid’s function.
• AI’s role in financial and spatial control systems is a key focus.
• The interconnectedness of technologies facilitates control over individuals.

Central bankers and financial control

• Central bankers are establishing a system to control financial transactions in real time, akin to a social credit system.

• This is going to a point where the central bankers whether they do it with a central bank digital currency or private stablecoins and asset tokens are setting the world up so that they can control your financial transactions literally in real time with the equivalent of a social credit system.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The implications of central bank digital currencies on financial privacy are significant.
• Biometrics play a crucial role in the digital ID system, facilitating surveillance and control.

• What role do biometrics play in the control grid that’s part of the digital id system and and and that facilitates the surveillance.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The integration of biometric data into financial systems raises privacy concerns.
• Centralized control over financial transactions impacts personal financial autonomy.
• The potential impact of digital currencies on privacy is a critical concern.

Transition to a cashless economy

• Central bankers are implementing regulations to nudge society towards a cashless economy.

• If you’re the central bankers and you wanna take cash down to zero what you do is you create lots of different kinds of rules and regulations that nudge people in that direction.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The strategic approach by central bankers influences economic behavior.
• The broader context of central banking policies impacts cash usage.
• The transition to a cashless economy is a significant trend in financial systems.
• Central bankers’ influence on cash usage raises questions about economic autonomy.
• The implications of a cashless economy are critical for understanding financial trends.
• The shift towards digital transactions impacts financial privacy and autonomy.

Shifts in financial system control

• The financial system is shifting towards greater central control by bankers over fiscal policy.

• The banks are in a movement for more and more central control again… the financial system for twenty plus years has been steadily moving in all different layers from regulatory to these kinds of things from a world where the bankers control monetary policy to a world where they control fiscal policy.

  — Catherine Austin Fitts

• The historical context of monetary and fiscal policy in the US is relevant.
• The balance of power within the financial system is shifting.
• The trend towards central control impacts economic governance.
• The implications of centralized control over fiscal policy are significant.
• Understanding the role of central banks in economic governance is crucial.
• The shift in power dynamics within the financial system is a key focus.