“Recent actions from the Biden administration make it clear that they’re not only itching to create a digital dollar, but they’re willing to trade Americans’ right to financial privacy for surveillance-style CBDC,” Emmer told an audience at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.

He argued Thursday that a government token could easily be “weaponized into a surveillance tool,” and the U.S. government could “program a CBDC to choke out politically unpopular activity.”