Posted on 12/01/2003 12:26:20 PM PST by RightWingReader
Computer chips implanted under the skin are on the cusp of becoming mainstream, but the new technology presents us with more questions than answers. Will it render extinct the need to physically carry documents such as personal identification, medical information and credit cards? Will its intended purpose be to track us like an OnStar system for humans, or will it end up just plain not working at all – thanks to the "Moe & Curly" effect of government intervention?
More than likely, the chips will malfunction often – twice as much if the government gets involved and tries to make them malfunction less. Despite fears of abuse and misuse, here's one likely scenario:
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You or your firm pays $500 to "Chip Dippers, Inc." to load a tiny device with all of your personal data, and then inject it under your skin. You're all set, they tell you, to enter any of your company's secure locations, and in the event you're injured, hospital personnel will be able to know your blood type, complete medical history and – most importantly – your insurance carrier, all with a simple scan.
Arriving to work at the nuclear facility one morning, you wait in line at the security checkpoint. When it's your turn, you run your hand underneath the scanner, but it just beeps in error. It's not recognizing you.
The security guard figures that, since the computer doesn't recognize you, you must not belong there. Skillfully utilizing his 3-months experience and sixth-grade education, the guard beats you severely with his holster (which would have contained a gun, but it was confiscated after he was seen behind the building shooting Coke cans off the top of a canister of plutonium).
The guard, noticing that you're severely injured and can't move, leaves you there to make his hourly rounds. After a few minutes, a passerby sees you and calls an ambulance. When the paramedics arrive, they scan your hand, but their scanning device beeps in error. Your chip has malfunctioned. You're badly in need of blood, but your blood type is on the chip.
As you arrive at the hospital, you're loaded onto a gurney and wheeled into the emergency room, where you are met by a well-fed nurse who thinks the dental program co-pays are exorbitantly high, and, as a result, hasn't had her teeth cleaned since the Carter administration. Along with Altoids and a personality, she's in need of your health-insurance information and blood type.
The nurse fumbles through your pants looking for your wallet, spending an unprofessional amount of time in your pockets. "He doesn't have a wallet," pipes in a paramedic, "all his info is on that malfunctioning chip."
The nurse shakes her head and whispers a pitiful, "Poor fella ..."
You were happy because you didn't have to carry a wallet anymore. You were certain that having the chip implanted would make your life easier. These things are mentioned in your eulogy.
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We may consider the above scenario to be farfetched, but it should be considered. As a matter of fact, it's probably too conservative. Manufacturers of these chips tell us that they would only be used as a medical tool and form of electronic identification, but others feel that the chip is just a stone's throw from being used for invasion of privacy reasons.
Critics of this technology say that, like with many things, the original intention may be good, but it will only lead to an intrusion on civil liberties. People whose job it is to come up with impressive sounding names for stuff call this "function creep."
Who's right? As usual, the federal government will end up deciding. Like asking chickens in a truck on their way to Kenny Rogers Roasters whether or not they'd like to be cooked, the government will query us as to our opinion on this issue, carefully weigh both sides, then toss us in the rotisserie.
Uncle Sam will probably even buy the rights to the technology from the company that invented it for, say, $4 billion, provided the company donate 10 percent of the largess to charity, and rename their building after Robert Byrd.
Thanks to the government, the chips will then be "affordable" to all (thanks to a huge tax increase and more money borrowed from our great-great-great grandkids). And due to federal "improvements," the implants will end up roughly the size of Emmanuel Lewis and misfire like the plugs on a poorly maintained '71 Buick Skylark.
Malicious intent? Perhaps. Incompetent twiddling by bureaucratic pork-pies? That's a given.
Don't throw out your purses or wallets just yet.
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By Doug Powers
And no... I'm not a "Mark of the Beast" Christian type.
My opposition to ID chip implants is based on religious objections ("chipping" a person like a pet or a farm animal would be to reduce them to the status of an inventory item — an insult to the dignity of the God-created individual human being, in my opinion), but I'm certain that technological issues will be the downfall of the ID implant idea. A smartcard that can only be accessed when its owner is physically holding it (i.e. one with a tiny scanner that recognizes the thumbprint of its owner) would be difficult to hack, easy to replace, and would raise none of the ethical issues that implanting would.
If your sensibilities are offended by some of the trash going on in today's world, you may be closer than you think - which is not a bad thing...
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