Posted on 01/11/2002 4:16:23 AM PST by tberry
Microchip Tracking Device Alarms Libertarians
John Rossomando, CNSNews.com
Friday, Jan. 11, 2002
The development of a new implantable personal identification microchip has libertarians worried about how government might use the device.
The dime-size microchip, or "VeriChip" as manufacturer Applied Digital Solutions calls it, acts like a personal bar code whereby personal information can be stored and then retrieved with a special scanning device.
"It contains a unique identification number and other data. Utilizing [the] scanner, radio frequency energy passes through the skin energizing the dormant VeriChip, then emits a radio frequency signal containing the identification number," the VeriChip Web site says. "The number is displayed in the scanner and transmitted to an FDA compliant secure data storage site by authorized personnel via telephone or Internet."
Applied Digital Solutions' President Keith Bolton envisions the VeriChip as a multipurpose identification device with a primary application in medicine.
"It has multiple applications in embeddable medical devices, and to some degree emergency and security related identification," Bolton said. "Our prime focus is medical devices, in other words, a pacemaker, an artificial limb, a heart valve.
"If you were in shock or couldn't speak, or couldn't transmit information to the ambulance attendant or the hospital attendants, the hospital could take a proprietary hand-held scanner and scan over your body, and release information from the chip about your medical device," Bolton said.
Libertarians acknowledge that the Palm Beach, Fla., company intends to introduce the chip as a medical monitoring device, but they worry that this technology could easily be abused.
"Technology is value neutral, but it is the uses to which it gets put, that are of concern," said Wayne Crews, director of Technology Policy at the Cato Institute. "Technologies like this are new and they bubble up, and they will continue to bubble up in different applications, but the problem comes of course when the ... most lucrative venture of these kinds of entities is selling them to government rather than selling them for private uses."
According to Crews, once government officials got a hold of the microchip technology, they might, for example, decide to implant a chip in everybody who got arrested.
"You don't want to turn the prison population into a bunch of guinea pigs to test this stuff to try to use it in society at large in some way," Crews said.
National ID?
George Getz, press secretary for the Libertarian Party, said he has no objections to the microchip technology as long as it is not used as a form of national ID. Getz believes chip implantment should be purely voluntary.
"If it's coerced, it would be a terrible idea," Getz said. "They are already proposing a national ID card, and if they did put forward a formal proposal we would oppose it."
Bolton said he is not looking to market his device to the government, and rejects the idea that his technology might be used for anything other than for noble purposes.
"This is a product that can be used for search and rescue, for fire departments, for identification. In New York City, it's well known they were writing on their arms with magic marker," Bolton said, referring to the rescue efforts in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "This is a technology that could help recognize a victim, and to some degree it could be used in secure areas like power plants, airports and things like that."
According to Bolton, officials from his company are "the guys with the white hats," and the public should not be afraid about a hypothetical misuse or abuse of his technology.
Copyright CNSNews.com
This ought to have everyone concerned with freedom and personal privacy worried.
We are the borg. Resistance is futile.
This company is based in Florida, and Jeb is governor there.
So the President issued 'secret' orders to his brother Jeb to have this company develop this technology so that the President could have us all implanted with this chip, thereby putting the 'Mark of the Beast' on all of us. He's the anti-Christ.
Thanks, it all makes sense now.
They would have to shoot me first before they could implant this 'device'.
I assume that is what Hitler told the Jews!
Isn't this a logical sequel to The Patriot Act?
Yes, it is, but you won't get most people to take off their blinders long enough to recognize that. Unless, of course, this were a Democratic administration. Then, all Hell would be breaking loose.
Certainly. They go had in hand.
Set up laws that will allow you to make anyone you desire a domestic terrorist, crimial or suspect and make sure you have them "branded" just like cattle so that you know where they are at all times and eveything about their movements so you can jerk their chain anytime they get out of line.
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