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Posted on 02/26/2002 6:51:46 PM PST by marxwas a loser
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By CHRISTOPHER NEWTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Florida technology company is poised to ask the government for permission to market a first-ever computer ID chip that could be embedded beneath a person's skin.
For airports, nuclear power plants and other high security facilities, the immediate benefits could be a closer-to-foolproof security system. But privacy advocates warn the chip could lead to encroachments on civil liberties.
The implant technology is another case of science fiction evolving into fact. Those who have long advanced the idea of implant chips say it could someday mean no more easy-to-counterfeit ID cards nor dozing security guards.
Just a computer chip - about the size of a grain of rice - that would be difficult to remove and tough to mimic.
Other uses of the technology on the horizon, from an added device that would allow satellite tracking of an individual's every movement to the storage of sensitive data like medical records, are already attracting interest across the globe for tasks like foiling kidnappings or assisting paramedics.
Applied Digital Solutions' new ``VeriChip'' is another sign that Sept. 11 has catapulted the science of security into a realm with uncharted possibilities - and also new fears for privacy.
``The problem is that you always have to think about what the device will be used for tomorrow,'' said Lee Tien, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group.
``It's what we call function creep. At first a device is used for applications we all agree are good but then it slowly is used for more than it was intended,'' he said.
Applied Digital, based in Palm Beach, Fla., says it will soon begin the process of getting Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) approval for the device, and intends to limit its marketing to companies that ensure its human use is voluntary.
``The line in the sand that we draw is that the use of the VeriChip would always be voluntarily,'' said Keith Bolton, chief technology officer and a vice president at Applied Digital. ``We would never provide it to a company that intended to coerce people to use it.''
More than a decade ago, Applied bought a competing firm, Destron Fearing, which had been making chips implanted in animals for several years. Those chips were mainly bought by animal owners wanting to provide another way for pound workers to identify a lost pet.
Chips for humans aren't that much different.
But the company was hesitant to market them for people because of ethical questions. The devastation of Sept. 11 solidified the company's resolve to market the human chip and brought about a new sensibility about the possible interest.
``It's a sad time ... when people have to wonder whether it's safe in their own country,'' Bolton said.
The makers of the chip also foresee it being used to help emergency workers diagnose a lost Alzheimer's patient or access an unconscious patient's medical history.
Getting the implant would go something like this:
A person or company buys the chip from Applied Digital for about $200 and the company encodes it with the desired information. The person seeking the implant takes the tiny device - about the size of a grain of rice, to their doctor, who can insert it with a large needle device.
The doctor monitors the device for several weeks to make sure it doesn't move and that no infection develops.
The device has no power supply, rather it contains a millimeter-long magnetic coil that is activated when a scanning device is run across the skin above it. A tiny transmitter on the chip sends out the data.
Without a scanner, the chip cannot be read. Applied Digital plans to give away chip readers to hospitals and ambulance companies, in the hopes they'll become standard equipment.
The chip has drawn attention from several religious groups.
Theologian and author Terry Cook said he worries the identification chip could be the ``mark of the beast,'' an identifying mark that all people will be forced to wear just before the end times, according to the Bible.
Applied Digital has consulted theologians and appeared on the religious television program the ``700 Club'' to assure viewers the chip didn't fit the biblical description of the mark because it is under the skin and hidden from view.
Even with the privacy and religious concerns, some are already eager to use the product.
Jeff Jacobs in Coral Springs, Florida has contacted the company in hopes of becoming the first person to purchase the chip.
Jacobs suffers from a number of serious allergies and wants to make sure medical personnel can diagnose him.
``They would know who to contact, they would know what medications I'm on, and it's quite a few,'' he said. ``They would know what I'm allergic to, what kind of operations I've had and where there might be problems.''
Applied Digital says technology to let the chip to be used for tracking is already well under development.
Eight Latin American companies have contacted Applied Digital and have openly encouraged the company to pursue the internal tracking devices. In some countries, kidnapping has become an epidemic that limits tourism and business
If these chips indeed are used widely for identifying humans and utilyze the barcode system, well I think we're in deep doo-doo, folks.
Just for grins, I put it into some bird seed in the feeder in my backyard.
With any luck, that 'chip' is somewhere in South America now.
Remember, whenever possible one should Bend, Fold, Spindle, and Mutilate.
Regards,
L
If no man can buy or sell without the mark, we'll have to be a cashless society. We have forerunners to that now, of course. But the ability to buy and sell will actually have to be in the implanted chip to prevent anyone from buying or selling without it.
In order to achieve that, the chip will have to be interactive. It will need to store a great deal of information-name, address, financial records, health & medical records, assorted authorizations for access, travel, etc. It will also have to contain some kind of confirming biometric info to prevent the chip from being used by someone else. It will obviously provide for continuous tracking.
Whether that technology is already sitting on the shelf somewhere, I don't know. I just don't buy that it's in THIS implant.
Nonetheless, we are told told watch.
absolutely
But, will it run Windows XP?
Ping. This was in "Breaking News" Tues. nite. It is regarding our "good friends" at Applied Digital Solutions-- makers of Digital "Angel...
These a-holes have been pushing this crap since at least 1999 (when I first heard about them). They want nothing less than to implant them in human beings.
Consider that it will start out as "voluntary" at first, and then it will become required for more and more activities vital to living in the United States. Eventually, you will have the convenient "option" of having them placed in your children at birth. After a few years of that, mark my word, you will no more be able to take a newborn out of the hospital without one of these chips than you are now able to take them out without a filled out and signed application for an SSN.
And if another serious attack happens in the U.S., you can bet your last dollar that as you are being herded into the stadiums at gun point to receive your "vaccination", you will more likely than not be implanted with one of these little do dads as well.
But hey, what do I know, right? Everything is fine and happy and rose colored, the world is beautiful and nothing ever happens like this. Right?
Time to chat with our congressmen/women!
I've been down that path, and the effort has a maximum effective range of 0.0 meters. These people have no interest in whether you want this or not. A nice little dog and pony show with token opposition will be staged for the droolers when the time comes to force us all to get one, but don't be fooled. You either will have to resist (you know exactly what I mean) or be implanted.
Ouch! No thank you. I will have mine in the forehead.
I will only have to add an inch or two of tinfoil to the front of my helmet. That should muffle the damn thing
Kill a few hundred people, call them racists/ religious zealots/ right-wing paranoids/ child abusers.... and the rest of the sheep will fall in line. And guess what, once the fear of God has been replaced by the fear of Government, most will be more than happy to turn in their neighboors/ family/ friends who aren't "getting with the program".
The Fourth Reich, coming soon to a once proud and free nation near you.
No doubt they will torch another church or two(with the occupants inside, ahem...WACO) after they "discover" evidence of weapons violations, child abuse, whatever the standard line is these days. Then they can say, "See, nutcases like these are the people that have a problem with this security measure, you're not one of them, are you....?"
You know, there is a liberating quality to being called a "right wing nutcase" in a scenario like you outline above. Obviously we'd be segregated and denied food that we couldn't hunt on our own, the ability to purchase would be denied, the ability to be employeed denied, etc. If that is the case, and we're subjected to all the punishments of criminals, why not become a criminal? There would be nothing left to loose at that point.
Kill a few hundred people, call them racists/ religious zealots/ right-wing paranoids/ child abusers.... and the rest of the sheep will fall in line. And guess what, once the fear of God has been replaced by the fear of Government, most will be more than happy to turn in their neighboors/ family/ friends who aren't "getting with the program".
Most of that has already come to pass. Who wouldn't turn in their neighbor for any given thing these days. Put enough dinero behind the "turn in your neighbor" initiative, and grandmothers would be turning in their grandchildren in this, our Modern Socialist America.
The Fourth Reich, coming soon to a once proud and free nation near you.
Coming? Its already here brother, its just upstair unpacking its clothes for a nice extended stay.
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