MARK OF THE BEAST ALERT:Tennessee May Use GPS on Parolees

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Seven contractors have expressed interest in the state's $2.5 million pilot project that would use a global positioning system, or GPS, to keep track of violent sex offenders that have been paroled.

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The tracking technology was first used in Florida in late 1990s to keep track of released felons, and some cities and counties in other states utilize GPS for similar uses.

The Tennessee project will not be used statewide for at least a year after it begins early in 2005. It will be focused in Memphis and Nashville and other parts of the state's three grand divisions.

"Basically, we want to have a good mix between urban and rural areas," said state Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, chief House sponsor of legislation creating the pilot program.

The state Board of Probation and Parole will decide where to use the pilot program.

Initially, about half of the state's 1,200 registered sex offenders will be fitted with bracelets that will be tracked constantly by a GPS system monitored by law enforcement.

"You all are the first in the nation to do this," Mandy Wettstein of General Dynamics, one of the potential bidders on the project, told a news reporter. "The country will be watching to see how successful this sex offender tracking program is."

The system would let law enforcement build maps with "zones of exclusion" for the sex offenders, such as playgrounds, schools, day-care centers or the homes of victims. It also would allow probation officers to determine whether the felons they are supervising are going to work during the day, going home at night and staying away from restricted areas.

Removing, vandalizing or tampering with a bracelet carries a mandatory jail sentence of 180 days for the first offense. Second and subsequent offenses are a felony and could result in immediate revocation of probation or parole.

The Legislature appropriated money for the system earlier this year, and lawmakers are hoping for a large return on the investment.

"If you can put people back out into the community and have a pretty high degree of assurance that he is not going to re-offend, then you can take them out of the prison system, make sure they are working, and they can bear some of the cost of the program," Briley said. "It becomes a massive cost-saving tool for the state in the long run."

The system is Internet-based, so any probation officer or law enforcement agent with access to the Web can use it. It also does not require constant monitoring, with e-mails alerting officers if an offender enters an exclusion zone.

The probation board will collect data on the program for a year before reporting to Gov. Phil Bredesen and the Legislature. If the program is taken statewide, it could include other types of offenders such as those convicted of domestic violence or behind in child support payments.

"It is extremely exciting," said state Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, chairman of the Legislature's Corrections Oversight Committee. "This will give us the opportunity to reduce the demand for prison beds. By doing that, it will allow us to stiffen penalties for more serious felons that pose a much greater risk for the community."

Chip Implanted in Mexico Judicial Workers

Chip Implanted in Mexico Judicial Workers

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Jul 14, 5:30 PM (ET)

By WILL WEISSERT

(AP) Antonio Aceves shows the VeriChip which is a microchip that is implanted unders a person's skin and...
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MEXICO CITY (AP) - Security has reached the subcutaneous level for Mexico's attorney general and at least 160 people in his office - they have been implanted with microchips that get them access to secure areas of their headquarters.

It's a pioneering application of a technology that is widely used in animals but not in humans.

Mexico's top federal prosecutors and investigators began receiving chip implants in their arms in November in order to get access to restricted areas inside the attorney general's headquarters, said Antonio Aceves, general director of Solusat, the company that distributes the microchips in Mexico.

Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and 160 of his employees were implanted at a cost to taxpayers of $150 for each rice grain-sized chip.

(AP) Carlos Altamirano ismplanted with the VeriChip, a microchip that is used to confirm everything...
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More are scheduled to get "tagged" in coming months, and key members of the Mexican military, the police and the office of President Vicente Fox might follow suit, Aceves said. Fox's office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

A spokeswoman for Macedo de la Concha's office said she could not comment on Aceves' statements, citing security concerns. But Macedo himself mentioned the chip program to reporters Monday, saying he had received an implant in his arm. He said the chips were required to enter a new federal anti-crime information center.

"It's only for access, for security," he said.

The chips also could provide more certainty about who accessed sensitive data at any given time. In the past, the biggest security problem for Mexican law enforcement has been corruption by officials themselves.

Aceves said his company eventually hopes to provide Mexican officials with implantable devices that can track their physical location at any given time, but that technology is still under development.

(AP) Carlos Altamirano is being scanned to show the 16 digits code of the implanted VeriChip July 17,...
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The chips that have been implanted are manufactured by VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions Inc. (ADSX) of Palm Beach, Fla.

They lie dormant under the skin until read by an electromagnetic scanner, which uses a technology known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, that's now getting hot in the inventory and supply chain businesses.

Scott Silverman, Applied Digital Solutions' chief executive, said each of his company's implantable chips has a special identification number that would foil an impostor.

"The technology is out there to duplicate (a chip)," he said. "What can't be stolen is the unique identification number and the information that is tied to that number."

Erik Michielsen, director of RFID analysis at ABI Research Inc., said that in theory the chips could be as secure as existing RFID-based access control systems such as the contactless employee badges widely used in corporate and government facilities.

However, while those systems often employ encryption, Applied Digital's implantable chips do not as yet. Silverman said his company's system is nevertheless save because its chips can only be read by the company's proprietary scanners.

In addition to the chips sold to the Mexican government, more than 1,000 Mexicans have implanted them for medical reasons, Aceves said. Hospital officials can use a scanning device to download a chip's serial number, which they then use to access a patient's blood type, name and other information on a computer.

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve microchips as medical devices in the United States.

Still, Silverman said that his company has sold 7,000 chips to distributors across the United States and that more than 1,000 of those had likely been inserted into U.S. customers, mostly for security or identification reasons.

In 2002, a Florida couple and their teenage son had Applied Digital Solutions chips implanted in their arms. The family hoped to someday be able to automatically relay their medical information to emergency room staffers.

The chip originally was developed to track livestock and wildlife and to let pet owners identify runaway animals. The technology was created by Digital Angel Corp. (DOC), which was acquired by Applied Digital Solutions in 1999.

Because the Applied Digital chips cannot be easily removed - and are housed in glass capsules designed to break and be unusable if taken out - they could be even more popular someday if they eventually can incorporate locator capabilities. Already, global positioning system chips have become common accouterments on jewelry or clothing in Mexico.

In fact, in March, Mexican authorities broke up a ring of used-car salesmen turned kidnappers who were known as "Los Chips" because they searched their victims to detect whether they were carrying the chips to help them be located.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040714/D83QQBP80.html

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