Implantable
Chips Ahoy Bill
Berkowitz
WorkingForChange
With Digital
Angel promoting livestock trackers In wake of Mad Cow disease, the
post-9/11 political climate is
making implantable microchips like the
VeriChip socially palatable. Prophecy analyst Tom Horn of Raiders
News Update is quoted extensively on the subject by secular news
sources.
'Mark of the beast'
or sign of the times?
It's
no bigger than a grain of rice…or maybe a rice krispie. It is
inserted subcutaneously and activated by the sweep of a special
laser wand. Welcome to America in the age of the permanent
"war on terrorism" where there's always someone coming
up with a better idea to diminish civil liberties. The VeriChip
implant comes your way courtesy of Applied Digital Systems.
I was visiting some old friends the other afternoon when I
was given a tip: Travis told me to be on the lookout for a chip
that would contain an individual's personal data and once
implanted, it would be capable of tracking their physical
location. Now, I wasn't born yesterday; while this thing sounded
plausible I figured he'd read about it in some futuristic
scientific journal.
Later, I went home, switched on the computer and checked out
The Oread Daily, one of my favorite reads. Lo and behold, editor
Randy Gould featured a story headlined "Verchip: Don't
Leave Home Without One," which described in detail a new
implantable device coming down the pike at breakneck speed.
According to several other published reports, the Palm Beach,
Florida chipmaker, Applied Digital Solutions, Inc., announced
that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the
VeriChip was not a regulated medical device: This clears the way
for the company to begin marketing, sales and distribution of
VeriChip in the United States within the next few months.
"If they put medical records in, we would be concerned
about the use," the FDA's medical device chief Dr. David
Feigal was quoted in the Washington Post. Feigal also made it
clear that the agency could step in at that point. "If
someone is unconscious in an emergency room and implanted
medical records are outdated, that could be more dangerous than
if doctors had no information." Feigal urged companies
considering health-related implants to consult with the FDA.
According to the Oread Daily, "each VeriChip is composed
of FDA-accepted materials and contains a unique verification
number. That number is captured by briefly passing a
proprietary, external scanner over the VeriChip. A small amount
of radio frequency energy passes through the skin energizing the
dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal
transmitting the verification number."
Chipping in for the 'war on terrorism'
On its website Applied Digital Systems describes how the
VeriChip addresses current security concerns: "Personal
identity verification technology has gained considerable
interest recently. A great deal of focus has been trained on
so-called 'biometric' technologies which identify individuals by
their unique biological or physical characteristics, such as
fingerprints, voiceprints, retina characteristics, and face
recognition points. VeriChip, by contrast, relies on imbedded,
tamper-proof, microchip technology, which allows for
non-invasive access to identification, medical and other
critical data. Use of advanced VeriChip technology means that
the threat of theft, loss, duplication or counterfeiting of data
is substantially diminished or eliminated. Specific application
areas include: enhancement of present forms of identification,
various law enforcement and defense uses and search and
rescue."
According to a Wired.com report, "In South America, the
device has been bundled with a GPS-unit and sold to potential
kidnapping victims." For now, the company is claiming that
the VeriChip's most immediate use will be for people with
certain medical conditions, and for workers in need of top
security clearance. The information that the chip is capable of
carrying is boundless.
The VeriChip is expected to sell for about $200. The company
hasn't decided yet if it will sell or distribute the 125-KHz
chip scanner to hospitals at no cost. The scanner is expected to
cost between $1,000 and $3,000.
Bar codes 'r' us
Applied Digital Solutions, Inc., established in 1993,
describes itself as "an advanced digital technology
development company that focuses on a range of early warning
alert, miniaturized power sources and security monitoring
systems combined with the comprehensive data management services
required to support them. Through its Advanced Wireless unit,
the Company specializes in security-related data collection,
value-added data intelligence and complex data delivery systems
for a wide variety of end users including commercial operations,
government agencies and consumers."
The post-9/11 political climate makes the use of something
like the VeriChip more acceptable. The Oread Daily's Gould is
concerned that the device "could also be used to keep track
of dissidents and other such troublemakers."
Others are raising questions about the
VeriChip. The Los
Angeles Times reported that Applied Digital officials say that
while implantable chips have been denounced by those who object
on religious and other grounds, those objections have decreased
in the wake of 9/11. As Keith Bolton, the company's chief
technology officer, put it, 'When people are trying to regain
their peace of mind, they're open to new approaches.'"
In a late-March article posted at
WorldNetDaily, a
conservative online news site, reporter Sherrie Gossett raised
more questions about the future of implantable chips. Titled
"'Digital Angel' lands in China: Will implantable tracking
chips be used by totalitarian government?" Gossett's
article claims the "manufacturer and marketer of high-tech,
implantable devices for tracking human beings has opened a
research and development facility in Shen Zhen, a special
economic zone near Hong Kong, hoping to cash in on vast markets
in China and the Far East."
'Mark of the beast'
Last year, Gossett writes, Digital Angel "deflected
criticism from privacy advocates and Christians concerned over
biblical prophesy by removing all references to human
implantation from its website and literature, only to
re-introduce human implantation -- with a product called
VeriChip - after Sept. 11, due to the nation's new preoccupation
with security."
According to AgapePress, a Christian daily news service,
"Many Bible prophecy watchers are keeping a close eye on
this development. It appears to be a direct correlation to the
teaching in Revelation about the mark that Anti-Christ will
require all to have during the tribulation period."
What does this mean for some Christians? Tom Horn, editor of
Raiders News Update, explains that implantable devices could
usher in an "antiChrist system" called the "New
World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and
ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around
the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty."
This one-world government will destroy or imprison those who do
not go along with it. "The Antichrist's widespread power
will be derived at the expense of individual human
liberties."
Horn claims Nelson Rockefeller first issued a call for a
"New World Order," later to be followed by President
Jimmy Carter, and then during the Gulf War by George Bush who
declared that a "New World Order" had arrived. Horn:
"Developers of biometric implant chips employ similar
language in announcing compatible global technologies, and many
Americans consider electronically marking humans or implanting a
series of digital equations under the skin to be the natural
progress of advancing and necessary technologies."
Horn says that implantable microchips manufacturers
"claim the procedure will be voluntary at first."
Elaine M. Ramish of the Franklin Pierce Law Center is concerned
about a national identification system via microchip implants
that "could be achieved in two stages: Upon introduction as
a voluntary system, the microchip implantation will appear to be
palatable. After there is a familiarity with the procedure and a
knowledge of its benefits, implantation would be
mandatory."
All of these concerns could make for strange bedfellows as
civil liberties organizations, libertarian groups and Christian
true believers may form a front-line alliance against Big
Brother's implantable microchips.
Bill
Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement.
His WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the
strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the
American Right.
Implantable
Chips Ahoy
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