Missouri law would fine employers for requiring microchip implants
Pastor Dale Morgan
Missouri law would fine employers for requiring microchip implants*
By CHRIS BLANK/The Associated Press
May 29, 2008 | 10:47 p.m. CST
JEFFERSON CITY — Your bosses can still make you work weekends and give
you projects you loathe. But Missouri lawmakers have voted to make it a
crime if they order that a microchip be implanted in your arm.
Forcing someone to get a microchip implantis already barred in
California, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Legislation awaiting Gov. Matt
Blunt’s signature would make it a misdemeanor with a fine of up to
$1,000 for a boss who demands that a worker get an implant.
Katherine Albrecht, an expert in consumer privacy and radio frequency
identification, acknowledges that microchip implants might sound like
“black helicopters and tin foil hats.”
But Albrecht, the founder of AntiChips.com, and other critics argue
there are tangible medical, privacy and religious worries driving
attempts to pass laws banning forced implants.
“The people who oppose it don’t understand how real the threat is, and
the people who are gung-ho don’t understand its power,” Albrecht said.
She has been trying to persuade state lawmakers across the country to
pass legislation regulating technology that allows for tagged items to
be tracked when microchips send off a radio signal to special readers.
The information can then be linked to a database.
This year at least 17 states have considered bills regulating or
restricting radio frequency identification, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures. Last year, there were 13.
Radio tracking has been used for tracing stores’ inventories, giving
drivers toll-booth quick passes, linking unconscious patients to
important medical information and even for uniting missing pets with
their owners. But critics say the benefits pale in comparison to risks
of cancer and identity theft by secretly lifting information off
someone’s microchip.
The nation’s only federally approved maker of human microchip implants,
Florida-based VeriChip Corp., has denied claims that its product can
cause cancer. A spokesman for VeriChip did not immediately return a call
seeking comment.
According to VeriChip’s Web site, the microchip is about the size of a
grain of rice and enclosed in medical-grade glass. It is injected into
the arm and activated when it passes near a specially designed reader.
Last fall, The Associated Press identified a series of decade-old
veterinary and toxicology studies that linked chip implants to tumors in
some lab mice and rats. Cancer specialists who were asked to review that
data for the AP said they would not allow family members to receive
implants and called for more research before widely implanting them in
people.
“I really believe that anyone at this point is going to have a huge
hurdle to overcome with the absolute clear-cut link to cancer,” Albrecht
said. “And were it not for that, I would be extremely afraid right now,
but I think it’s going to be enough of an impediment that we’re really
out of the woods.”
The push for a Missouri ban on forced implants started with Rep. Jim
Guest, R-King City, who has developed a reputation for focusing on
libertarian issues such as opting out of the federal Real ID program.
Guest initially wanted a broad prohibition on microchip implantation,
but after that bill stalled, he inserted into a bill dealing with
injured workers a narrower ban on forcing implants as a condition for
employment.
Guest said he doesn’t know of any Missouri employers who are doing that,
but said it is important for states to get in front of the issue and
regulate how radio tracking technology can be used.
Albrecht said that was a good idea because there was almost no voluntary
market for microchip implants, which meant there could be a push to
start requiring the chips.
An Ohio video surveillance company and the Mexican attorney general’s
office had employees get a chip implant for access to a secure records
room. Two European nightclubs also used the microchips to link patrons
to prepaid accounts.
The idea of microchip implants has led some Christians to draw
comparisons to the Bible and prophecies of the end of the world.
Irwin Baxter Jr., who runs Texas-based Endtime Ministries, said his
primary concern is the overlap between a traceable implant and biblical
descriptions of a “666” mark required to buy and sell goods.
Baxter said that, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans
tolerated greater privacy intrusions in the interest of security. He
predicts even more acceptance for less liberty and greater pressure for
using microchips after a war of biblical proportions that kills much of
the world’s population.
“A day after 2 billion die, there will be an absolute call for absolute
security,” he said. “Part of that will be a foolproof means of
identification, and once the demand for a foolproof means of
identification comes, then the logical step is” the chip under the skin.