Chipping In On The 'War On Terrorism' -- Will Implantable Chips Become The New ID?
Pastor Dale Morgan
Chipping In On The 'War On Terrorism' -- Will Implantable Chips Become
The New ID?*
Apr 15th, 2007 7:45 AM
Bill Berkowitz
April 15, 2007
Did the post-9/11 political climate make implantable microchips like the
VeriChip socially palatable? Bill Berkowitz of WorkingForChange thinks
Raiders NewsNetwork.com prophecy analyst Tom Horn may be on to something.
'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 Solutions.
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implanted medical records are outdated, that could be more dangerous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.
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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.