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RACING TOWARDS THE MARK
"And He causeth all, both
small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a
mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no
man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark"
Rev.13:16,17
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Angela Sawfford: The
first journalist to get “chipped”. |
Barcoding humans
By Angela Swafford, Boston Globe
The painless procedure barely lasted 15 minutes. In his South Florida
office, Dr. Harvey Kleiner applied a local anesthetic above the tricep
of my right arm, then he inserted a thick needle deep under the skin.
"First we locate a prime spot," he said. "The next thing is to release
the button that triggers the injection mechanism, and that's it, the
cargo's been delivered."
The "cargo" was a half-inch-long microchip inside a glass and silicone
cylinder that carries my permanent identification number. The tiny chip
inside me can now transmit personal information to anyone with a special
handheld scanner.
My arm was like a barcoded product at a supermarket cash register: It
beeped every time the scanner prodded the chip. It worked even through
my clothes. Displayed on the screen was a long number with many zeroes.
For good or bad, I thought, this chip may be quietly heralding a time
when people will literally have technology under the skin.
Theoretically, this VeriChip will allow doctors to call up my medical
records even if I'm too badly hurt to answer questions. It is also
supposed to allow me to get money from an automatic teller machine by
flashing my arm instead of punching in my PIN number. Or reassure
airport security that I am a journalist, not a terrorist.
And, though the VeriChip strikes critics as Orwellian, its makers think
the surgically implanted IDs could be the Social Security numbers of the
future in a nervous world.
"I believe the day will come when most of us will have something similar
to the VeriChip under our skin," said Scott Silverman, president of
Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions [ADS]. "People will regard that
its benefits—in terms of financial, security, and health care—far
outweigh the possibility of loss of privacy."
Right now, I am part of a very small club, the 18th person in the
world—and the first journalist—to get "chipped." Most of the others are
ADS employees, along with one Florida family who have been jokingly
dubbed "the Chipsons" in a play on the old Jetsons cartoon.
But critics see surveillance technology like the VeriChip as a growing
threat, giving potentially dangerous new power to businesses and
government alike. In a report issued in January by the American Civil
Liberties Union, Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt warned that an
explosion of technology has already created a "surveillance monster."
"Scarcely a month goes by in which we don't read about some new
high-tech way to invade people's privacy, from face recognition to
implantable microchips, data mining, DNA chips, and even 'brain wave
fingerprinting,'" they wrote. "The fact is there are no longer any
technical barriers to the Big Brother regime portrayed by George Orwell
[in his novel 1984]."
ADS officials say this is just the beginning. They want to build a chip
that can store loads of information, or act as the key to a central
database that stores information about the user. Ultimately, the company
hopes to be able to track the movement of people with chips worldwide
using global positioning satellites.
The company is field-testing its Personal Locator Device, or PLD, which
ADS says could help track lost children, sick elderly family members,
mountain climbers who get lost, or kidnap victims. The PLD is powered by
a pacemaker battery. It would let anyone with access to the PLD system
follow the wearer anytime, anywhere in the world, at the click of a
mouse.
[end of article]
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