Implantable chips ahoy

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 "If someone is unconscious in an emergency room and implanted medical records are outdated, that could be more dangerous than if doctors had no information."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.

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."

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.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)