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by Stan Johnson
July 2008
from
ProphecyClub
Website
Prophecy students have long watched the
march toward the "Mark".
With each passing year we hear of new
developments that the world thinks are great, but the prophecy
student shakes his head and wonders,
"Why they don't see what they are
doing?"
We have been hearing the national ID
card is coming, but now the U.S. Department of Transportation is
advancing its plans for a national transportation-worker identity
card, which will serve as a forerunner of the "trusted-traveler"
card for airline passengers.
These cards will allow passengers to
avoid security screening at checkpoints in airports. This electronic
card will use an encoded biometric description of the user to
guarantee that the individual using it is the same person on the
card.
This will naturally shorten the lines at airports for frequent
fliers who submit to foreign and FBI background checks.
(Trusted
Passenger ID Cards)
With each new gadget of convenience there is a thread of control. A
thread last year, a thread today, two or three threads tomorrow and
we wake up in a police state controlling every purchase so that no
one can buy or sell without the system.
Wal-Mart, Gillette and Procter & Gamble are joining forces to give
momentum to the technology of "talking tags". These tags will
contain a computer chip, a small amount of data and a very small
antenna that will connect it to the network. Anything with a tag
will be able to communicate with networks or the Internet, sending
information to electronic devices, appliances, or computers.
Your groceries will automatically check
themselves out as you push your cart past a scanner. Your
prescription bottle will tell you when it needs to be refilled. This
technology is called "Auto-ID" and is located at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. The tags are known as Radio Frequency
Identification tags, or RFID.
In the past, the tags have been too
expensive to maintain, but a small, private company in California,
called Alien Technology, is working on a large-scale method of
production that will greatly reduce the cost.
Each tag will sell for
just under 7 cents.
Mass production won't start until they
can get the cost down to 5 cents. A test is currently going on in
Tulsa where several stores have agreed to use these tags throughout
the supply chain. Wal-Mart and Pepsi-Cola appear to be the companies
involved, but technically, the companies are being kept secret.
(USA Today - 4/11/2002)
The April, 2002 issue of Whistleblower magazine (a monthly
publication of
WorldNetDaily.Com) is devoted to the topic of
implanted chips.
A focus of attention has been the release of
information about the "VeriChip", manufactured by Applied Digital
Solutions of Palm Beach, Florida. Initially, the tracking system was
advertized as something to be worn as a wristwatch, for example, but
after 9/11 a greater need for security was called for.
So, the "VeriChip" was born.
What exactly is a "VeriChip?"
Readers of this newsletter have heard of
RFID for a long time, but now it has taken another step. It is a
radio-frequency device injected with a syringe that is about the
size of a tip of a ballpoint pen. It contains an ID number and other
personal information.
Upon injection, it is activated by a scanner
and then its signal can be transmitted to a telephone, the Internet,
or an FDA-compliant data-storage site.
Applied Digital Solutions used the medical benefits of the chip as
its initial thrust of exposure, but it has acquired more ominous
ramifications.
The prototype of the "VeriChip" is the Digital Angel
technology.
This chip allows the person equipped with one to be
tracked in real time with the Global Positioning System. This
information is transmitted wirelessly to the Internet and the
person's vital signs, movements and location are collected and
stored.
Digital Angel was introduced to the world on Oct. 30, 2000, in New
York City. The public and the press were not invited to this event,
but the military, the government and private investors were.
Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta was there as was the keynote
speaker.
CEO Richard Sullivan made these
interesting comments:
"I just want to say how delighted we
are at Applied Digital Solutions to launch an exciting new
partnership with you and the federal government in the important
area of digital inclusion."
Does DGS have anyone on their side to
help out with the cost of these little critters? To name a few,
Schering-Plough (pharmaceuticals), Raytheon-Hughes, and the U.S.
Department of Energy?
The highlight of the evening was an actual demonstration of the chip
in action as the group watched a guinea pig run the gauntlet through
the streets of New York City. They could even tell if the subject
was awake or asleep!
Rats today, Christians tomorrow?
"Before there may have been
resistance, but not anymore. People are getting used to
implants. New century, new trend. We will be a hybrid of
electronic intelligence and our own soul ," said Chief
Technology Officer Dr. Keith Bolton.
Bolton's comments mirror today's
complacent majority when he relayed irritation at the protests for
the "noisy 20 percent", meaning us Christians that can see the
obvious link between this chip and the "Mark of the Beast".
You've heard the saying, "timing is everything". Well, one week
after 9/11, Digital Angel made its services available (in the form
of the GPS tracking devices) to New York City's fire department and
the U.S. Department of Transportation to help with their rescue
efforts.
(Whistleblower magazine, Volume 11, No.4, April, 2002)
In the May/June newsletter I reported the Jacobs family wanted to be
the first implanted with a microchip. They received their very own
VeriChips on the Today Show.
Applied Digital Solutions says it has 4,000 to 5,000 people on their
waiting list to get their own VeriChips, and they plan to have a "chipmobile"
that will be visiting Florida senior citizen's centers. Take a
number and step to the end of the line!
(Los Angeles Times ,
David Streitfeld)
Andy Rooney is ready to hop on the bandwagon! He said on the 60
Minutes, Feb. 10, 2002 broadcast:
"We need some system for permanently
identifying safe people . Most of us are never going to blow
anything up and there's got to be something better than one of
these photo IDs...I wouldn't mind having something planted
permanently in my arm that would identify me."
So safe people are implanted, meaning if
you are not safe you won't be implanted.
Who does Applied Digital Solutions think would be good candidates
for their chips? Here's a partial list: children and the elderly,
law enforcement, prisoners, parolees, all foreigners entering the
country, airline workers, nuclear power plant workers, "sensitive
industries" employees, diplomats, top corporate executives,
soldiers, wilderness hikers, Alzheimer's patients, autistic people,
and heart patients. (6)(WorldNetDaily, April 2, 2002, Sherrie
Gossett)
Now, don't you feel out of place without
one? Everybody's doing it!
Julie Foster, from WorldNetDaily, interviewed Dr. Peter Zhou,
chief scientist for development of the Digital Angel and president
of DigitalAngel.net, Inc who made this statement:
"The purpose of the device is to
save your life and improve the quality of life. There's no
connection to the Bible. There are different interpretations of
the Bible. My interpretation is, anything to improve the quality
of life is from God. The Bible says, 'I am the God of living
people.' We not only live, we live well."
( Whistleblower magazine, April,
2002, pg. 8)
The military is one group that is the
most progressive in their thinking when it comes to the chip.
Here is an
excerpt from "Air Force 2025":
"The chip creates a
computer-generated mental visualization based upon the user's
request. The visualization encompasses the individual and allows
the user to place himself into the selected battle-space." (He is
speaking about a microscopic brain chip.)
And, "The chip will give these
forces the ability to communicate, visualize, and prosecute
military operations."
And, "Implanting 'things' in people
raises ethical and public relations issues. While these concerns
may be founded on today's thinking, in 2025 they may not be as
alarming. We already are evolving toward technology implanting.
For example, the military currently requires its members to
receive mandatory injections of biological organisms (i.e., the
flu shot). In the civilian world, people receive mechanical
hearts and other organs. Society has come to accept most of
these implants as a fact of life. The civilian populace will
likely accept implanted microscopic chips that allow military
members to defend vital national interests. Further, the U.S.
military will continue to be a volunteer force that will freely
accept the chip because it is a tool to control technology and
not as a tool to control the human."
Now you can go to Kroger's to buy your
groceries, and you won't need to bring any cash, checks, or credit
cards. With the new SecureTouch-n-Pay technology, all you really
need is one finger. This is the new biometric electronic financial
transaction processing system. This especially appeals to women
because they won't need to bring their purses.
Enrollment requires a driver's license,
credit card and a fingerprint scan. This technology was developed by
Austin-based Biometric Access Corporation. This will also benefit
Kroger because it means fewer forged checks.
(http://www.HoustonChronicle.com
Section: Business)
The following information comes directly from the website of a
company called TheBEAST.
TheBEAST integrates with virtually any
business system, permitting the fastest time-to-market rollouts and
most accurate financial decision-making ever. It provides a unique
combination of analytic applications, real-time trading, order
routing, transactional capabilities and market intelligence.
It introduces the first real-time
data-agnostic, unified platform for market data capture, commingling
and delivery.
Human Microchip Implants
High-tech Help or Big Brother Surveillance
Tool?
by Todd Lewan
The Associated Press
July 22, 2007
from
LaCrosseTribune Website
CityWatcher.com, a provider of
surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself — until a
year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated
microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.
The “chipping” of two workers with RFIDs — radio frequency
identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a
toothpick — was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that
held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of
security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.
“To protect high-end secure data,
you use more sophisticated techniques,” Sean Darks, chief
executive of the Cincinnati-based company, said. He compared
chip implants to retina scans or fingerprinting. “There’s a
reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm
under it, and it opens the door.”
Innocuous? Maybe.
But the news that Americans had, for the first time, been injected
with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up a debate
over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking technologies
and their ability to erode privacy in the digital age.
To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention — a high-tech helper
that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases,
help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer’s patients, allow
consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a
chipped hand.
To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure
from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the
right to go and do as they pleased without being tracked, unless
they were harming someone else.
Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer’s patients
or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for convicts,
then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens — until one
day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or another,
would find themselves electronically tagged.
Thirty years ago, the first electronic tags were fixed to the ears
of cattle, to permit ranchers to track a herd’s reproductive and
eating habits. In the 1990s, millions of chips were implanted in
livestock, fish, pets, even racehorses.
Microchips now are fixed to car windshields as toll-paying devices,
on “contactless” payment cards (Chase’s “Blink,” or MasterCard’s “PayPass”).
They’re embedded in Michelin tires, library books, passports and,
unbeknownst to many consumers, on a host of individual items at
Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
But
CityWatcher.com employees weren’t appliances or pets: They were
people, made scan-able.
“It was scary that a government
contractor that specialized in putting surveillance cameras on
city streets was the first to incorporate this technology in the
workplace,” says Liz McIntyre, co-author of “Spychips: How Major
Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with
RFID.”
Darks, the CityWatcher.com executive,
said his employees volunteered to be chipped.
“You would think that we were going
around putting chips in people by force,” he told a reporter,
“and that’s not the case at all.”
Yet, within days of the company’s
announcement, civil libertarians and Christian conservatives joined
to excoriate the microchip’s implantation in people.
“Ultimately,” says Katherine
Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specializes in consumer
education and RFID technology, “the fear is that the government
or your employer might someday say, ‘Take a chip or starve.’”
Some critics saw the implants as the
fulfillment of a biblical prophecy that describes an age of evil in
which humans are forced to take the “Mark of the Beast” on their
bodies, to buy or sell anything.
Others saw it as a big step toward the
creation of a Big-Brother society.
“We’re really on the verge of
creating a surveillance society in America, where every
movement, every action — some would even claim, our very
thoughts — will be tracked, monitored, recorded and correlated,”
says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty
Program at the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington,
D.C.
In design, the tag is simple: A
medical-grade glass capsule holds a silicone computer chip, a copper
antenna and a “capacitor” that transmits data stored on the chip
when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.
Implantations are quick, relatively simple procedures. After a local
anesthetic is administered, a large-gauge, hypodermic needle injects
the chip under the skin on the back of the arm, midway between the
elbow and the shoulder.
John Halamka, an emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston, got chipped two years ago, “so that if I
was ever in an accident, and arrived unconscious or incoherent at an
emergency ward, doctors could identify me and access my medical
history quickly.” (A chipped person’s medical profile can be
continuously updated, since the information is stored on a data-base
accessed via the Internet.)
But it’s also clear to Halamka there are consequences to having an
implanted identifier.
“My friends have commented to me
that I’m ‘marked’ for life, that I’ve lost my anonymity. And to
be honest, I think they’re right.”
Indeed, as microchip proponents and
detractors readily agree, Americans’ mistrust of microchips and
technologies like RFID runs deep.
Many wonder:
-
Do the current chips have global
positioning transceivers that would allow the government to
pinpoint a person’s exact location, 24-7? (No; the
technology doesn’t yet exist.)
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But could a tech-savvy stalker
rig scanners to video cameras and film somebody each time
they entered or left the house? (Quite easily, though not
cheaply. Currently, readers cost $300 and up.)
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What’s the average lifespan of a
microchip? (About 10-15 years.)
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What if you get tired of it
before then — can it be easily, painlessly removed? (Short
answer: No.)
-
How about thieves? Could they
make their own readers, aim them at unsuspecting
individuals, and surreptitiously pluck people’s IDs out of
their arms? (Yes. There’s even a name for it — “spoofing.”)
The company that makes implantable
microchips for humans, VeriChip Corp., of Delray Beach, Fla.,
concedes that’s a problem — even as it markets its radio tag and its
portal scanner as imperatives for high-security buildings, such as
nuclear power plants.
“To grab information from radio
frequency products with a scanning device is not hard to do,”
Scott Silverman, the company’s chief executive, says. However,
“the chip itself only contains a unique, 16-digit identification
number. The relevant information is stored on a database.”
VeriChip Corp., whose parent company has
been selling radio tags for animals for more than a decade, has sold
7,000 microchips worldwide, of which about 2,000 have been implanted
in humans.
The company’s present push: tagging of “high-risk” patients —
diabetics and people with heart conditions or Alzheimer’s disease.
In an emergency, hospital staff could wave a reader over a patient’s
arm, get an ID number, and then, via the Internet, enter a company
database and pull up the person’s identity and medical history.
To doctors, a “starter kit” — complete with 10 hypodermic syringes,
10 VeriChips and a reader — costs $1,400. To patients, a microchip
implant means a $200, out-of-pocket expense to their physician.
Presently, chip implants aren’t covered by insurance companies,
Medicare or Medicaid.
For almost two years, the company has been offering hospitals free
scanners, but acceptance has been limited. According to the company,
515 hospitals have pledged to take part in the VeriMed network, yet
only 100 have actually been equipped and trained to use the system.
Some wonder why they should abandon noninvasive tags such as
MedicAlert, a low-tech bracelet that warns paramedics if patients
have serious allergies or a chronic medical condition.
“Having these things under your skin
instead of in your back pocket — it’s just not clear to me why
it’s worth the inconvenience,” says Westhues.
Silverman responds that an implanted chip is “guaranteed to be
with you. It’s not a medical arm bracelet that you can take off
if you don’t like the way it looks ... ”
In fact, microchips can be removed from
the body — but it’s not like removing a splinter.
The capsules can migrate around the body or bury themselves deep in
the arm. When that happens, a sensor X-ray and monitors are needed
to locate the chip, and a plastic surgeon must cut away scar tissue
that forms around the chip.
The relative permanence is a big reason why Marc Rotenberg,
of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is suspicious about
the motives of the company, which charges $20 a year for customers
to keep on its database a record of blood type, allergies,
medications, driver’s license data and living-will directives. For
$80 a year, it will keep an individual’s full medical history.
What’s been said on chip implants
Some public statements on the implantation of radio frequency
identification devices in people:
“President (Alvaro) Uribe said he
would consider having Colombian workers have microchips
implanted into their bodies before they are permitted to enter
the United States to work on a seasonal basis. I doubted whether
the implantation of microchips would be effective, since the
immigrant worker might be able to remove them.”
— Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
April 26, 2006, after returning from an official visit to
Colombia.
“You can also do it to replace dog tags with the United States
armed forces.”
— Tommy Thompson, former
Secretary of Health and Human Services and a Republican
presidential candidate, July 11, 2005.
“Can a microscopic tag be implanted in a person’s body to track
his every movement? There’s actual discussion about that. You
will rule on that — mark my words — before your tenure is over.”
— Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., to John
Roberts during Supreme Court confirmation hearings Sept. 12,
2005.
“We need some system for permanently identifying safe people.
Most of us are never going to blow anything up and there’s got
to be something better than one of these photo IDs ... I
wouldn’t mind having something planted permanently in my arm
that would identify me.”
— Andy Rooney, CBS-TV
commentator, on the news program “60 Minutes,” Feb. 10, 2002.
“It’s entirely possible to imagine, down the road, that a
stalking victim might have a chip implanted for health reasons,
and then be monitored, day and night, by an abuser who hides a
reader in the house, or at the door of the house.”
— Cindy Southworth, director of
technology at the National Network to End Domestic Violence in
Washington, D.C., June 7, 2007.
“Once a microchip is implanted in a human being, it’s no longer
just a privacy issue — it’s a human rights matter.”
— Marc Rotenberg, director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., June
5, 2007.
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