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Implantable Chip, On Sale Now
Is THIS
The Mark of the Beast?
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Is
The VeriChip Mobile Coming To YOUR Town?
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The maker of an
implantable human ID chip has launched a national campaign to promote
the device, offering $50 discounts to the first 100,000 people who
register to get embedded with the microchip.
Applied
Digital Solutions has coined
the tagline "Get Chipped" to market its product, VeriChip.
 The rice-size device
costs $200. Those implanted must also pay for the doctor's injection fee
and a monthly $10 database maintenance charge, said ADS spokesman
Matthew Cossolotto.
The VeriChip emits a
125-kilohertz radio frequency signal that transmits its unique ID number
to a scanner. The number then accesses a computer database containing
the client's file. Customers fill out a form detailing the information
they want linked to their chip when they undergo the procedure,
Cossolotto said.
Earlier this week, ADS
announced that the FDA had ruled that the VeriChip was not a regulated
device when used for "security, financial and personal
identification/safety applications."
The agency's
sudden approval of the microchip came despite an FDA investigator's
concern about the potential
health effects of the device in humans. (Microchips have been used to
track animals for years.)
The company is
marketing the device for a variety of security applications, including:
* Controlling access
to physical structures, such as government or private sector offices or
nuclear power plants. Instead of swiping a smart card, employees could
swipe the arm containing the chip.
* Reducing financial
fraud. In this scenario, people could use their chip to withdraw money
from ATMs; their accounts could not be accessed unless they were
physically present.
* Decreasing identity
theft. People could use the chip as a password to access their computer
at home, for example.
Cossolotto said ADS
has gotten "hundreds" of inquiries from people interested in
being implanted.
Meanwhile, privacy
advocates are wondering about the specter of forced chippings.
"(ID chips)
are a form of electronic leashes, a form of digital control," said
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center. "What happens if
an employer makes it a condition of employment for a person to be
implanted with the chip? It could easily become a condition of release
for parolees or a requirement for welfare."
Rotenberg said EPIC
has filed a Freedom of Information Request to learn more details about
the FDA's sudden approval of VeriChip.
The chip has
also alarmed some Christians, who fear it is the biblical "Mark of
the Beast"; dozens of websites
allude to the Satanic implications of the technology.
Revelation 13:16-18
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, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and
six [666].
The company has
consistently tried to allay such fears since the chip debuted in
December 2001.
"It's a voluntary
device that we think has enormous utility," Cossolotto said.
"This is intended for good purposes."
ADS said seven
health-care facilities, located in Arizona, Texas, Florida and Virginia,
have signed up to distribute the chip, in addition to mobilizing a large
bus the company has outfitted as a mobile "chipping station."
Would-be customers can also register online.
The company plans to
develop a prototype for an implantable GPS
[Global Positioning System]
ID chip by the end of the
year. [The
GPS ID chip will allow the whereabouts of the individual implanted
to be quickly determined by those possessing monitoring devices! Who do
you think that will eventually be?] |