A NATION OF CATTLE?
Have you been chipped, yet?
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-12-31/pols_hightower.html
You could be soon, for the Food & Drug Administration has now
cleared the way for a Florida corporation, Applied Digital
Solutions, to market a tiny electronic device called VeriChip that
is surgically implanted under the skin of your arm or hand.
Don't worry, says the corporation soothingly, being chipped
doesn't hurt you, and it's really for your own good. For example,
they say, if you have an accident, your implanted chip could
contain vital medical information that could be accessed by an
ambulance crew (assuming the crew has bought a hand-held,
chip-reading scanner, which Applied Digital also happens to sell).
Besides, coo the corporate hawkers, being chipped is a matter of
great personal convenience for you. No longer would you have to
carry cumbersome ID cards to get into your workplace - you could
have all the required ID stored on your chip, right inside your
body. And think of the convenience of not having to fumble with
credit cards! Instead, your credit numbers literally are implanted
in you, so rather than running your cards through a scanner, a
retailer can simply scan you. Talk about consumer progress,
VeriChip turns your own body - your very own self - into a
bar-coded payment system.
After all, says Applied Digital, our country has been implanting
such devices in millions of cattle and pets, and it has worked
beautifully, so why not humans? For you fussy libertarians who see
Big Brother looming behind every scientific breakthrough like
VeriChip, the company says that being implanted is voluntary, so
where's the worry?
The worry, of course, is that being chipped will not stay
voluntary. Corporations and government will soon insist that their
employees, frequent travelers, protesters, and others be tagged
for security reasons. To rebel against this effort to turn us into
a nation of cattle, call the Electronic Privacy Information
Center: 202/483-1140.
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http://lastliberal.org
"We wonder why they [students] carry guns and kill each other. Well,
we've told them "You're nothing, you're a freak, you're an accident of
nature. That's all'" -- Benny Proffitt, President of First Priority
of America - comments on teaching evolution
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