The Chip Family
Florida, May 10th - Derek Jacobs was the first human being to be implanted with the new chipset VeriChip, manufactured by Applied Digital Solutions (ADSX). The procedure was then completed on Leslie, mother and Jeffrey, Derek’s father, making this family the first to be digitally marked.
VeriChip Implant
The VeriChip, which is about the size of a grain of rice is meant to be implanted in the human body and comfortably placed in nearly any location from the hand to obscure fatty tissue to important organs of the body without any real side-effects.
"We definitely, wholeheartedly believe that this technology will change the world, and it really is an honor to be a pioneer of a technology like this," said Leslie Jacobs. Her husband Jeffrey and 14-year-old son, Derek, say that they share the same vision for their VeriChip.
Note: A 14-year old boy talks his seemingly intelligent family into invasive surgery to plant a tracking device under the skin and turn them into human guinea pigs and digital blackboards. If he has developed this level of persuasive power at such a young age, imagine the biblical powers of persuasion that he could have by his 30’s.
"We're doing something that is good for mankind," Jeffrey said. "I feel like I'm going with the flow of nature, and doing exactly what we're here to do to improve the problems of the world."
Lifesaver chip?
For some, the chipset is being touted as a life saver. A prototype of the chip holds 126 characters and is activated only when a handheld scanner passes over it. The patient's identification number is displayed and then uploaded into another portable device. Patient data is encrypted to 128 bits and then displayed on the reader. As with all technologies of course, the amount of data will certainly increase and could potential hold hundreds of megabytes of data in the near future and will almost certainly contain a global positioning tracking feature.
Now for the ethical problems and we hope that you have your thinking cap on:
1) With the size of the VeriChip, it is quite conceivable that this unit could be placed somewhere in the body where it couldn’t easily be located and in an area that would require expert surgical skills to remove. Forget the United States for a moment. The company openly states that it is working to develop global channels and has officially landed deals in three Latin America countries with current orders over $300,000 and first year revenues are expected to top $2,000,000.
Applied Digital Solutions states that medical security is the driving force behind the sales to Latin America: "We have received an overwhelming interest in VeriChip worldwide," said Richard J. Sullivan, chairman and CEO of Applied Digital Solutions. "The demand for products that add safety and security to everyday life is particularly strong in Latin America as a result of its political, economic, and social climate. Even before the recent extensive media coverage, we had been receiving dozens of inquiries and unsolicited offers to distribute our products in Latin America. In the past few weeks, the interest has grown exponentially."
Now if you believe that medical security is the driving force Latin America, stop here. You probably also believe that China is interested in securing the medical security of its dissidents. Regardless of who may want what, is it realistic that ADS will bother with the motivations of the purchasing countries. We’re betting IBM won’t either. They’ve already invested more than $80 million in the venture.
2) Could the chip become mandatory? According to Applied Digital Solutions' Chief Technology Officer Keith Bolton, "I don't envision a time like that because we live in the USA, [the land of] freedom of speech [and] democracy. It's your choice. You elect to have a chip because it's gonna provide a benefit to you.”
Perhaps we’re just cynical here. Technology gurus create a virtually invisible way of tracking you and collecting data on you but nobody wants to do that because we live here in the United States? If you are on the Internet, you are being tracked. If you’ve ever registered a piece of software, you are being tracked. If you send a piece of email, believe it… you can be tracked, even if you sent if from a location like Hotmail, Yahoo, or any other web site. The people that have developed this tracking are in the same field as the people that have designed and programmed the VeriChip.
About technology, not medicine
Don’t be mistaken, the VeriChip isn’t about medicine though that is currently the stated purpose. It may well have medical uses, but other potential uses are so many, it serves no specific medical purpose, and identifying it as a medical device would be erroneous at best.
3) The slippery slope theory says that once you start down a path, taking the next step is just a little easier. Tracking the human population sounds like a big step and one that people would object to. But if the argument were to be made that people could be found if they were lost or injured. Would it sound quite as bad?
What if the argument were made that soldiers could be tracked in the field and their bodily functions could be monitored so that the injured could be rescued and commanders could accurately gauge troop movements and therefore save American lives. Now it sounds even better.
What would you do?
And what if you were told that information could be placed on the chip that would guarantee that nobody could ever impersonate you or steal your credit. Now it might even sound great. These are the things you will be told.
The other truth
You won’t be told that any person with access to the system can monitor your whereabouts; people that you don’t know and who don’t know you. Of course there is no way that everyone can be tracked. Nobody is going to sit and watch where you go and what you do.
Computers would have to track your movements and would therefore have to be programmed with a set of rules that would identify certain patterns of behavior as suspicious. In theory, a computer would point you out as being a suspicious person with no human intervention making the call.
You won’t be told about the possibility that someone with less than honorable intentions may get data from the system and use it against you in some way. We want to believe that those in charge are honorable and would never breach security protocols for personal financial gain. Nope, government officials are always honest and would never act in their best interests. Likewise, corporate America wouldn’t even think of trading your personal freedoms for financial gain and they only hire employees with the same dedication to preserving the personal freedoms of others.
No going back
Once in place and embedded in the population at large, who is to say how the rules will change. Would we ever consider letting our freedoms go that easily? Would we have tolerated our grandparents be frisked at the airport before 9/11/2001? One incident has changed an impossible absurdity into an accepted reality.
