Anyone Else Concerned About This?
Proposal to Implant Tracking Chips in Immigrants
By Bill Christensen
posted: 31 May 2006
07:04 pm ET
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Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company's RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. He made the statement on national television on May 16.
Silverman was being interviewed on "Fox & Friends." Responding to the Bush administration's call to know "who is in our country and why they are here," he proposed using VeriChip RFID implants to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities in the workplace. He added, "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it...."
The VeriChip is a very small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag about the size of a large grain of rice. It can be injected directly into the body; a special coating on the casing helps the VeriChip bond with living tissue and stay in place. A special RFID reader broadcasts a signal, and the antenna in the VeriChip draws power from the signal and sends its data. The VeriChip is a passive RFID tag; since it does not require a battery, it has a virtually unlimited life span.
RFID tags have long been used to identify animals in a variety of settings; livestock, laboratory animals and pets have been "chipped" for decades. Privacy advocates have long expressed concerns about this technology being used in human beings.
In a related story, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe allegedly remarked that microchips could be used to track seasonal workers to visiting U.S. senators Jeff Sessions (Alabama) and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania). "President Uribe said he would consider having Colombian workers have microchips implanted in their bodies before they are permitted to enter the US for seasonal work," Specter told Congress on April 25.
Implanting microchips in human beings for the purpose of monitoring is not exactly news for science fiction fans; Alfred Bester wrote about "skull bugs" in his 1974 novel The Computer Connection:
"...you don't know what's going on in the crazy culture outside. It's a bugged and drugged world. Ninety percent of the bods have bugs implanted in their skulls in hospital when they're born. They're monitored constantly."
By Bill Christensen
posted: 31 May 2006
07:04 pm ET
\t
Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company's RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. He made the statement on national television on May 16.
Silverman was being interviewed on "Fox & Friends." Responding to the Bush administration's call to know "who is in our country and why they are here," he proposed using VeriChip RFID implants to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities in the workplace. He added, "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it...."
The VeriChip is a very small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag about the size of a large grain of rice. It can be injected directly into the body; a special coating on the casing helps the VeriChip bond with living tissue and stay in place. A special RFID reader broadcasts a signal, and the antenna in the VeriChip draws power from the signal and sends its data. The VeriChip is a passive RFID tag; since it does not require a battery, it has a virtually unlimited life span.
RFID tags have long been used to identify animals in a variety of settings; livestock, laboratory animals and pets have been "chipped" for decades. Privacy advocates have long expressed concerns about this technology being used in human beings.
In a related story, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe allegedly remarked that microchips could be used to track seasonal workers to visiting U.S. senators Jeff Sessions (Alabama) and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania). "President Uribe said he would consider having Colombian workers have microchips implanted in their bodies before they are permitted to enter the US for seasonal work," Specter told Congress on April 25.
Implanting microchips in human beings for the purpose of monitoring is not exactly news for science fiction fans; Alfred Bester wrote about "skull bugs" in his 1974 novel The Computer Connection:
"...you don't know what's going on in the crazy culture outside. It's a bugged and drugged world. Ninety percent of the bods have bugs implanted in their skulls in hospital when they're born. They're monitored constantly."
Comments
Beyond that, there's an immigration problem in this country: whether you think immigration is good or bad, there are a lot of illegal immigrants. This would be a decent way to verify a legal immigrant from an illegal.
Second, I think there are better ways of solving the immigrant problem. Like annexing Mexico.
Originally posted by Placebo
Second, I think there are better ways of solving the immigrant problem. Like annexing Mexico.
This would be grounds for the political subforum, but as far as I can tell there not a lot of worth in Mexico. That's why immigration from Mexico is a problem.
Personally, I don't think it should be this hard to move between countries. It's everybody's world, in some ways the concept of countries with controlled borders is just plain stupid.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
This would be grounds for the political subforum, but as far as I can tell there not a lot of worth in Mexico. That's why immigration from Mexico is a problem.
Interestingly, Mexico has its own immigration problems on *its* southern border.
Originally posted by SpamSandwich
Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company's RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. "
Some people are stupid..
Originally posted by ThinkingDifferent
Some people are stupid..
He's not stupid if the government bites and he gets to sell them 20 million transponders for $5 each and probably over 10,000 scanners at $300 each.
Watch, if this goes through, the next 10 years will be really interesting...
Originally posted by Splinemodel
This would be grounds for the political subforum, but as far as I can tell there not a lot of worth in Mexico. That's why immigration from Mexico is a problem.
Right. That's why Mexico is a problem. We should be working with Mexico and pouring billions of dollars in there in infrastructure and development. It is in everyone's best interest from an economic development standpoint. It's not like Mexicans love America. Mexicans love Mexico and Mexicans love getting a decent paycheck.
Originally posted by progmac
Right. That's why Mexico is a problem. We should be working with Mexico and pouring billions of dollars in there in infrastructure and development. It is in everyone's best interest from an economic development standpoint. It's not like Mexicans love America. Mexicans love Mexico and Mexicans love getting a decent paycheck.
Lets make mexico the 51st state...combine it with Texas, call it Texico...oh, that is taken? Oh well...exercise eminant domain on the copyright!
Empire North weapons
Of course, a selling idea is a selling idea, whether genuine at the time or not.
Originally posted by aplnub
They should end welfare first and then worry about the immigration problem.
Welfare became "workfare" under Reagan, didn't it?
Originally posted by Relic
This was my suggestion but I guess RFID chips are ok to
Nice!!!
Originally posted by progmac
Right. That's why Mexico is a problem. We should be working with Mexico and pouring billions of dollars in there in infrastructure and development. It is in everyone's best interest from an economic development standpoint. It's not like Mexicans love America. Mexicans love Mexico and Mexicans love getting a decent paycheck.
I am going to disagree with you there. I would guess a majority of Mexicans that move to America, think of themselves as Americans. I know, I have plenty of Mexican friends and that is 100% the case in them. If you don't believe me, ask them and they will fight about it.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame...html?m=4%23655
Our Bodies, Our Technologies
Ray Kurzweil's Cambridge Forum Lecture (Abridged)
by Ray Kurzweil
"In the 2020s, we'll see nanobots, blood-cell-sized devices that can go inside the body and brain to perform therapeutic functions. But what happens when we have billions of nanobots inside the capillaries of our brains, non-invasively, widely distributed, expanding human intelligence, or providing full-immersion virtual reality?"
Can you say The Matrix!?!?!
Kurzweil has a book out as well, predicting the merger of machines and man. It is called _The Singularity is Near_.
Verrrrrry interesting read.