VeriChip and remote-controlled societies
Despite efforts by proponents of
implantable identification microchips to popularize them, most Americans are strongly
against the use of VeriChip.
In 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted clearance for VeriChip, an
identification system using implantable Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology,
consisting of a handheld reader, a microchip approximately the size of a grain of rice
(containing a unique 16-digit ID number), which is implanted in the right arm, and a
database.
VeriChip Corporation, the producer of the microchips, considers them as a fast and secure
way of accessing medical information for thousands of patients brought in emergency
departments either unconscious or unable to communicate due to medical conditions.
The US and certain other countries are currently implanting these microchips in the body
of infants. There has also been talk of replacing ID and credit cards with VeriChip.
However, there has been widespread opposition to the product as these microchips not only
allow authorities to control ones private life, but there is also the danger of hackers
getting their hands on personal information.
On the other hand, the VeriChip seems to have been only a means of distracting the public
from a far more sophisticated project, conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) -- the central research and development organization for the US Defense
Department.
DARPA has been investing in a new implantable chip called Multiple Micro Electrode Array
(MMEA); a chip which is surgically implanted directly into a human nerve or into specific
area of the brain and connects the brain to a computer.
While the medical advantages of these implantable microchips cannot be denied, a grain of
rice in the right arm may prove to be much more decisive.
Perhaps the Wachowski brothers were right about a computer-controlled world of the future.
(Press TV, Tehran, 8.12.2008, By
Ashkan Kazemian)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=66397§ionid=3510303