Microchipping: Big Brother Under Your Skin

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FYI --

Scary technology, scary "intentions" !!!

Be aware.

Sigh.....

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/10/20/notes102004.DTL & nl=fix"Big Brother Under Your Skin"

The future is now. The microchip implant for humans

is here. Free with every vente latte!- By Mark Morford, SF Gate ColumnistWednesday, October 20, 2004I shall walk toward my car completely naked and

keyless and laughing maniacally and I shall wave

my arm over a tiny scanner and the doors will open

and the engine will start and the stereo will begin

to pump out "Highway to Hell" at a nice respectable

skull-thumping volume.And, lo, it shall be Good.I shall stroll up to any ATM sans wallet and sans

ATM card and I shall hold my arm over the screen

and immediately withdraw four hundred dollars and

then turn around to the big shiny vending machine

and wave my arm again and get myself a nice bag of

toxic neon-orange Doritos and a Diet Mountain Dew

so I can poison my body in the American tradition

without inserting a single piece of needless pocket

change.It is all possible. It is all just on the cusp. All we must

do is welcome the sinister intimations and the positively

draconian implications and say a big warm slightly

terrified hello to the new, FDA-approved implantable

microchip, coming soon to a hospital and a Starbucks and

a bleak government agency and a human dermal layer

near you. Very, very near you.Have you seen it? Did you check out the pictures?

Microchips the size of a grain of rice, programmed with

all manner of data and inserted just under your skin and

it's all completely legal and government approved and

it's happening right now. I mean, who knew microchipping

your pet and implanting livestock would lead to this? Oh

right -- everyone, that's who.The wait is over. No more Philip K. Dick sci-fi fantasia,

no more far-off Orwellian Big Brother. We are there.

Or, rather, here. This new chip is already being implanted

in medical patients for the alleged purpose of tracking

their health needs and speeding treatment and it is right

now being used in the flesh of employees working in

high-security areas to ensure they don't swipe top-secret

pens and classified pads of Post-it Notes.Which is to say, you have been warned. Human skin has

already been penetrated. Alarms are already sounding

because it's one of those things wherein you can't even

fully comprehend all the weird and creepy and potentially

dangerous possibilities, but it doesn't even matter because

all you need to hear is those four magic words: Microchip.

Implant. Human. Flesh. And all your intuitive senses go,

whoa.Oh sure, the initial benefits will appear harmless and

helpful. They will say the chip will mostly be used for

health reasons and they will say it's to be strictly

monitored and there is no way the tiny implants could

possibly be corrupted because it's just a cute littleitty-bitty microchip containing cute little itty-bitty bits

of helpful medical data to help doctors diagnose you

ha ha sucker.This is what they will say. his is how it starts.

This is how it always starts. But that, of course, is never where it ends. Already

we can imagine the likes of John Ashcroft, salivating

noisily at the idea of inserting similar chips directly

into the skin of every swarthy foreigner and every

tofu-sucking liberal commie protester while they sleep

so the government can track your movements and

erase your Social Security number and stomp down

your door the minute you buy a used copy of "How to

Make Cool Thermonuclear Warheads in Your Bathtub."This much is a given.But it's what happens after that where things get

sticky, treacherous, spiritually appalling. After all,

personal information is a form of knowledge and

knowledge is power and the new chip is all about

who knows what about whom and the government

would dearly love to know it all, especially about you.

What's stopping them? What's preventing every

citizen from getting a nice implant and considering

it a wondrous boon? Not much, really.Think it can't go that far? Think the populace will

resist, or they can't possibly do this without our

knowing? Think again. The first step is getting the

public to accept the new technology as benign and

beneficial (i.e., it's for health!). The next is to

make it appear all fun and commercial and

ultraconvenient (i.e., score drinks at cool clubs

without money, just like they already do in Spain!)The third step is, well, whatever the hell they want.So then, let us flip it over. Let us embrace the evil,

given how we appear to have little choice. Let us

make our wish list now and spell out our all-American

capitalist desires for this new technology because

we might as well get some cool features and fabulous

benefits out of it as we all blithely sacrifice our

personal identities at the altar of murky and unsettling

progress. After all, evil always has an upside, right?Like, for example, subway rides. Bridge tolls. Movie

tickets. Just wave your arm to the sensor, pal. Airline

check-in? Rental car? Proof of ID? It will all be in

your arm, baby. Shoe size, blood-alcohol limit, contact-

lens prescription, voter registration, grocery-store

discounts, phone numbers of all your former lovers,

alimony-payment status, PINs and electronic-bike-lock

combos and car-seat-adjustment preferences and oh

my goodness let the imagination run wild.It is a world of incredible possibility. It is a world

where you will become instantly traceable and locatable

and with a tweak here and a wire there we can now

follow you via GPS no matter where you are on the planet.

Until now, you've always had to carry some sort of largishdevice with you. No more.The dynamic has changed. The ancient wisdom has fallen.

No longer are we a delicious dance of mind and body,

spirit and flesh. Meet the new triad: we are now spirit

and flesh and technology. Get used to it.It will, I predict, become a fabulous new trend. The chips

will become fashion accessories, invisible status symbols,

like dental fillings stamped with the Gucci logo or cool

tattoos on your kidney. Your credit limit will be implanted

into your skin. Your access to private clubs and shops and

spas will be granted depending on the status of your chip.

Keyless-entry implants will be free with purchase of anynew Jaguar.Another Botox injection? Certainly. Just wave your face

over the scanner, please. New Range Rover? Absolutely.

Just waves your penis over the screen. Entrance to this

exclusive club? I'm sorry, your chip says you're plebeian

scum making less than 22K a year and you seem to enjoy

weird books and illicit sex and mild but annoying acts ofsedition and anarchy. Please go away.We are mere inches away from making all this happen.

We are mere millimeters from giving it all away, to

just saying screw it and letting Wal-Mart and Starbucks

and McDonald's and Amazon and the Justice Department

and the corporate monoliths have their way with us once

and for all and inject us with all manner of cute littlemicrochips to make our shopping better and our wallets

less cluttered and our lives at once easier and more

convenient and far more ominous and more completely

compromised and fabulously corrupted than we couldever have hoped.Look. The future is no longer coming fast. The future

has raced right up to our faces and is screaming its

shrill greeting and is penetrating our very flesh on a

relatively painless surprisingly affordable outpatient

basis. The technology has finally arrived, quiet and calm

and unassuming as a grain of rice.And as we all hop in this speeding handbasket, just

imagine how nice it will be not to have to carry any cash.

# Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.# Mark's column archives are here.Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every

Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on

Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe

to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters..

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