The biochips are coming—first to animals, children, homeless, elderly

Welcome to our brave new world. The RFID age is upon us and our resistance at this time is crucial or this brave new surveillance world is inevitable. When you read bills before the U.S. Congress and bills before the legislatures of the several states, you can see that the lawmakers of this land are in favor of plans to plant biochips in every wild and domesticated animal, every human being and in every product in commerce. In each proposed application of RFID technology—pets, livestock, products, children, the homeless, the elderly—we are being sold on the advantages. Never seriously considered by RFID proponents are the opportunities for abuse or the probabilities for unintended consequences; never intelligently discussed are the health effects upon creatures being bathed in radiation wherever they go. The process is going forward at lightspeed regardless now that electronic hardware and software are coming online with the wi-fi world (The IO, Feb., 2006). If you need proof beyond the snippets gracing this page, just open your eyes: There are RFID readers everywhere now—in stores, public buildings and on the roads of America. Pretty soon there will be an electronically-retrievable record of every place we go and everything we purchase.