December 30, 2006

Discrimination Based On Your Gene Pool
NewsMax.com reported recently:
'A Florida company wants to implant its Radio Frequency Identification tags in immigrants and guest workers so they can be identified at the workplace.

'Scott Silverman, chairman of the Delray Beach-based VeriChip Corporation, said in a "Fox & Friends” TV interview that its RFID implant could be used to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities on the job.
Illegal immigrants could then be readily distinguished from those who registered.

'Silverman said: "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it.”

'The VeriChip RFID tag is about the size of a large grain of rice and can be injected directly into the body. An antenna in the chip sends data, according to the Web site Technovelgy.com.
The chip doesn’t require a battery and has a virtually unlimited lifespan.

'RFID tags have been used to identify livestock, laboratory animals and pets, but privacy advocates have expressed concerns about the technology being used in human beings.

'VeriChips are legal for implantation in people in the U.S., although a bill now under consideration in the Wisconsin legislature would ban mandatory implantation of the chips.'
*_*_*
The newsletter didn’t come out either for or against the idea—it simply reported that Congress has been lobbied by the company that makes the chips. If such a project were undertaken, VeriChip Corp. would turn a tidy profit, of course. Otherwise, why the lobbying effort?

Meanwhile, this seems SUCH a good idea. Let’s round up millions of law abiding immigrants whose only crime is looking different from the ‘norm’ [Northern European] and force them to have these little transmitters implanted in their bodies so they can be tracked wherever they go—whatever they’re doing—for as long as they live--so our government can distinguish them from people who are breaking the law.

7 comments:

TomCat said...

If it starts with immigrants, in five years it will have been expanded to include criminals, in ten it will include all Americans, and in fifteen, the religious right will be calling it the mark of the beast.

two crows said...

puts me in mind of armbands and patches in the 30's and 40's. especially in light of the town in Tennessee [I think it was] that proposed barring Hispanics from going into public parks.

TomCat said...

I hadn't heard about that. Do you have any idea how they thought they could get away with anything so blatant?

two crows said...

I'll see if I can find that referrence again [a newspaper article a few months ago] and post it here.

the city council actually took the matter under
advisement. at the time, I sent a letter drawing
the parallel between the proposal they were
considering and 1930's Germany.

I haven't followed up -- but I sure hope they rethought the idea.

TomCat said...

I hope they rethought the idea too. I think they must have. I can't imagine it going forward without sufficient stink being made to attract media attention.

two crows said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
two crows said...

hey, TC
I googled the article and found a couple of references:

http://www.tnimmigrant.org/TN_Coalition/Mailings/
AntiImmigrantActivity/SpringfieldParkIssue.html

http://www.mixedmediawatch.com/2006/09/19/
if-theyre-speaking-spanish-i-tend-to-think-they
-are-illegal/