Wisconsin bans forced human chipping

[theist]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 31, 2006

 

WISCONSIN BANS FORCED HUMAN RFID CHIPPING

Groundbreaking Law Spotlights Opposition to VeriChip

 

Civil libertarians cheered yesterday upon news that Wisconsin Governor

Jim Doyle signed a law making it a crime to require an individual to be

implanted with a microchip. Activists and authors Katherine Albrecht

and

Liz McIntyre joined the celebration, predicting this move will spell

trouble for the VeriChip Corporation, maker of the VeriChip human

microchip implant.

 

The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated Radio Frequency Identification tag

that is injected into the flesh to uniquely number and identify people.

The tag can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves from up to a

foot or more away, right through clothing. The highly controversial

device is also being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to

medical records, and serve as a payment device when associated with a

credit card.

 

"We're not even aware of anyone attempting to forcibly implant

microchips into people," says Albrecht. "That lawmakers felt this

legislation was necessary indicates a growing concern that the

company's

product could pose a serious threat to the public down the road."

 

Although the company emphasizes that its chip is strictly voluntary,

recent statements suggest this could easily change. VeriChip Chairman

of

the Board Scott Silverman has been promoting the VeriChip as a partial

solution to immigration concerns, proposing it as a way to register

guest workers, verify their identities as they cross the border, and

"be

used for enforcement purposes at the employer level." He told

interviewers on the Fox News Channel that the company has "talked to

many people in Washington about using it."

 

The company has also confirmed it has been in talks with the Pentagon

about replacing military dog tags with VeriChip implants.

 

Wisconsin's anti-human-chipping law comes at a particularly bad time

for

VeriChip Corporation because it has an initial public offering of its

stock in the works, McIntyre observes. "The company has been losing

millions of dollars and has been counting on public acceptance to stem

its losses and prove its future. The people have spoken. They don't

want

RFID devices in their flesh, and we expect other states will join

Wisconsin in prohibiting forced chipping."

 

Albrecht and McIntyre have dogged the VeriChip Corporation, revealing

medical and security flaws in its human chip and warning about its

serious privacy and civil liberties downsides in their book "Spychips:

How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move

with

RFID."

 

Wisconsin's new law was introduced as Assembly Bill 290 by

Representative Marlin D. Schneider (D) and was passed unanimously by

both houses of the Wisconsin State Legislature this spring. The law

makes it illegal to require an individual to have a microchip implant

and subjects a violator to a fine of up to $10,000 per day.

 

=========================================

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

 

"Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your

Every Move with RFID" (Nelson Current) was released in October 2005.

Already in its fifth printing, "Spychips" is the winner of the 2006

Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and has

received wide critical acclaim. Authored by Harvard doctoral researcher

Katherine Albrecht and former bank examiner Liz McIntyre, the book is

meticulously researched, drawing on patent documents, corporate source

materials, conference proceedings, and firsthand interviews to paint a

convincing -- and frightening -- picture of the threat posed by RFID.

 

Despite its hundreds of footnotes and academic-level accuracy, the book

remains lively and readable according to critics, who have called it a

"techno-thriller" and "a masterpiece of technocriticism."

 

The Spanish-language version of the book, titled "Chips Espias," will

be

available in bookstores in the Americas and Spain starting June 6,

2006.

 

=========================================

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

 

Katherine Albrecht (kma@spychips.com) 877-287-5854 ext. 1

or

Liz McIntyre (liz@spychips.com) 877-287-5854 ext. 2

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

This is very good - now - if only I could find justice for having had this CRFID forced on me [it's not a regular RFID] - on June 05, 2002. Yup - the States always have a better take on things and - it takes too long for this country to follow suit - but - with Conservatives in Ottawa - I expect there shall be some good changes on the way in Canada.

[stonehearted]

Boy, what a relief it is to read this. The title of this thread put another picture in my mind, more related to compost.

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

Of course - it's in America first that we've seen a specific law dealing with this nature of abuse - a kind of forced abuse that is going to get only worse - the smaller these devices become.

 

Though a $10 000 fine is much much too low - as for them corporations that would do this to people - that small amount would become a reasonably meager 'cost-of-doing-business'.

 

Take it from one who has had this forced on him - it is a serious abuse - especially if the victim comes to know about the implant. If someone invades ones home and assults the occupant - that is a serious criminal offense - how less is the invasion of ones body with a tracking-technology!

 

At least this law is a start. This is an issue that everyone aught to be aware of - as it is a very very slippery slope indeed when they start to do this - one day - those individuals creating [and those that are employing] this human micrco-chipping program and infrastructure may themselves one day have it used against them [by the sequential changes within some of our leaders over the next generation in going from questionable to ] - who wants that? This is the Age of Quarrel after all...