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Human GPS Microchipping: Embrace it or ban it?
Who are you? Where are you? What have you done?
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COMMENTS
Posted by iPan on 03/14 at 04:26 PM
I think the real issue isn’t the technology, but the flow of information.
Sure, I’m ok with having GPS tracking in my body. But so should all politicians, all police.
The Panopticon is fine with me, as long as it results in transparency that is available to all, and not a select few.
In fact, in order to evolve into a technologically enabled egalitarian anarchy, I think it’s necessary.
I think police should wear micro-cams that live stream to a publicly viewable website whenever they are on duty.
I think everything our congress does should be on live TV. No closed doors, no backrooms, no secrecy.
Apply this kind of transparency equally amongst ALL sectors and classes of society.
Who do you think will make the most noise about this kind of technology?
The masses?
Or the elite, who can only run things the way they are by maintaining secrecy from the public?
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/14 at 04:42 PM
great ideas iPan—microcams in all the back-chambers of the politicians! Police stations and war zones too. Thanks
Posted by iPan on 03/14 at 04:50 PM
I propose an experiment to test how well this technology would work:
For 1 year, every Congress member, the President, all Supreme Court Judges, every officer in the military with the rank Colonel or higher, all FBI, CIA, NSA, and DHS employee, and every head of every Federal Department will volunteer to adopt this technology as a test run.
They should set an example for the rest of us to follow, if they are truly “leaders”, don’t you agree?
Posted by Frank Glover on 03/14 at 05:17 PM
“Who are you? Where are you? What have you done?”
To me, the obvious answer is: Who wants to know? And who deserves to know?
Even if (major if) I had unconditional trust in the institutions and levels of government that are ‘supposed’ to have access to this information, why should I give the unquestionably ‘bad guys’ yet one more potential channel of information to my activities and identity to hack?
At least make em’ work for it. don’t let the fruit hang any lower than necessary.
(For example, I recall an idea to put RFID in all paper currency, encoded with the value of the bill. But it also means that some clever person could create their own reader that would tell them how much cash I have on my person, without coming unduly close to me. What? This new device would make cash obsolete anyway? That only means there’s information on my net worth I’m carrying that could allow me to be virtually ‘mugged’ without being touched, either…)
Posted by Mario on 03/14 at 05:33 PM
My phone does not have GPS activated, and I bet could turn the feature off if I wanted to or get one without it. Same with the car’s GPS.
Yes, bank accounts and supermarket club cards have incredible amounts of microscopic data, but I can still use cash if I want (for now anyway), and not use the club card if I want to be “off line.”
I can leave my wallet at home when I please. I can turn devices off.
The thing has be able to be switched off at will in terms of transmitting my data. If I go missing, then emergency services can look for “me” and remotely switch on the transmission feature - but only under well defined emergency conditions. It has to not be transmitting unless I want it to, and not be findable unless I want it to. The device has to alert me when anyone - ANYONE from Homeland Security on down - is looking for me.
But I would greatly prefer an external device that I can leave home on purpose when I want to. A e-wallet that has not reduced my very person to a walking data generator. There can be techno safeguards against thievery - indeed, being able to track it makes it pretty useless to a thief and pretty easy to find if it gets lost.
Making it mandatory in any case is sheer tyranny. Keep your so-called list of benefits. There are other ways of achieving those benefits without totalitarianism. They aren’t worth the danger. And maybe I’m a slippery-slope, paranoid goofball, but I say if you give the government that kind of power, they will use it. Or someone will find a way of using it. It is only a matter of time. You see benefits, I see slavery. A nice cushy slavery. A gilded birdcage is still a cage.
There are a few organizations that I generally dislike. Banks, insurance companies, and governments are the top three. And they are the ones who will benefit most from “me” getting an implant. Not me. Them. I don’t really want to do them any favors.
Posted by Fred James on 03/14 at 06:29 PM
Aloha The Hankster,
While you have provided many reasons for SOME people to use a chip, I would want no part of it. Privacy and freedom go together. I want the State to have FEWER means of tracking people not more. Now if some people WANT to be microchipped like my cat, then let them do so. It can be removed.
Let it forever be something that is totally voluntary and up to each individual to do or not do. And let those infants who are INVOLUNTARILY microchipped, be allowed to have their chips removed if they want…AT THEIR PARENTS” EXPENSE.
Live long and prosper!
Aloha Nui Loa,
IL Fettucinni
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/14 at 06:55 PM
@ Fred—Hi, thanks always for your comments and opinions.
I am curious though…
libertarians generally support the right to own guns, so—
—are they inclined to get their guns co-‘chipped with them,
so that no one can use their firearms except themselves?
or are they (or you?) opposed to microchips in all circumstances?
it seems to me that - if one controls the technology - microchipping
provides security within a small group. A clandestine group could use ‘chips (like the Baja Beach Club) to pinpoint who is in their group and who is not.
thanks again!
Posted by Rich Owings on 03/14 at 08:20 PM
There’s no such thing as a subcutaneous GPS tracker. No way to power it and the signals will not penetrate skin since the body’s composition is mostly water.
Posted by Vegard Madsen on 03/14 at 08:27 PM
We already are being tracked over credit cards , bank statements , the iphone an pc is constantly sending out information and has software that we are not aware of communication with different servers . mostly used for marketing and commercials but reassuringly also used for governmental control .
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/14 at 08:48 PM
@ Rich - Empire North of Denmark has had, since 2006, a sniper rifle that can shoot a GPS-microchip into a human body from long distance, since 2006. It feels like a mosquito bite, says the website, lasting just a fraction of a second.
link is here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2034
other, and easier, GPS implants are on the way
Posted by Rich Owings on 03/14 at 09:33 PM
http://www.engadget.com/2004/04/28/computerworld-duped-by-id-sniper-rifle-hoax/
Sorry Hank, but its just not possible. You can do a subdermal RFID tracker, but the tracking range is measured in feet.
GPS signals cannot penetrate water or our wetware. And a GPS tracking device would need to power the GPS receiver AND a transmitter. We can’t even make cell phone batteries last a week.
Posted by iPan on 03/14 at 10:06 PM
Seems like the discuss is getting mired in technical details.
Rich,
The technology might not exist this moment, but do you doubt that it will soon?
It seems only a matter of time (short) before someone figures out how. So it’s a mere engineering issue, and a very minor one at that.
The real meat of this issue is the sociopolitical implications.
How do you feel about that?
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/14 at 10:16 PM
@ Rich—thanks for the information, very grateful!
There’s links on many of the 15 different possible applications for microchip devices that my article lists—all 15 are already being used or are being discussed with possible production considered. Some links describe id microchips presently in use (Baja Beach Club, etc), some links describe GPS devices worn on clothing (Alzheimer’s patients, etc), and some of the 15 are for gizmos that will need GPS capability in microchips (anti-kidnapping devices, etc).
I am hoping, with this article, to expand the public’s notion of how microchips and GPS can be used sensibly. Please let me know if you have any ideas of your own. I am sure that my 15 possibilities are only a fraction of the eventual uses that these devices will perform for us - and I’m eager to hear more possibilities from readers.
Posted by Rich Owings on 03/15 at 08:07 AM
Thanks Hank. It’s definitely coming at some point, and as we both noted, RFID chips are already here. And I agree, there are some sensible uses.
Posted by CygnusX1 on 03/15 at 08:33 AM
Quote - ” and citizens of the United Kingdom, arguably the “most spied upon people in the free world†with 4.2 million public surveillance cameras, are anticipating perhaps being “‘chipped like dogs in a decade.â€
Now where did you get this idea from? I can tell you now that the UK will be first to crush such preposterous proposals.. although we do have genetic fingerprinting for passports which is still optional, (and you have to pay extra for the privilege to have one of these). The UK compulsory ID card scheme hatched by our so-called socialist Labour government was also crushed under foot by Mr. Cameron and co. (Not every notion the Tories have of freedom of rights is wrong).
We do have lots and lots of surveillance cameras.. do you want to buy some?
Quote - ” If my wallet was ancient history, I could meander in light pants to the local library to pick up some murdered-tree books for my Kindle-rejecting kids, then skip over to Trader Joe’s for some discount New Zealand lamb chops.”
Libertarian !
Hank.. What a well thought out and grisly picture you paint.
You are wicked.. and I don’t mean that in a good way!
@ iPan..
Quote - ” Who do you think will make the most noise about this kind of technology?
The masses?
Or the elite, who can only run things the way they are by maintaining secrecy from the public?”
I cannot believe you would sanction this? As an anarchist I would have thought that you would defend your freedom to roam as you please as paramount?
You cannot have selective chips for selected/selective peoples.. it is either all of us or none at all. And there is really only one reason why chipping would be recommended - taxation ! All the other reasons are just feeble excuses and diversions.
The future DOES NOT have to be like Blade Runner!
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/15 at 09:29 AM
@ CygnusX1 - thanks for your comments - the link to the UK reference is in the article - but here it is again:
http://justgetthere.us/blog/archives/Britons-could-be-microchipped-like-dogs-in-a-decade.html
please let us know how Britons feel about this -
sounds like you’re saying you don’t all want to be “chipped like dogs”
thanks
Posted by CygnusX1 on 03/15 at 10:40 AM
“I am not a number, I am a free man!”... (allegedly)
Thanks for the link
Posted by iPan on 03/15 at 12:28 PM
—
CygnusX1
“I cannot believe you would sanction this? As an anarchist I would have thought that you would defend your freedom to roam as you please as paramount?”
—
For clarification, I advocate anarcho-pacifism.
“You cannot have selective chips for selected/selective peoples.. it is either all of us or none at all.”
If you read through my replies, you’ll see that this is exactly the point I’m making.
Total surveillance/transparency is not that bad in my mind, as long as it’s applied equally to everyone.
I also make the point that it would probably be the elite who would fight against the idea the most, because they cannot get away with the things they do is they are being surveilled.
In an absolute panopticon, where no one is exempt from surveillance, crime is virtually impossible (or at least impossible to get away with). So, I suspect that the elite would have a bigger problem with this than the masses.
The other point I made, was to say let those in power be the first to adopt. Let them “lead” the way, and if it works out, maybe everyone else will get on board. Them first.
Eventually, I think that this kind of connection to the world will preserve privacy, in the long run. It has advantages, like those Hank pointed out. Not getting lost. Being protected at all times. No one can commit a violent crime without someone noticing.
The abuse only comes from unequal application.
In any case, I don’t think people need to be “chipped” for this kind of stuff to emerge.
It’s going to grow itself from the ground up, in the form of social media.
Humanity is evolving into a global integrated network/global village, and it’s not going to be a top-down hierarchy, so we don’t need to worry about Orwellian dystopia’s.
The Hegemon’s, while they may put up a fight, will not win, simply because they are really dumb, apparently, when it comes to understanding chaotic emergent systems. This just can’t keep up with the wave of changes. They don’t see it coming, and there’s too many of us.
So, I’m not really afraid of any kind of techno-totalitarianism, because I know that the people are going to absorb them like an amoeba. It’s all math, really.
I think that, yes, we will have a global network that ‘watches’ everyone. But, it will be part of a collective swarm enabled by ubiquitous social media, not a centralized panopticon controlled by a cabal of ultras.
Posted by lucy kafka on 03/17 at 09:48 AM
you know all that we really want: GPS tracking on teenagers. With drug testing abilities?
Posted by Freeman on 03/17 at 04:57 PM
How far have we fallen..To accept this is nothing more than getting down on your knees and submitting to a government totally out of control. If, and thats a big IF, they ever mandate this it would spark a civil war.
Posted by first on 03/18 at 06:09 AM
chances are the one shooting to protect family will get shot first . then someones going to have to hack off your limb to carry on to cover the kids . but it will become total chaos way before this actually comes and that technology will be forgotten.
Posted by Ray on 03/19 at 09:38 PM
well uberveillance is an above and beyond, an exaggerated, an omnipresent 24/7 electronic surveillance. Not only does the term suggest a surveillance that is always on but also surveillance that is always with you, referring to a surveillance technology that is embedded within the human body Take foe example this Youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yiu26WFnY-A
Posted by postfuturist on 03/19 at 11:05 PM
“You cannot have selective chips for selected/selective peoples.. it is either all of us or none at all. And there is really only one reason why chipping would be recommended - taxation ! All the other reasons are just feeble excuses and diversions.”
Your’s is paranoid reasoning, not anarchistic thinking. All or nothing at all is extremist, rigid. You don’t really think taxation would be the only reason why chipping would be recommended, do you?
Posted by patrick on 03/20 at 05:19 PM
Hey Dude, Quit shilling for the International Globalists who want to bring us all back to Serfdom to say the least. You go first, they cause cancer in animals, and we are animals.
Posted by CygnusX1 on 03/20 at 05:47 PM
@ Postfuturist..
Yes - that’s why I said it!
Posted by postfuturist on 03/20 at 11:01 PM
“Hey Dude, Quit shilling for the International Globalists who want to bring us all back to Serfdom to say the least. You go first, they cause cancer in animals, and we are animals.”
There are naturally mini-conspiracies everywhere, but you don’t want to extrapolate them into large-scale conspiracies that don’t last long or are a bugbear from a paranoid’s overwrought imagination. It is similar to futurism: I was always told of “glimmers” of future-possibility, and glimmers do indeed exist; unfortunately the glimmers of possibility were inflated into the literally fantastic. What some of you are doing is taking bytes of evidence and allowing your emotions to conflate them out of proportion. You forget that surveillance also means everyone is nosing into everyone’s business—thus a large conspiracy can’t be kept secret for long. However, depends how you define conspiracy; if everyone is out to harm the detested ‘Other’, the enemy so despised that one would destroy oneself to get at that Other; then, yes, conspiracies exist and have always existed. Question is, what exactly is the scale and scope of a given conspiracy: for a random example, did Oswald act alone, or in concert with Jack Ruby, the Cosa Nostra, the Company (you know who), the FBI, Cuban agents, the Soviets…
Posted by postfuturist on 03/21 at 08:13 AM
Or take Alex Jones and his Stasi Borg conspiracy theories, it is infotainment, similar to watching Michael Moore flicks. As you don’t want to believe everything you read, you don’t want to believe everything you hear on the radio. Jones has a wife and children, so promoting Stasi Borg conspiracy theory is a way to make quite a bundle for his family; it sure beats shoveling manure in a barn in Texas. Jones is a rightwing Christian who blames ‘sin’ for Stasi Borg—Perhaps he thinks the ‘sin’ of fornication is threatening his marriage or maybe them thar homosekshuels are. Being a Christian, Jones might up the ante someday: he could say the GPS chip is the ‘mark of the Beast’ in the book of Revelation. Anyone can read anything into anything they want.
Question is, why do you waste your time with antique anarchism and long-outmoded libertarianism? they are relics in a political mausoleum.
Posted by postfuturist on 03/22 at 07:00 AM
Let me try one more tack on this, it’s so hard to communicate nowadays. Sure there are indeed conspiracies afoot, however they are more decentralized than you think, and many are discovered. If you think of Bernie Madoff in league with his one or two criminal associates as a conspiracy or mini-conspiracy, you can see how easily discovered a conspiracy can be. Someone got around to wondering how Madoff could offer such good percentages and did some investigating. And say there hypothetically was a conspiracy to reduce the population from 6 or 7 billions down to say 1.5 billions, it wouldn’t be run by Conspiracy Incorporated, a giant shadowy Cosa Nostra-like organization; such a ‘conspiracy’ would be a tacit, loose, agreement to harm others economically, just for example. Dictatorship= destroying others politically; democracy= destroying others economically. Sure, Patrick, cancer IS an option, I’m no more optimistic than yourself. But if we have so many enemies to begin with there is no need whatsoever to create imaginary enemies in our minds—the enemies we already have will do just fine.
Posted by postfuturist on 03/22 at 07:49 AM
To sum it up: you are using “globalist” as if it were exact, when it is not.
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/22 at 10:05 AM
I am not sure the connection between cancer and microchips has been definitively established.
here are two links:
“Dr Schembri Adami said throughout his eight years as a vet he never saw a case of a microchip having caused cancer.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110321/local/neutering-can-reduce-canine-cancer
Microchip Helps Detect Cancer Cells
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/3/2/microchip-helps-detect-cancer-cells.aspx
Posted by postfuturist on 03/22 at 04:02 PM
Hank, it was Patrick who brought up cancer (“You go first, they cause cancer in animals, and we are animals”), I do not at this time subscribe to the theory of chips causing cancer in animals or humans, nor—as I made clear in four consecutive comments—to conspiracy theories: they are only of entertainment value; conspiracy theories appeal to those who are wet behind the ears.
Posted by Hank Pellissier on 03/22 at 06:13 PM
@ postfuturist—Yes, I know that, I’ve been reading the thread. I was just trying to give Patrick some info there. I still haven’t heard from any libertarian gun owners if they want their guns chipped so only they can fire them.
Posted by Mark on 03/24 at 05:11 PM
Governments only come with stuff that they intend to use, and they plan things well in advance so as not to create a stir. Notice the ReaL ID Act that comes into effect this May. This bill was passed several years ago.
What do you think are the chances some ‘event’ will conveniently occur before then making the Real ID Act just what the doctor ordered.
The groundwork for microchipping is being laid down now so that we can be socially conditioned and more easily to accept it, particularily when it is enforced, in the future.
Honestly, real free markets (not the crap we call Wall Street) and the ability to comunicate via the internet would make government obsolete. They probably want to chip us before we can collectively figure that out.
Posted by Jonathan Miller on 03/27 at 06:15 AM
—-
Mark • Toronto • Mar 24, 2011
The groundwork for microchipping is being laid down now so that we can be socially conditioned and more easily to accept it, particularily when it is enforced, in the future.
—-
I agree entirely with this. In the UK, the State has no problem with fingerprinting children to enable them to access school facilities such as the library or school meals.
Children are being acclimatised to accept this kind of intrusion into their privacy, and most young people that I have asked see no problem with surrendering personal information in order to receive some perceived benefit.
Future generations will not fight for their freedoms because they have been indoctrinated to accept that the State is their friend and provider.
To see the fallacy of this position just read up about Rwanda - the ID card contained information that allowed militias to distinguish different ‘ethnic’ groups. This led to the fastest massacre in the world’s history.
Arguing that ‘ethnic’ information should not be held on the card/chip/whatever is flawed because the chip only needs to hold an identifier which can be used to look up information stored in a database - which can hold any type of information, and can be used for any purpose, whether that purpose was envisioned at the time or not.
Any ID system needs to have a voluntary basis - that is, an adult must be able to choose not to be part of that system. The article about people in the UK being chipped like dogs contains a quote from the UK’s Information Commissioner, who rightly points out that these databases are built up by the State and those who are on the system have no knowledge of, or control over, the uses to which the data is put.
The UK ID card scheme (now largely scrapped) contained provisions to allow famous people to have their data excluded from the database. I agree with the previous poster who said that such schemes should be trialled on the elite members of society - it would rapidly put paid to these foolish ideas.
Posted by Nick on 04/02 at 06:45 AM
It’s only a matter of time so sit back and have a martini.
Posted by Jane on 04/02 at 12:34 PM
Madeleine McCann was to be used as the icon for chipping children. It was first tried after the murders in England of Hollie and Jessica.
The problem being the British public on mass did not believe the McCanns story and thought them involved in the disappearance of their daughter long before they became arguidos and of course it was never on the agenda for them to become suspects….
No one could understand when the cables were leaked why Washington would be so interested in a three year old child, children go missing every day and they did not get the coverage of this three year old…she was perfect..‘missing white girl syndrome’ material and the daughter of a couple of GP’S clean and respectable….the opportunity was too good to miss !
11. Missing Children Alert: Frattini used the well-known case of Madeleine McCann, a missing British girl, to lay out his intention to develop an EU wide alert system for missing children. Frattini specifically and repeatedly mentioned the Amber Alert system in the U.S. as the model that the EU needed to copy. In addition, the e-Justice Portal, according to Costa, will include a list of missing children and direct users to appropriate Hague Convention resources.
12. Child Protection: Costa also noted that the ministers agreed to expand the role of the European Mediator for international child abductions and to support the strengthening and implementation of laws related to child protection. Hoffman
Posted by diana on 09/17 at 05:31 PM
Inject microchips into the asses of the wealthy and elite, so we can monitor their corrupt activity
Posted by althea on 10/22 at 11:10 PM
Ban this, please. We don’t need Big Brother sticking his nose into our business.
Posted by Ralph on 02/08 at 10:12 PM
Many of us are already feeling suffocated because of all of the cameras, new laws and taxes and many other kinds of shackles they’re imposing upon us.
I will never succumb to me or my pets being micro-chipped (branded and tagged). The mere idea of this form of entrapment being mascaraed as a benefit is revolting, disgusting and immoral.
We need to finally wake up and see the world around us for what it really is.
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