| VIII. | RFID Human Microchip Implants: Initial Instances |
| Posted: November 18, 2003 |
| A. | Hughes Aircraft Company Has Syringe-Implantable Transponder: Washington Times: October 11, 1993; Congressional Testimony: May 13, 1997 |
| In an October 11, 1993 Washington Times article entitled, "High-Tech National Tattoo," Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a nationally syndicated columnist, reported, based on "promotional literature" that Hughes Aircraft Company made a "syringe implantable transponder"-"a tiny microchip, the size of a grain of rice" that uses "radio waves" as a "permanent method of...identification."217 Economist Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute in his May 13, 1997 Congressional Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration and Claim, Judiciary Committee, presented the following summary of the Hughes Aircraft Company microchip implant. |
| In the age of the microchip, centralized computers have the capability of holding and processing huge amounts of information about all 265 million American citizens...Even more sophisticated identification systems might remove the need for carrying a card at all. |
| Hughes Aircraft Company has a new identification technology involving a syringe implantable transponder. This "ingenious, safe, and inexpensive" worker identification technology plants a tiny microchip under the skin. It contains a ten character alphanumeric identification code that can never be duplicated. The microchip is read by an electronic scanner--the type that reads the price on the food you buy at the grocery store. |
| The point here is that depending on how far Congress wants to go in suppressing the rights of the individual in order to deter illegal immigration, the technology exists for a fool-proof if Orwellian identification system. If Congress were willing to further denigrate Americans' civil liberties, many new government controls to enforce our immigration laws could be erected.218 |
| B. | Professor Kevin Warwick, United Kingdom Scientist, Implanted with a Microchip in 1998 |
| 1. | BBC News: UK Scientist Implanted with Chip: August 25, 1998 |
| BBC News reported that a UK scientist received an implanted chip. |
| A silicon chip has been successfully implanted into the arm of a UK scientist. |
| The experiment, believed to be the first of its kind, means a computer can keep track of the device and its carrier. |
| The chip has been inserted in Professor Kevin Warwick's upper arm. |
| The professor, from the University of Reading, in England, is taking part in the experiment to highlight some of the dangers of the technology. |
| The technology itself is not new. Silicon chips are already used in many countries to identify animals... |
| Professor Warwick's device, which will be removed after a week, carries 64 pieces of information... |
| "If we look to the future, compared with what this small chip contains now, in five or six years time the amount of information and the amount of processing capabilities will be enormous," Professor Warwick said.219 |
| 2. | Professor Kevin Warwick, Director of Cybernetics, University of Reading in the U.K.: First Human to Host A Microchip on August 24, 1998: CNN.com |
| Professor Kevin Warwick, director of cybernetics at the University of Reading in the U.K. was reported to have been, on August 24 , 1998, the first human to host a microchip. |
| Is the human body a fit place for a microchip? The debate is no longer hypothetical. The same computing power that once required an entire building to harness now can be inserted in your left arm. |
| Better yet, somebody else's left arm. |
| Professor Kevin Warwick, director of cybernetics at the University of Reading in the U.K., is that somebody else. On Monday, Aug. 24, 1998, Warwick became the first human to host a microchip. During a 20-minute medical procedure described as "a routine silicon-chip implant" by Dr. George Boulos, who led the operation, doctors inserted into Warwick's arm a glass capsule not much bigger than a pearl. The capsule holds several microprocessors. |
| The British Broadcasting Corp. was on hand to document the historic event... |
| Though he declines to reveal the chip's manufacturer, Warwick did disclose that it's a "commercial" product. "For obvious reasons, both positive and negative, they didn't want us shouting about what the name of the exact product was," he says.220 |
| C. | Sunday Times: Human Microchips Implants: Kidnapping: October 11, 1998 |
| The Sunday Times of London, in 1998, reported that a "tiny microchip implant can be tracked by satellite to reveal a kidnap victim's location." |
| A microchip under the skin that can help to locate hostages is being marketed to combat one of the world's biggest growth industries-there were a record 1,407 abductions for ransom worldwide last year, up 60% since 1990. |
| The victim's "little helper" uses natural body energy with James Bond-style technology devised by scientists working for Israeli intelligence. |
| Space satellites will follow the bleep to detect a victim's movements or hiding place. The information will then be related to a control centre to be used for a rescue operation. |
| ...[F]ilm stars and the children of millionaires are among 45 people, including several Britons, who have been approached and fitted with the chips in secret tests during the past three months. The chips, costing £5,000 a time, are being launched in Milan this week. |
| ...The [Gen-Etics] company developed the [Sky-Eye] chip for commercial use after it was invented by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and used by agents on special missions... |
| The 43 Europeans and two Americans who have so far adopted the chip had surgery under a light anaesthetic. Gen-Etics claims the surgery is intended to daze the patient and prevent him or her remembering exactly where the incision was made, so he cannot reveal the chip's location to his abductors even under torture. |
| Every chip is made of synthetic and organic fibres and measures 4mm by 4mm. It does not need a battery and runs instead on four milliamperes of neurophysiological energy. |
| Only a small scar is visible and the chip escapes detection by x-rays. It is inserted under the skin but not on areas that can be amputated, including the hands, nose and ears... |
| The whereabouts of the carrier are followed by six satellites through the global positioning system, which has...previously been used to track the movements of stolen luxury cars. The absence of a signal suggests that the victim has been killed because the body no longer supplies the energy to make the chip function.221 |
| D. | Medical Director of Applied Digital Solutions, Dr. Richard Seelig, Inserted Two Chips on September 16, 2001: Miami Herald: March 10, 2002 |
| The medical director of Applied Digital Solutions inserted two chips on September 16, 2001. |
| "The assets we've developed through this technology are so significant it's going to be the savior of the company," said Scott Silverman, who was appointed president of Applied [Digital Solutions] last week. |
| The company's plans for the chip were accelerated when Dr. Richard Seelig, Applied's medical applications director, inserted two chips -- one in his right forearm, the other in his right hip -- on Sept. 16. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he thought such a device could help identify bodies of victims. |
| "I would want my healthcare givers to have as much information about me," Seelig said. "You're gushing information, not trying to restrain access to them."222 |
| E. | Three Applied Digital Solutions Executives Implanted with Microchips: Thursday: Palm Beach Post Staff Writer: Friday, May 10, 2002 |
| Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Deborah Circelli, on Friday, May 10, 2002, wrote that three Applied Digital Solutions executives were implanted with microchips. |
| Three Applied Digital Solutions executives, Chairman Richard Sullivan, President Scott Silverman and Chief Technology Officer, were implanted with the VeriChip Thursday.223 |
| F. | Human Microchip Implants: Friday, May 10, 2002: Palm Beach, FL Rollout |
| 1. | Time Magazine: March 11, 2002: Planned Chipping Announced |
| A March 11, 2002 Time article entitled "Meet the Chipsons" and subtitled "Jeffrey, Leslie and their boy Derek will be America's first Cyborg family. Are you ready to 'Get Chipped'?" previews the chipping that then did take place in Boca Raton, Florida, on May 10, 2002. |
| Derek [Jacobs of Boca Raton, Fla.], his mom Leslie and his dad Jeffrey are the first volunteer test subjects for a new, implantable computer device called VeriChip. Later this spring, pending Food and Drug Administration approval, doctors will load a wide-bore needle with a microchip containing a few kilobytes of silicon memory and a tiny radio transmitter and inject it under the skin of their left arms, where it will serve as a medical identification device. It sounds like science fiction. (Remember the Borg on Star Trek? Resistance is futile!) But VeriChip is quite real. The Jacobs family could be the first in a new generation of computer-enhanced human beings.224 |
| 2. | Family Chipped: Reuters: The New York Times on the Web: May 10, 2002 |
| Reuters provided an article about the implantation of microchips in a Florida family. |
| Doctors implanted microchips containing a way to access medical information in the arms of three members of a Florida family on Friday, making them the first people to get what the manufacturer hopes will become a standard way of retrieving such data in the future... |
| Jeffrey Jacobs, 48, his wife Leslie Jacobs, 46, and their son Derek Jacobs, 14, volunteered to become the first to be implanted with the VeriChip, made by Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions Inc. They underwent the brief procedure at a Boca Raton medical clinic... |
| When scanned by an external scanner, the implanted chip-slightly larger than a grain of rice-emits a radio frequency signal that transmits an identification number... |
| A similar chip that is injected into animals such as pet cats has been marketed by the company for at least 15 years. This version of the chip has been marketed to help people positively identify lost animals.225 |
| 3. | Family Chipped: Associated Press: washingtonpost.com: May 10, 2002 |
| The Associated Press provided an article about the implantation of microchips in a Florida family. |
| A Florida family on Friday became the first to be implanted with computer chips that researches hope will someday become an easy way to provide emergency room staffers with patients' medical information. |
| Jeff and Leslie Jacobs, along with their 14-year-old son, Derek, had the tiny chips implanted in their arms. Each chip is about the side of a grain of rice, and insertion takes about a minute under local anesthesia. |
| The chips, called the VeriChip, were designed by Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions Inc. They are similar to chips implanted in pets to identify them if they are lost.226 |
| 4. | First Alzheimer's Patient to Receive Permanent Identification Microchip: Palm Beach Post Staff Writer: Friday, May 10, 2002 |
| Nathan Isaacson of Tamarac was scheduled to become the first Alzheimer's patient to receive a microchip implant. |
| On a warm Saturday morning, 83-year-old Nathan Isaacson of Tamarac drove his Buick Roadmaster six miles toward his daughter's house in Plantation and stalled just a block away. Isaacson, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, had forgotten to fill up his gas tank... |
| To bring his family peace of mind, Isaacson today will trade in the silver identification necklace he wears to become the first Alzheimer's patient to receive a permanent identification microchip called the VeriChip. It was developed by Palm Beach-based Applied digital Solutions. |
| The microchip, about the size of a grain of rice, will be injected near Isaacson's right shoulder blade by his own physician, Dr. Harvey Kleiner of Sunrise. In an emergency, the chip can provide a patient's personal information and medical history. |
| "Somebody has to be first," says Isaacson, who also sports a pacemaker and is getting used to being called "bionic poppy" by his great-grandchildren. "It doesn't make any difference to me one way or the other as long as (my wife and children) have peace"... |
| Isaacson joins Jeffrey and Leslie Jacobs, and their 14-year-old son, Derek, who are being "chipped" this morning in Boca Raton... |
| Isaacson will go back to the doctors in about eight months for another first. Doctors will implant a second chip, similar in size to a pacemaker, that will allow his family to track his whereabouts. |
| "This will always be with him. It can't get lost or removed," said daughter Sherry Gottlieb, 47. "It's like insurance. Everyone needs it, but we hope my dad will never have to use it."227 |