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By New Dawn Research Team
11
September 2005 – THE FICTION
By 2005, the war
on terror had spread throughout the world. The definition of a
terrorist had widened. Outspoken academics had their funding
withdrawn. Journalists reporting controversial aspects of the war
were chastised. Peaceful demonstrators were cut down with capsicum
spray and stun batons. Anti-globalisation activists were probed by
intelligence agencies. Outspoken politicians were assaulted with
costly court cases and legal actions.
The independent media and Internet sites had been gob smacked by
UN declaration WORLD PATRIOT (World Order Ruling to Leverage
Democracy by Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism). The nightly news was riddled with fear and
paranoia. A terrorist suspect detained outside a local
kindergarten. A man with shoe bombs in a parliamentary lift. White
powder envelopes delivered to media executives. A major food
tampering scare. Grainy videos purporting to show terrorist
training camps.
Millions lived a prison like existence, secured inside their gated
communities, knowing intuitively that the terrorists were
everywhere, like ticking time bombs waiting to go off. Thankfully,
most citizens were on the look out for the evil doers and could
dial 1300TERRORIST. Suspects were automatically arrested and
detained without legal counsel for 48 hours.
Human tracking and surveillance had become universal by 2005. Most
people in the cities had been microchipped. It was just logical –
anyone not microchipped was obviously part of a terrorist network.
Only terrorists – people that wanted to roam around freely without
being tracked and monitored by the government – rejected the
Countering Homeland Insurgency and Terrorism Implant (CHITI). If
you were caught without a microchip, you were taken in for
questioning, behaviour modification and routine implantation at
the local CENTRELINK (Centre for Enrolment of National Terrorists,
Radicals, Extremists, Loonies, Insurgents, Nonconformists and
Kidnappers).
THE FACTS
In the early days after 11 September, there were many warnings
about police state measures and emerging totalitarianism. Critics
referred to the linking of technology and the police state which
had been perfected by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1940’s. In
those days, Hitler developed a strategic alliance with IBM, then
America’s most powerful corporation. The partnership began in 1933
in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continued well
into World War II.
As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and
genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling
technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and
cataloguing programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.
Only after Jews were identified – a massive and complex task that
Hitler wanted done immediately – could they be targeted for
efficient asset confiscation, ghettoisation, deportation, enslaved
labor and ultimately, annihilation.
Hitler’s cross-tabulation and organisational challenge was so
monumental it called for a computer. In the 1930s no computer
existed, but IBM’s Hollerith punch card technology did exist.
Aided by the company’s custom-designed and constantly updated
Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his roundup of
Jews. IBM technology was used to organise much of Germany and then
Nazi Europe, from the identification of Jews in censuses,
registrations, and ancestral tracing programs, to the running of
railroads and the organisation of concentration camps.
IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions,
one by one, anticipating the Reich’s needs. They did not merely
sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these
machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions
of punch cards that the Reich needed.
Hitler would have been salivating over many of the late 20th century
technological breakthroughs, especially implantable microchips.
They had been on the breadboard for more than a decade before the
terrorist strike on 11 September, 2001.
People first got used to the idea of microchips when governments
and local councils started to introduce regulations for control of
domestic animals. In Australia, the New South Wales Companion
Animals Act required microchipping and registration for both cats
and dogs. The argument went that puppies and kittens could be
injected with a microchip so that if they became lost, they could
simply be scanned like a can of coke at a checkout. A unique
number would be displayed on the scanner and matched with an
identification database containing pet owner’s names and
addresses. The hapless puppy and happy owner could then be
reunited. It was not only companion animals that literally copped
it in the neck. Millions of farm and research animals – even fish
and canaries – throughout the ‘civilised world’ became victims of
vast microchip experimentation.
While microchips were being developed for animals, with the
ultimate goal of human implantation, the latter were being
softened up with new identification regimes. Originally, the
system was devised so that PIN numbers gave way to smart cards
with digitised photos. But with smart card technology too
expensive and low uptake rates by the banking industry, the entire
smartcard phase was leap-frogged by 9/11, with biometrics
heralding the new security revolution.
The biometric companies were quick to capitalise on the terrorist
threat. Numerous schemes were rolled out just days after 9/11,
while the World Trade Centre was still a smoking ruin. Airport
security, driver’s licenses, and national identity schemes were
all touted to make a citizen’s life more secure and terrorist
proof.
Many corporations had previously engaged in trials of biometric
technology. In 1999 Sensar introduced the first iris scanning ATM
in the US with others to follow throughout Europe and Japan. A
trial of biometrics (INSPASS) at major US airports used hand
geometry to verify the identity of overseas travellers. Hundreds
of government departments and corporations used biometric
fingerprint recognition for employees to access secure areas. The
US defense forces undertook major biometric research in the field
and the National Security Agency headed up the Biometric
Consortium of companies interested in the technology. Even
McDonald’s customers in California could authorise payment for a
Big Mac using a fingerprint instead of a credit card. Maccas
called it “Pay by Touch”. Customers used a ‘finger image” because
McDonalds thought the ‘finger print’ was fraught with negative
connotations. The new system was promoted as “faster, easier and
more secure than cash, paper checks and plastic cards”. Customers
were invited to “Sign up today to touch to pay. Prizes awarded
every day.”
In many respects, the post 9/11 environment was a police state
with a Hollywood face. A kind of slick, sickly propaganda washed
over citizens and ebbed into their brains. Technology corporations
offered up surveillance technology for free – out of the goodness
of their hearts. Newspaper articles urged a new role for the icon
of American cultural imperialism, coke-a-cola. “An alQa’ida type
gets his box cutter out. No worries, just chuck a can of Coke at
the bad guy, whip his nose off with your belt buckle and garrote
him,” the Weekend Australian urged.
Snappy, jingoistic Presidential speeches urging a widening of the
war on terror were given standing ovations. A lot of people knew
the real war was an information war but feeling powerless against
the machine, they just stuck their heads back in the sand. The
media lapped it up. Finally something big had come along to make
their life even easier. The Pentagon and the State Department,
with their respective allies across the world, churned out
information 24 hours a day. In the age of desktop journalism the
media releases flowed freely via email and fax. A spokesperson was
always available for a glib TV or radio grab adding just enough
realism to give the report an air of authoritative authenticity.
The call for human microchipping came just days after the World
Trade Centre was pulverised. Applied Digital Solutions (ADS)
implanted its first human chip when a New Jersey surgeon, Richard
Seelig, injected two of the chips into himself. He placed one chip
in his left forearm and the other near the artificial hip in his
right leg. He was motivated after he saw firefighters at the World
Trade Center writing their Social Security numbers on their
forearms with Magic Markers. He thought that there had to be a
more sophisticated way of doing identification.
The implantation procedure had been proven safe by Kevin Warwick,
a cybernetics professor from the University of Reading in the UK.
Warwick once told reporters: “I was born human. But this was an
accident of fate – a condition merely of time and place. I believe
it’s something we have the power to change.”
Warwick’s first experiment, Cyborg 1, began in August 1998 when a
silicon chip was implanted in his left arm, allowing a computer to
monitor him as he moved through the halls and offices of the
Department of Cybernetics. His implant communicated via radio
waves with a network of antennas throughout the department that in
turn transmitted the signals to a computer programmed to respond
to his actions. At the main entrance, a voice box operated by the
computer said “Hello” when he entered; the computer detected his
progress through the building, opening the door to his lab as he
approached it and switching on the lights. The implant was in
place for nine days.
The next phase of the project, Cyborg 2, planned to move a step
further by placing implants in two people at the same time. The
goal was to send movement and emotion signals from one person to
the other, possibly via the Internet. Irena, Kevin Warwick’s wife,
bravely volunteered to go ahead with his-and-hers implants.
Much of Warwick’s groundbreaking work focused on the need to help
people with disabilities, an area known as rehabilitation
robotics. Ultimately microchips would allow blind people to
navigate around and give amputees and people in wheelchairs
greater mobility. While Warwick and his team concentrated on the
humanitarian angle, across the Atlantic, Applied Digital Solutions
(ADS) was ready to roll out the microchip as a means of
identification.
ADS was marketing two products. The VeriChip, similar to the
devices implanted in millions of pets in the United States and
Australia. The chip was a 12mm by 2.1mm radio frequency device,
about the size of a grain of rice. The chip contained a unique
identification number and other data. Utilising an external
scanner, radio frequency energy passed through the skin energising
the dormant VeriChip, which then emitted a radio frequency signal
containing the identification number. The number was displayed by
the scanner up to four feet away and transmitted to a secure data
storage site by authorised personnel via telephone or Internet.
The identity of a person could be checked and their data linked up
with any other relevant information. As the technology developed,
the VeriChip insertion procedure was able to be performed in an
office setting, requiring only local anaesthesia, a tiny incision
and a small adhesive bandage.
The second ADS product, Digital Angel, was more elaborate. It
combined a global satellite positioning system and monitoring
service. The system combined a watch and a device the size of a
pack of cigarettes that clipped onto a waistband or a belt like a
pager. At first it was suggested Digital Angel could be helpful to
monitor Alzheimer’s patients and parolees. Later, it was mooted as
a device for people who were potential kidnap victims. The company
agreed to distribute its product first in South America (needing
no FDA approval), where the GPS system could help locate
kidnapping victims, and the VeriChip could identify them if they
were drugged, or in a worst case scenario, killed.
The potential for microchipping humans was enormous, only limited
by imagination. The chips could carry huge amounts of data on an
individual, such as health insurance details, blood type and blood
pressure allowing information to be communicated to online doctors
over the Internet. The chips helped business – individuals with
implants could be clocked in and out of their office
automatically. The exact location of any employee and whom they
were with was known at all times. It was then easier to contact
them for an urgent meeting or in the event of a terrorist attack.
Human microchips were extremely useful for car security. For
example, unless a car recognised the unique signal from its owner,
it would remain immobilised.
Other uses were managing livestock and other farm-related animals;
pinpointing the location of valuable stolen property; managing the
commodity supply chain; preventing the unauthorised use of
firearms; and providing a tamper-proof means of identification for
enhanced e-commerce security. The list just grew exponentially.
THE FICTION
In an environment of heightened suspicion, terror and fear, the
media glorified human microchipping for its security – there was
little danger in losing an implant or having it stolen and it made
life so much safer. The microchip television advertising campaign
was necessarily emotional. One ad featured grandpa saved by the
chip after a stroke. Another depicted a lost child reunited with
an emotional mother. In 2004, a new chip, the SafeTChip came on
the market. SafeTChip could send and receive data in an instant.
It became indispensable for high flyers and political types who
could send a distress call to a satellite if they were in trouble.
Response by a UTTF (Universal Terror Task Force) was guaranteed
within thirty seconds. Peace of mind became a big selling point.
The ad for SafeTChip won a Golden Globe award.
The Personal Safeguard Technology market boomed as society
embraced the idea of using microchips for human identification. By
2005, the market for implantable chips reached $70 billion per
year. Although the whole system was voluntary, the chip became a
defacto global ID card. At first, the chips were used widely on
prisoners and members of the military who couldn’t really refuse.
Then, as the war on terror turned to the home front, it became a
matter of voluntary compliance. People without the chip were
investigated, ostracised and discriminated against. Many had their
assets confiscated because of their alleged terrorist links.
Law-abiding citizens who were chipped could access services
provided by the State. No chip, no service. Taxpayers without the
chip paid the highest marginal rate. And so it went on.
The crux came after the 2003 terrorist food-tampering alert.
Although not a single person was hospitalised as a result of the
scare, millions lined up for the implant procedure. In a global
televised hook-up, the food multinationals joined with world
leaders to declare that supermarkets and shopping malls were the
new frontier for terror attacks. Only those who could prove they
were not terrorists, by virtue of having the implant, were allowed
to purchase food. In the capital cities, supermarkets were shut
down because of the threat and food was rationed out, again, only
to those who were chipped. People that grew their own food were
obviously terrorists and were relocated to the AW’s (Agricultural
Wastelands) where they were forced to work for the multinationals
growing genetically engineered supercrops.
Mobile Chip Implantation Clinics travelled the country stopping at
local schools and sports grounds. People receiving the chip got
special rewards points, a Chips-R-US bumper sticker and a one off
government payment in return for helping to stamp out terrorism.
By 2004, 94% of the population had been chipped. The other 6% were
loose cannons. Many had returned to the land, banding together on
remote communities to make a new start. Life was harsh and they
lived in constant fear of being spotted by the Big Bird spy
satellites. A mini ionospheric heater onboard the Big Bird simply
irradiated their plot of land, withering their crops and killing
their animals. The people themselves died a slow and painful death
from cancerous lesions.
In the cities, life became a manufactured utopia. The chip enabled
the ultimate fusion of humans and machine. The rich had many of
their human parts replaced with chip based spares. It became
fashionable to have a robotic hand instead of a real human hand.
The lower classes marvelled at their new virtual apartments with
walls and appliances that interacted with the implanted chip,
turning on the TV, chilling beer and heating up instant dinners in
the microwave. Some signed on for the microchip brain implant
IntelEct, enabling negative thoughts to be zapped away by a remote
computer. Others picked custom made implants to perform certain
functions. A popular implant was the ShagChip for male impotency.
It was supplied with a software package enabling users to choose
from several levels of performance.
POSTSCRIPT
Need we go on? Thankfully, it’s not 2005. New Dawn magazine
hasn’t been shut down by WORLD PATRIOT and human microchipping
hasn’t spread very far – yet! What is happening, though, is a
quickening of the sort of police state control and surveillance
systems that New Dawn has been reporting on for more than a
decade. Much of the enabling technology, described in this article
is a reality. Microchips are being sold by Applied Digital
Solutions and humans are lining up to be implanted. It’s just a
matter of time before that Mobile Chip Implant Clinic becomes a
reality. We can continue to live like robots in this emerging
police state utopia, or do something about it now while the chips
are still down. Once the chips are up and functioning, there will
be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
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